What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Was at U-Con here in Ypsilanti all weekend. I hadn't been in about 14 or 15 years; not for any real reason, but just because something was always happening on the same weekend or I actually forgot to register in time or whatever. So, this time I decided I'd host a few games to try to entice some more people to show up at the local groups.

On Friday, I was running a trio of Tiny Epic games (Kingdoms, Western, Mechs) but not until the afternoon, so I went into the open gaming area and sat down to a couple games of War Chest with someone attending his first gaming convention. We did the standard "beginning" lineups for the first game, which he won through smart use of the Crossbowmen and then went to a random draw for the second. I ended up with Knight, Bishop, Scout, and Ensign. In other words, a solid fighter and three support units. I didn't actually inflict a casualty on him until we were both on 4 location points and trading the fifth back and forth. He eventually wore me down (he had Light Cavalry and the Crossbowmen again.) Then a friend dropped by and it was coming up on my event time, so we played a quick game of Downfall of Pompeii. I always love playing that in public spaces because everyone gushes over the volcano, especially when they find out it's more than just scenery.

My event started with only two players having signed up, so it was a three-fer in Tiny Epic Kingdoms and Western. I set them up with base Kingdoms, since it was a teaching game. The Ooze came out on top over the Lizardfolk and the Treants, with a timely third-level Research to redistribute resources telling the tale for the amoebas. Both of them were pretty wary about combat after I inflicted a sharp defeat on the Lizardfolk a couple turns in. Scores were Ooze 18, Treants 13, and Lizardfolk 10.

Then we moved on to Tiny Epic Western. As usual, it took a little while for them to grasp how the game really worked, but then they swung into it. Unusually, they grasped the importance of the poker game really quickly and made good use of the Sheriff's Office to alter the value of their card. Duels were pretty sparse in the first couple rounds, but then ramped up sharply. The Cowgirl attempted a consistent porch-space-for-influence strategy to take advantage of her power and make up for avoiding the pots, but then got beat on several times for being on good porch spaces. The Outlaw won a razor-thin victory over the Scout and the Cowgirl, 13-12-11.

A fourth player showed up for Tiny Epic Mechs (you can buy a badge at U-Con that basically allows you to drop in wherever games need another player), so everyone got the full experience. It was one win apiece for my original players but, uh, I kinda crushed the field in this one, finishing with over 100 points, while everyone else was in the 60s or 70s. The Mighty Mech traded hands via combat multiple times and we had constant throwdowns, even in non-scoring rounds. In the end, all three of them really liked the game(s.) When I asked the first two which one was their favorite, they both immediately said: "Western." I'm never quite sure how well that one is going to go over, since it's such an oddball, but I'm glad to know that others appreciate it like I do.

On Saturday, the one event I'd been able to sign onto as a player was Western Legends. Before that, we tried out a few rounds of Aquatica. Tentative first impression is that I liked it, but it had heavy point salad overtones. It's quite a beautiful game, though, with some nice design choices (tokens for abilities are manta rays, etc.) My event of Legends was canceled without notice, though, so I was about to leave, having already been up early to watch LFC win again, but my friend, Leah, who was one of the volunteers, found me a ticket for another time that she was playing in, so we sat down to Western Legends.

We were a group of three newbs and two veterans. I'd been wanting to play this for a while, since I'm a huge Western fan and I usually like sandbox games. We had a good game (I was Bloody Knife) and I appreciated that they leaned heavily on historical figures to make the game go. The copy I was playing had also been enhanced by a lot of props from BGHQ on Etsy, such that we had 3D mesas and all the figures were painted, etc. It looked great. I went heavy on mining, at first, and then finished all three of my goals, which also involved fighting bandits and wrangling cattle. It's fun, but I can see where the complaint has come from that it's far easier to win as a lawman than an outlaw, given the proliferation of easily killable bandits and the enormous risk that outlaws take from other players and their ability to maneuver the sheriff. In that respect, it reminded me of Merchants and Marauders and how much easier it is to win as a merchant, given the enormous risk of combat as a pirate. And then I realized that Western Legends basically is M&M, but with a Western theme. It's more involved and there's a greater variety of things to do, but it's basically the same. So, I liked it, but probably won't be rushing out to pick it up. One of the newbs won with, of course, a strict lawman approach.

