What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

I played a game of terraforming mars and I wasn't paying much attention to the heat track. My spouse's prime building game strategy is to prepare to play a 80 turn game of anything that never ends and lets her build every single building in the deck. So when we got to the other tracks maxed but the heat track like 2 in, I knew I had fucked up and was certain to lose. It was one of those deeply miserable games after that waiting for it to end while she concentrated on playing her own game of combinations, while I checked in with a couple actions, then moved the laundry from washer to dryer, fed the dogs, etc. Really shitty experience.

Suffice to say I see why people say TM is too long. She had like 40 cards played by the end and had exhausted our 3d printed stock of forests. To be fair, it's my fault since I didn't pay attention to pushing tracks. Still one of those classic bad multiplayer solitaire euro experiences, which I have experienced but rarely have.

God, those are game-killers for me. Suburbia nearly went on the chopping block because of this, but it got a reprieve because no one else seemed to be all that triggered by this phenomenon. I just... can't stand it.

Finally got Wiz-War with the Bestial FOrces expansion played, a couple of times over the last couple of days. I've been busy and the kids have been away with grandparents etc. Great stuff. Just more fun things; I tried to convince the boy to not cancel my Minotaur because it was cool but he did and then chased me with the snake spirit thing while I tried to get the treasure. 1 square or 1 life point short for me. Fun times.

Also played some Gaslands on the living room carpet around the Forbidden Desert tin (which the kids have been playing with friends) and some other random objects. As usual we didn't come anywhere near to finishing our planned track; big smashes, wipeouts and explosions and boys car coming last was the last one standing with a couple of hull points left.

Frohike wrote: God, those are game-killers for me. Suburbia nearly went on the chopping block because of this, but it got a reprieve because no one else seemed to be all that triggered by this phenomenon. I just... can't stand it.

It was very bad. I'm going to have to cowboy up/steel myself next time it gets suggested.

We had a couple friends over for my wife's birthday dinner (smoked prime rib BTW), and I taught them Isle of Cats.
We played a couple of games and everyone enjoyed it. It features a card drafting phase that forces you to balance what you need for your plans vs. what you want to keep out of the hands of other people. If someone can gather many Lesson cards, that gives them many more ways to score points at the end. This is a really good game that keeps you engaged even when others are choosing which cat they want to save.


I would recommend playing it if you have the chance.


For the record, my wife killed it the first game and one of our friends killed us the second game.

Gary Sax wrote:

Frohike wrote: God, those are game-killers for me. Suburbia nearly went on the chopping block because of this, but it got a reprieve because no one else seemed to be all that triggered by this phenomenon. I just... can't stand it.

It was very bad. I'm going to have to cowboy up/steel myself next time it gets suggested.

In TM, if others are focused on card play then I will focus on board play. That keeps the game going.

Yes, that was absolutely my mistake.

Games played since the beginning of December, trying to catch up after laid up for a month or so:

Nemesis - 9x - This is a great game.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game - 8x - Recently got this in a trade and a clever game going down well with us.
Judge Dredd: Helter Skelter - 5x - Both my euro and regular group think this may be a bit too luck dependent, on the fence.
Big Trouble in Little China: The Game - 3x - Rulebook a bit mixed up, game pace not quite right, enough fun to keep for the moment.
Legendary Encounters: A Firefly Deck Building Game - 3x
Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game - 2x
Lifeform - 2x - Trying our best to like it, first game was the rulebook nightmare, it's not quite grabbing us and the tension hasn't been seen yet.
Sword & Sorcery - 2x - One great rpg-dungeoncrawler, brilliant design and fun.

Finally managed to get some guys together for Maria. What a game. Also I smoked a pork butt and some wings. it's a good day.

I was Fredrich and the Pragmatic Army.

in year 1 -
France loses a fairly big fight (and most of an army) against Arenburg (Austria) in the Netherlands. France then over reacts and rushes armies back from Bavaria towards western Europe.

Fredrich makes some gains in Silesia. then leaves his supply vulnerable to an Austria thrust and finds all 3 of his generals out of supply in turn 3. This...ah, slows the Prussian advance. Saxony makes a push towards Prague. The Saxons will eventually take it, proving to be a swing vote in the upcoming Imperial Elections. The Prussian general in Russia....was very preoccupied with russia and started asking for a card.

Seeing both the French and Prussian advance against Austria stall, the pragmatics sit and twiddle their thumbs.

1742 sees Fredrich finally bring supply and armies back to bear against northern Austria. The Bavarians move forward and take some important towns along their border. The imperial elections happen and we all voted against Austria(well, except for Austria). Full of themselves, the Bavarians move further into Austria. The minor powers really don't have the oomph to fight more than 1 large fight before resting and refilling cards. so it was, that a 8 -size army gets wiped from the board. France is left with minimal forces in the east.

Prussia has issues fighting Austria. There's a big 'heart' sector that is just south of Breslau where the largest Austria army in the region was sitting. Prussia didn't draw a heart card in all of 1742. The Saxons had a couple, and I thought about committing them to this fight, and probably should have, but seeing Bavaria get wiped from the board (and having won a large fight with the Saxons just a turn or two earlier) made me hesitant to commit them.

