What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Rajas of the Ganges is my poster child for everything wrong with this midweight euro type things.
NOTHING you do makes ANY sense whatsoever. I could not find any links to any coherent narrative at all. A series of mini-games stapled together through dice placement stuff, but even the mini-games were nonsensical... i'm building a garden.. but trying to make it touch the walls... but... to do that... I have to move a ship down a river because... and then I get random pieces that don't match.... IT'S MY FREAKING GARDEN! Then it's overlaid by orientalist claptrap like the dancer with the come hither eyes.

And even then, the "thing" that people say about it as to why it's good or clever or whatever is that you have TWO tracks that go in OPPOSITE directions and you win if your tracks meet. It's like... does NO-ONE realise that 40+60 OR 10+90 is STILL a race to 100VP? especially when there is no difference really between how you get the two types? (stick some dice over here, stick some dice over there, what's the frigging difference?)

My god.

On a different note, I've been playing some Guerilla Checkers with my kid, it's a pretty great little game. One side is are the counter-insurgents who have only 6 pieces and move like checkers, capturing insurgents, while the insurgents just swarm the board, trying to lure the COIN pieces out to the edges by creating capture lines, because out there it's easier to surround and remove the COIN pieces when they are isolated. And the COIN pieces, if they capture, have to capture as many as possible, like trigger happy overly armed, er, COIN types. Overlay your theme of choice (my son's preferred theme is currently Ewoks vs Stormtroopers). Great feel.

Played LORDS OF HELLAS, alas only 2P . We each made some stupid mistakes but enjoyed it. That said, I think its either 4 player or find something else to play. There appears to be a wide variety of strategies . If you like KEMET, I think you'd like this. The production quality was good, but not quite as good as NEMESIS ( same publisher ) . The five piece god minis, I wonder how well they'll hold up with repeated assembly/disassembly. I'd advise color coding the parts if you don't actually pain them.

I think the monuments will last. I agree that 4 players is where it's at.

Played 1/3 of a Root game using the moles against the cat bot and vagabond bot. The vagabond bot is just a complete motherfucker, real shitty 2019 joker energy. Someone on BGG describes it as being "like playing against a woodland RoboCop that has been programmed to simply wreck everything in its path" and that rings true. It's a real huge problem for the moles since getting their buildings blown up is incredibly damaging and the vagabond has no clearing movement restrictions like normal battle factions do (besides the crows iirc). Did have a quite satisfying (but unproductive) move where I dropped a tunnel underneath him and out came 4 moles to break all his shit.

Played another session of Triumph and Tragedy this weekend. It was my fourth time playing with the same two guys, and while it was our best game yet in terms of the mechanics of playing the game, it was not my favorite session. I was the West, and over the course of 6 hours my poor card draws and one (very stupid) attack left me mostly marginalized. Axis started out strong and hovered just under the victory point threshold for a few years until the USSR took two sub-capitals to win.

With as many hours as I've put into this, you'd think that I wouldn't struggle so much, but I have a REALLY hard time being able to predict whether the force I am sending into a contested area is strong enough, overpowered, or too weak. Naval battles are even more uncertain to me. My sense is that I should have been more aggressive early on, while the Axis blocks were all one-pip dudes.

At any rate, even though I left feeling drained, I'm looking forward to playing again in a month or so. This game is the real deal.

If you visit BGG, you won't see a lot of Wingspan strategy, because there's not a lot of strategy. Try to play cards to increase the output of one or more habitat rows. However, one strategy thread over there is a discussion of the Ravens; Chihuahuan Raven and Common Raven. They're both expensive cards: 1 Rat + 2 anything. But those are almost an autowin if they're in your opening hand, especially if you have a 1-food cheap bird to go with it. First turn buy food. Second turn drop Raven in the Plains row, Third turn drop the other bird (in the Wetlands or Plains if you're really lucky). Then never buy another Forest card or play the Forest row unless you want to. I'm not a "this card is broken" kind of guy, but that card is broken.