Both of my other events were on Sunday. I'd hoped for one on Saturday, given their size, but I sat down to Star Trek: Axcendancy at 9 AM Sunday. We almost didn't get a game at all, since two of my three players were no-shows. (This is a warning to sign up early for cons and not get relegated to the final day where everyone is burned out.) But the boyfriend of my one player ran up to the front desk to get the last ticket and we started playing. It was Cardassians vs Ferengi vs Andorians, so none of the "primary" races. Both of them had played before. The Cardassian adopted the strange approach where he wouldn't leave his system until he'd accumulated enough Research to upgrade his shields once. That put him way behind the ball, especially as the Cardassians. Meanwhile, the Ferengi was only interested in building up a huge network of Production, but not interested in engaging with the two of us, at all, which is kinda what the Ferengi are supposed to do. So, yeah, two players who were basically not wanting to take advantage of their respective races. I played atypically for the Andorians, running around exploring as much as possible to try to demonstrate the game to them and keep things interesting, but they weren't having any. i finally pointed out a way for the Cardassians to win, because my next event was starting in 45 minutes after over four hours of play (way, way longer than a three-player game should run) and he took it, thankfully.

I finished the weekend with a three-player Big Trouble in Little China, with Wang, Eddie, and Egg. The event was sold out, meaning we were supposed to have a fourth who, of course, didn't show. Despite that, the game was a good one. BTiLC has SO many moving parts and the setup tends to drag, so I was worried that they were going to lose interest, but they're fans of the film and they got into it. Having a companion doesn't really make up for the missing player, though. The game simply needs four, full stop. We only managed to complete Eddie's quest, so there were a lot of minions in Lo Pan's lair. But we'd also managed to get two of us to level 6 and another to level 5, so we were pretty stacked. We managed to avoid Thunder and kill Lo Pan in the last possible round.

So, the high point was definitely Friday, but not a bad weekend, overall.

Aww. Hoped you would have dug Western Legends more. We've yet to have a lawman win but that really has a ton to do with what everyone else is doing and personal grudges when it comes to moving the sheriff.

WadeMonnig wrote: Aww. Hoped you would have dug Western Legends more. We've yet to have a lawman win but that really has a ton to do with what everyone else is doing and personal grudges when it comes to moving the sheriff.

And that's similar to what the hosting player said. It certainly might be a group thing, in that players that are more familiar with each other are more apt to take different routes to victory, which would speak to the flexibility of the design (always a positive.) I know I've seen that happen with games like Wiz-War, where newer players or those that don't know each other as well tend to focus on stealing treasures while regular gaming groups tend to paint the walls with blood as quickly as possible.

I'm willing to play again, without question. It was an entertaining game and there's a lot to be explored, figuratively and literally. The real thing hanging over it is that I already own a game which is essentially just like it.

A eurogame-loving friend bought a condo recently, and held a housewarming party featuring boardgames. He only has space, tables, and chairs for seven players, so he split the event into two separate Sundays. Even so, we had a total of nine people yesterday. When I showed up, four players were just wrapping up a game of Eight-Minute Empire. It was a point salad game, so after they counted up the points and determined the winner, there was the usual two sentences of post-game discussion. Really, there isn't much to say after a barely-themed point salad game except to offer respect to the efficiency of the winner and perhaps express regret about a mistake made at some point in the game. There is no sense of narrative aside from people quietly passing time with a structured activity.

We split into two tables, with the four people at the other table playing a couple of classic eurogames , because that is the host's favorite type of game. Our table played Wasteland Express Delivery System. A friend did an unboxing of Wasteland Express once to show off the game, and I could tell by looking at it that it was an overproduced, unfocused mess of a pickup-and-delivery game that I would not enjoy. But the owner of the game is a good friend, so I humored him yesterday by playing Wasteland Express along with another friend. Wasteland Express is a post-apocalyptic pickup-and-delivery game. It plays like a poor composite of Merchant of Venus and Saltlands. Setup time was lengthy despite the several organized trays of chits. Rules explanation was lengthy. There was a veritable alphabet of icons to learn. There were arbitrary constraints on actions per turn, such that you could potentially make two deliveries in a turn but only pickup items for delivery once per turn. There were raiders to fight and a boring combat system. Our three player game was probably going to take about 5 hours to play, despite the owner claiming that it sometimes only took 90 minutes to play. Two more players showed up, so I talked our table into wrapping up Wasteland Express so that we could play something with the other two people. It is unlikely that I will ever play Wasteland Express again.