By this time France has gone on the offensive in the Netherlands. They severely outnumber the Austrians opposing, and with the Pragmatics playing mostly neutral, they have finally started gaining some VP locations. The Pragmatics win a battle against france, which opens all of France near Brussels(most of the Franco-Austria fighting had been further south near Luxemburg). so they grab a couple points here, realizing that they can win as well.

1743 and the Prussians and Austrians continue to dance in northern Austria. Progress into Silesia is still stalled, instead points are being grabbed in Austria proper. France attempts to reinforce Bavaria. But it's too little, too late. Austria moves ahead and grabs the final victory points they need out of Bavaria.

This was all of our first time playing, so many mistakes were made. I made the first big one with the supply in Silesia. It's even worse than that, as the reason it happened, is I attacked and won against an Austrian army, but due to the way I had setup my armies, the only way I could retreat him was towards my supply. France made the mistake of starting multiple fights in the same suit on the same turn, and the first fight inevitably took more cards than he was expecting. and he overreacted to losing a big fight early on in the West. Austria was able to take advantage of both of these and play a fairly conservative game. Still, he was wary of the Prussia resurgence later and fighting with one general by himself against most of france in Belgium was definitely a losing proposition.

the TCs suits and how they translate to the board took us a while to really grasp. Running 3 armies off of 1 supply center is really annoying/limiting. And the combat results can be devastating. We probably had more 8size army wipes than is normal. Still, we all enjoyed it and want to play again.

we jumped to a quick game of Marvel Legendary with the Champions heroes before our Austria player had to leave. Vs Fin Fang Foom who was 'stealing all oxygen from the earth'. we had a run of scheme twists early on that KO'd all but one of the rare cards for the heroes. So generating enough attack to get to Fin Fang Foom was difficult. We got through 3 of his cards before we all suffocated. I liked the Champion heroes, nothing really strong, but all decent enough to support other heroes. Of course we didn't have use of their rares, which lowers the power levels of each hero. I'm not a fan of Gwenpool as a character, but everything else in the Champions expansion is pretty fun.

We then started setting up Flotilla with 4 people. got through the sinksider rules and ran two turns around. and kids were getting cranky, so we cleaned up and decided it will be game #1 next time we get together. Still, what little we went through was intriguing.

Awesome game day, lj, very jealous.

Introduced a friend to Talisman a few days ago. Played with our two regular house rules (5 trophies to level up, and allowing craft to be leveled up with trophies). It was the Swashbuckler (take another turn when you succeed in combat, which seems really good) vs the Astronaut (starts in the Space Fortress with a bunch of really good space equipment, which also seems really good). Things progressed as they do in Talisman, both of us getting shafted in various ways and laughing at each other's misfortune. My Swashbuckler found a magic wand which was pretty clutch, as the spells saved his ass good a couple times (and let him steal the Astronauts power axe for good measure). The turning point came when I found a pool of strength which gives you +1 STR when you land on it, and then got hit with a poltergeist on the space right next to it (a follower who reduces your movement to 1 space a turn). +4 free STR is pretty big. The Astronaut headed for the City and impressed the locals with his high tech gadgetry so much that they appointed him High Mage. He then got so rich that he bought literally everything useful from the purchase deck, and then headed back out to adventure. I ended up making it to the crown pretty quickly thereafter, and proceeded to rain fire down from on high while he scrambled to catch up. He made a last ditch run through the dungeon after I got his life total down to critical, got to the center space, and rolled a clutch 6 to warp directly to the Crown of Command. We ended up at equal strength, straight up rolling off to try to kill each other off for control of the Crown. I had 4 lives to his 2 when we started the showdown, and luck was on my side for the win. Pretty epic ending, and we knocked it out in 3 hours too.

Also tried or a few games of Uwe Rosenberg's new 2p game Robin of Locksley. You set up a 5x5 grid of tiles and a score track around the outside, then you each start in a corner if your choice. Your piece on the grid moves like a knight in chess, and you use him to collect sets of goods in different colors. The score track spaces each have a random goal on them, and you are racing to be the first to complete two laps of the score track. The goals range from having goods of particular colors, selling specific sets of goods, your knights position on the board (in a corner, adjacent to your opponent etc), having more or less if things than your opponent etc. When you complete a given goal you can advance onto the space on the score track. You also get gold when you sell sets of goods, and you can pay a gold to advance a space on the score track without completing the goal. It's quick to teach, quick to play, and satisfyingly puzzly as you try to plot out routes through the grid to hit goals efficiently. Seems like a solid winner in the "couples game" category.

Glad to see Yacht Race getting some love! This is the 1960 game right? It's such a nice, clean design.

ubarose wrote: @engelstein

I believe that it is 1960 or thereabouts. It's just such a great game. It is hard to believe that it came out so long ago. It feels so modern.

This is one of the few older games that I am on the look out for -- loved it when I played it; hard to find a reasonable copy though.