Why do I bring this up? My daughter finally won a game last Friday, via the Raven. Which is poetic justice, because she lost her previous three games to the first-turn Raven; twice to me and once to her boyfriend. First-turn Raven is a prison beating.

Also played two games of Clank Saturday. The first one, my brother tried to grab a cheap Artifact and race to the exit, but got beat by my nephew. I wasn't a factor - never got underground before the game was over, because I evidently suck at this game. The second one, my brother won by thirty points. My nephew died underground, and I died one step away from +20 points. Which wouldn't have mattered anyway, but I'd have felt better.

I recently acquired Magic Realm. I would like to say that I have been playing Magic Realm, but actually I have only gotten as far as setting up the game on a big table in my basement. The set up is complex, and I was also sorting pieces and doing an inventory at the same time. The previous owner only used a handful of ziplock bags for components, so sorting out the action chits was a beast, and I ran out of small chit bags in the process. I have also been reading up on how to play the game, with the 3.1 rules and also the plain english rules. I have also looked into some tutorials, but they always seem to leave out crucial details.

imho, try using the magic realm java program just to do the combat before you get started. It's super innovative, incredibly strategic, but super hard to follow and *incredibly* different than D+D dice roll stuff:

therewillbe.games/articles-analysis/5389...c-review-magic-realm

But man that game is a heavy load to learn and internalize. I had to give up because I just don't have the group to play it a bunch of times in a row.

I can't recommend the Book of Learning (available on BGG) enough for piecing through Magic Realm. And I echo Gary's advice to use Realmspeak to get the basics of the game down. Not having to do the set-up card every time helps a lot.

My eldest daughter played Wingspan while away at college. I asked her what she thought "I'd rather play PARKS" Guess I nailed the out-Stonemiering Stonemier in that Parks review.

If you like the outdoor/animal theme, ECOS THE FIRST CONTINENT is worth checking out . It uses a similar mechanic to RISE OF AUGUSTUS ( so I am told as I have not played that game. ) In short, its kind of like animal bingo; when you fill out a cards icons you can activate the card . Some cards can be used up to four times, powerful ones may be one and done. Fast, easy to teach.

NEMESIS. Four player game. We ended up having pretty aligned objectives and coorporated on saving the ship. The game ended up being not that tense specifically because of that, but nonetheless it delivered (as always) on story moments and what one might call situational tension. That is: how the fuck do I get out of this-moments. Two players ended up going to earth in hibernation, one player was killed by the queen, and my scientist took the final hit as he made a mad dash through the ship trying to reach an escape pod and get stuff for a much needed antidote.

At home I've been playing a lot of LOVECRAFT LETTER with the kids which is always a blast. Also had a few games of LOTR: THE CONFRONTATION with the 7-years-old and it continues to be one of the best games ever. Not sure if I want the extra characters from the deluxe edition (also I like the small footprint of the original), but I'm considering looking for a used copy. Anybody know if it's worth it?

Gary Sax wrote: The vagabond bot is just a complete motherfucker, real shitty 2019 joker energy.

Folks, don’t put too much energy or thought into posting anything for the rest of the year, this one sentence has already won Best Board Game Discussion 2020.

Gary Sax wrote: Played 1/3 of a Root game using the moles against the cat bot and vagabond bot. The vagabond bot is just a complete motherfucker, real shitty 2019 joker energy. Someone on BGG describes it as being "like playing against a woodland RoboCop that has been programmed to simply wreck everything in its path" and that rings true. It's a real huge problem for the moles since getting their buildings blown up is incredibly damaging and the vagabond has no clearing movement restrictions like normal battle factions do (besides the crows iirc). Did have a quite satisfying (but unproductive) move where I dropped a tunnel underneath him and out came 4 moles to break all his shit.

So the Vagabond bot is Omar from THE WIRE??

RACCOON COMIN'