I talked the table into playing Battle for Rokugan, especially since 4-5 players is the sweet spot for play. None of the other players were familiar with the setting from Legend of the Five Rings, but familiarity is not necessary for this game. The rules are clean and easy, but one distracted player missed the part about only pulling five combat tokens from the bag each turn, so he had like 20 tokens behind his screen until we busted him. We didn't restart the game, we just kept playing. It wasn't even a problem in the end, as he finished the game with control of just one province. I was playing Crab clan, so I had a bit of an advantage because all four of the other players had capitals in close proximity to each other in the northeast. It seemed like a fairly close game, but Phoenix and Dragon got pounded in the last turn, and Crane caught three lucky breaks that turn with his tie-breaking ability. Crane won, but Crab and Dragon weren't too far behind. Fun game with some table smack talk, some bluffing, some conflict, and a bit of social engineering. Play was a bit slow because the Crane and the Lion tended to spend some time analyzing the overall board state before placing each token.

It's been a couple of weeks, so here is my recap:

Petrichor x2: An area control game that is much thinkier than it first appears. I think the overall game is okay, nothing amazing, but I would not complain if asked to play it. It does look very nice on the table with the very soothing graphic design. Actions are played from a hand of cards that both chooses an action and votes for a delayed effect at the end of the turn. It's played over 4 or 6 rounds with possibly one harvest each round (the scoring phase). There is a decent amount of player choices and possibility to screw over others as you use your clouds to takeover others' plans.

Wildlands x5: Excellent skirmish game. It's quick, quick to setup, and still has plenty of interesting choices. All have been 2-player plays, so eventually we were pulling out 12 cards that were closest to two opposite corners to tighten it up.

Dungeon Degenerates x1: First game of this last night. It was okay. Theme is great, I like the combat choices, but I need to play more to see if the adventure portion works for me. The first scenario seems kind of "meh". My wife was ambivalent as she thought the game was okay, but said she dislikes playing bad people doing bad things.

Skies Above the Reich x3: I'm halfway through a 1942 campaign and I think this game is boring as hell. Looking at BGG's rating for it, I am completely surprised by its 8.4 average. The game is gorgeous and its components are definitely worth its high MSRP ($90). It has one of GMT's best written rulebooks that is easy to follow, very clearly referenced on all of the player aids, and has plenty of examples covering most events. Unfortunately, it is with a game that is probably a $30-40 game. There just is not enough variety between scenarios (yes, there are many possible scenarios, but they will all play pretty similar), everything is a bit too generic (pilots, planes, formations, etc.), not enough narrative over the campaign. I am only half-way into the first section and I want to quit. A mini-campaign could be six missions. The main campaign could be 40+ missions! I am happy to move this along if someone wants it.

barrowdown wrote: Petrichor x2: An area control game that is much thinkier than it first appears. I think the overall game is okay, nothing amazing, but I would not complain if asked to play it. It does look very nice on the table with the very soothing graphic design.

I bought some anti-crush pizza box plastic thingies to put the clouds one, and it makes the game even more visibly appealing. Really, though, this game is not only thinky, it can be really mean. So there is some real dissonance in the theme/presentation and the game play. I do like it and want to play again, but it's not a priority and no one has been clamoring for it.

cdennett wrote:

barrowdown wrote: Petrichor

Really, though, this game is not only thinky, it can be really mean. So there is some real dissonance in the theme/presentation and the game play. I do like it and want to play again, but it's not a priority and no one has been clamoring for it.

I agree. That's what confused us. It is incredibly mean for what on the surface appears to be a nice, friendly Euro area control game about clouds and plants.

Since it's slow at work and I'm fighting lingering PCSD (Post Con Sleep Deprivation), I'll try and spit out game played at BGG.Con...

Wednesday:

This was my pre-planned day, starting off with 4 of us playing two parallel games of War of the Ring. My usual opponent and I split up and took on two newbies, which also allowed me to play the Free Peoples for the first time in many years. Despite the Shadow player being unnaturally good at the hunt rolls, the Fellowship rather quickly made their way past Moria and took a pit stop in Lorien to shake off a few points of corruption. In the meantime, an army was raised in Mordor and quickly marched towards Minas Tirith. Despite getting a robust defense force, the siege did not go well for the Gondor soldiers and the keep was quickly lost. The Sauron now turned his eyes towards the Elf strongholds. Gandalf the White arose to come defend Lorien, but an army quickly formed outside of Rivendell and it quickly fell. An army besieged Lorien, and a great struggle began, with the help of Legolas and Gandalf, the stronghold held off many assaults. Meanwhile, Strider and Boromir had escaped Lorien and made their way to Pelegir to crown Aragorn king. What followed was a struggle of the Witch King vs. Aragorn and Boromir, leading to the retreat of the attacking army. In what may have been folly, Aragorn abandoned Pelegir (which was threatened by a growing Southron force) to chase the Witch King and had a chance of destroying him once and for all, but that failed. The Hunter then became the hunted until his meager army was able to to besiege a lightly defended Dol Guldor. An Easterling army proceeded to take over Dale and threaten the remaining Elf stronghold of Woodland Realm. At this point the Fellowship had stymied just past Lorien and was struggling to make progress. Just as a major siege occurred in the very well defended Dol Amroth, the Fellowship rushed to enter Morder with a single point of corruption. Now here's where I speak out of narrative and say I got dice-screwed...two rounds with 6 dice, both rounds I rolled 3 musters each (almost unusable at this point) and no army dice. One of those rounds I got *zero* character dice. And having already spent my rings, this spelled doom for the Free Peoples. Dol Amroth held, but Lorien finally found itself outmatched and fell, and shortly thereafter Woodland Realm also fell (as I had no dice to support them with the Dwarves) and the game ended. The Fellowship were half way up Mount Doom with *4* corruption, which tells me I was way too concerned about it. Still an epic experience and my favorite game of all time.

After dinner was my next epic game: a six player game of Dune, full GF9 rules with the double-spice blow and advanced combat. Three of us had played once before, the other newbies. We dealt out roles randomly, I was the Emperor. Things started out as expected, with me buying some crappy treachery cards, but still being flush with spice. I dropped in early on Habbanya Sietch, and held it most of the game. First nexus happened around turn 3, and I partnered up with Harkonnen (who had just had a disastrous turn losing a big chunk of forces), partly because he had Carthag and partly to get him back into the game. I was still flush with spice at this point and helped him recover. Then next turn the tipping point of the game occurred: The Guild, who had partnered with the Fremen, played Family Atomics followed by the storm control card. The storm sweeped over Arrakeen and Carthag and wiped out all Atreides, Harkonnen, and most of the BG forces. I still held my stronghold, and the Fremen. who already held Tuek's Sietch, were poised to take either Carthag or Arrakeen. And then a nexus happened. I apologized to the Harkonnen, as I wasn't going to build them back up again. After The Guild tried to coax me into an alliance, the Fremen and I noticed that we were in a much better position together and allied. The Guild and Atreides got together and thwarted our plans, as the Atreides player did an excellent job with her intelligence role. A turn later another Nexus occurs, and the Guild convinces Fremen they need him to win, and so my partnership with the Atreides begins. For two turns I finally get a few decent cards into my hands. During this time The Guild tries to take Habbanya Sietch from me, only to find out I've had his traitor and it finally came out at the right time! (This was also why I never wanted to ally with him) Only traitor played the entire game (poor Harkonnen really struggled). Anyhow, nexus came up again, and despite the Guild still saying no one can win without him, Fremen came back to the Emperor for the final push. On turn 8 we are in contention on all 5 strongholds, with 3 battles. First battle is the Atreides against the Fremen, and the Atreides haven't lost a battle yet. And they don't this time either, so we need to win the next two. Now it's me vs. the Atreides, and the Emperor manages to hold, knowing that my leader would die and had no way to affect hers, but my Sardukar prove victorious. Now it all comes down to the final battle in Tuek's Sietch with the Fremen against the Bene Gesserit. Now, I haven't mentioned them most of the game, as they had struggled to make any real impact in the game, and were last to be allied with. The Fremen's position didn't look that strong but they held managed to win the fight. And as the celebrations started between myself and the Fremen (at around 2:30AM) the BG player yelled "I win, bitches!" and throws down his prediction cards and runs away from the table. The rest of the table was stunned trying to figure out what just happened (and trying to find out where the prediction cards flew to). So turns out when he was getting ready to make a prediction at the start of the game, he talked over to a friend of mine at the other table, who asked him how many rounds the game was. When he heard ten he said something like "I'd probably pick Chris in round 8." Well, and that's what the cards said: Emperor in round 8. And he got to throw the last fight to secure that victory. I still think the BG player did not enjoy himself as much during the game and said he never wanted to play them again. Anyhow, another epic game befitting of Dune...

More to come as I have time...

barrowdown wrote:
Skies Above the Reich x3: I'm halfway through a 1942 campaign and I think this game is boring as hell. Looking at BGG's rating for it, I am completely surprised by its 8.4 average. The game is gorgeous and its components are definitely worth its high MSRP ($90). It has one of GMT's best written rulebooks that is easy to follow, very clearly referenced on all of the player aids, and has plenty of examples covering most events. Unfortunately, it is with a game that is probably a $30-40 game. There just is not enough variety between scenarios (yes, there are many possible scenarios, but they will all play pretty similar), everything is a bit too generic (pilots, planes, formations, etc.), not enough narrative over the campaign. I am only half-way into the first section and I want to quit. A mini-campaign could be six missions. The main campaign could be 40+ missions! I am happy to move this along if someone wants it.

I'm looking at Interceptor Ace instead (Gregory Smith) but I thinks it's a different scale -- you're in one fighter instead of commanding a squadron.

This is the kind of stuff I pick up used. Could be a while.

I was debating trading SAtR for the predecessor Nightfighter Ace, but held off because I was so disappointed in SAtR that I didn’t want to immediately get another solo air game.

I'm looking forward to playing some solitaire games on Thanksgiving. Camp Grizzly and maybe Arkham Horror. Family plans got cancelled on short notice, and my girlfriend is doing the usual week of silent treatment after a big argument on Saturday. Also, we are getting from 7 to 12 inches of snow between now and noon tomorrow, so Thursday will be a good day to stay home. Will celebrate the usual Friendsgiving with the goth crowd on Saturday, though we are supposed to get another 5 to 11" of snow on Friday/Saturday.

Yeah, we have 21-30 inches of snow coming in the next two days, so I'm hoping to get some gaming in with my spouse.

Gary Sax wrote: Yeah, we have 21-30 inches of snow coming in the next two days, so I'm hoping to get some gaming in with my spouse.

We are having weather too. I started getting out games a half an hour ago. Wife noticed. Pointed out that weather like this was often the occasion for me to have surreptitiously found a bottle of wine and some cologne that I dug out of the closet. Concerned I had missed an opportunity, I asked, "Do you want to play with objectives or just the tiles and the leader dice?"

amen

had game night last night. first time I've made it in months.

We played Euphoria:build a better dystopia. Technically this is a worker placement, but without the redeeming qualities of a WP. there's even less interaction in this it seemed. not even the passive aggressive "blocking a person out of spaces", as several of the spaces have no limit. and the others, you aren't limited from taking. if someone is present, you instead kick their worker out, which actually helps the person who is kicked out.

there are a couple small powers that let you hurt/help people, alittle...but at last in this one game, they were very limited.

I like the setting, it's very pretty, and there are some nice ideas in the game. But it plays like an engine builder, change this into that, without having any really interesting parts of that engine.

on a better note, I picked up Gaslands refueled and some templates over the weekend. my boys love it. My daughter has decided that I belong to team 'Slowpoke'