What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Sagrilarus wrote:

Ah_Pook wrote: Also I got a trade unpunched copy of D-Day At Omaha Beach in the mail today, and kinda poked at the rulebook for a bit. going to be a while getting through that ruleset, looks like.

It’s not as bad as it looks. The game is pretty sensical once you have one or two turns under you. First or second edition?

Second edition. No mounted map, but 3rd I guess introduced some map/counter typos? so its kind of a wash.

Andi Lennon wrote: in addition to that my FLGS recently shut down (another victim of covid) and i managed to grab Journey:Wrath of Demons, Memoir 44 and The Boldest for ridiculously cheap.

Was that the Burwood Good Games?

got Calico in the mail from kickstarter yesterday, played a few rounds with my wife and a few rounds solo so far. it seems really good for that kind of spatial puzzle game ala the Rosenberg tile laying games etc. its way brain meltier than it looks like it would be, also. the amount of scoring variables youre trying to juggle with each tile placement/tile draft is something. anyway, if you like Patchwork or Barenpark or what have you this one is great. lots of variability with the scoring tiles and stuff to keep it fresh game to game also. solid post work couples game, though honestly its crunchier than those typically skew.

Introduced Cosmic Frog to 3 of my board game group, and xthexlo himself was gracious enough to join us.

My initial ability was Warbringer, and I took it literally, starting fights on the very first round. It was a very aggressive match overall, with vault raids, numerous trips to the outer dimensions, and grudge matches.

We knew the end was at hand... I had some land in my gullet that would put me in a pretty good position for victory... and another player caused a splinter strike to end the game. I ended up tying for the win. This was my favorite game of Cosmic Frog yet. I can not wait to get my physical copy!

trif wrote:

Andi Lennon wrote: in addition to that my FLGS recently shut down (another victim of covid) and i managed to grab Journey:Wrath of Demons, Memoir 44 and The Boldest for ridiculously cheap.

Was that the Burwood Good Games?

It certainly was. Such a shame they closed down.

Besides continuing our campaign of Tainted Grail (that swings between thoroughly engaging and frustratingly draining) I got in a couple of games of the new "Escape the Dark Sector" which is a total blast and an improvement on EtDC in a lot of ways. An awesome change of pace in its simplicity too after the sometimes torturous upkeep of TG. I'm sure some write ups are on the way once the embargo lifts

Apart from that it's been all about Roll20 RPG sessions of late. DCC, Mork Borg and and 5e all running concurrently and keeping me connected throughout covid with my groups that cannot gather.

There's so many boardgames i need to get to the floor though. Can you believe I've never played Memoir 44? I keep trying to get more Twilight Struggle in, and Darkest Night just landed. They taunt me from my shelf.

I need a clone.

I haven't actually played it again yet since a tourney in January or February, but bringing up Heroscape again in that "one that got away" thread got me looking back at Heroscapers.com.

They've still got an active customs community, and there's even a podcast on the competitive/GenCon scene that started up in 2019. People still refer to some strategy stuff I wrote back in 2007-2008, and once I started posting again and poking around a little bit, they asked me to record one episode with them. (It probably won't show up until some time in September or October, but it's still pretty neat to me).

The secondary market prices for some of this stuff are insane! Almost everything is above MSRP; some things about 10x their original price. If you can snag some at a garage sale, do it!

If it weren't for finding Heroscape in 2007, I don't think I'd be back into board games at all even. It's the quintessential AT classic for me.

I'm in a couple of the Rallyman GT games with the others and it is a very fun game, I likely would not pull it out for solo play if I had the physical copy, the digital is so much more convenient.

I will have to see how it compares with Championship Formula Racing. I don't know that I find Rallyman leaps and bounds better than Speed Circuit, but I also wouldn't need to play Speed Circuit with CFR in the wings.

I played Joking Hazard last night. Basically Cards Against Humanity except you are making three panel comics instead of phrases. Problem is (kinda like CAH) that some of the card art is just ridiculously hilarious/perverse, so that card will often win even if it doesn't make for the best set-up punchline comic. Still, for a drunken party game it isn't bad and at least the cards I saw, while often adult in nature, were not as aggressively offensive as a lot of CAH sets.

I’ve been using Super Fight as a way to avoid CAH and the other “apples” games in its ilk. Scratches the same itch. We’ve been having a better time with it, and we’ve added a rule where the player on deck gets to choose the venue. That’s added some extra life to the game.

CAH doesn’t have a lot of legs. Super Fight seems to.

Sagrilarus wrote: I’ve been using Super Fight as a way to avoid CAH and the other “apples” games in its ilk. Scratches the same itch. We’ve been having a better time with it, and we’ve added a rule where the player on deck gets to choose the venue. That’s added some extra life to the game.

CAH doesn’t have a lot of legs. Super Fight seems to.

The experience at my house was just the opposite: nobody really got into Superfight. What Do You Meme got more traction, but it's basically CoH with pictures.

I haven't played anything recently, but I have been working up to my next solitaire game of Magic Realm by working through The Book of Learning. I set up the mini-map for each chapter, and get the relevant character and chits set up. Then I follow through each turn and then compare with what happens in The Book of Learning to figure out my mistakes and tactical errors. The first three chapters (White Knight, Woods Girl, and Pilgrim) are long but went smoothly. Now I am struggling a little with the details in the Berserker chapter, which includes bigger battles incorporating hired natives. This exercise has been valuable, because it has really helped me get comfortable with the game play, and there are a few places where the rules are explained better in The Book of Learning than in any edition of the rules.

That sounds cool. I'd never heard of the Book of Learning before.

Gregarius wrote: That sounds cool. I'd never heard of the Book of Learning before.

The Book of Learning is a free pdf download. You can get it here:

magicrealm.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/01...k_of_learning_v1.pdf

The Book of Learning is very thorough. but written in a clear, straightforward manner. The introduction includes a detailed breakdown of a turn sequence. Then each of the sixteen characters gets a chapter that showcases their strengths, weaknesses, and strategies, while also teaching various aspects of the rules. All of this is done with a serious of detailed turns for each character. The Black Knight chapter acknowledges that he excels at fighting other player characters, and does a breakdown of how he tends to fare against each of the other 15 characters. There is a chapter that offers suggested vp goals for each character, and another chapter that provides a couple of deliberately complex combat examples that are unlikely to occur in a typical game but could certainly happen. I originally intended to print this off in black and white, but the frequent color examples were too tempting, so I burned through a couple of color toner cartridges for my cheap HP desktop printer.

The Book of Learning and Realmspeak is the way I learned, and probably the only way I would recommend someone learn to play Magic Realm. You won't learn all the best strategies or anything like that, and I don't think it does the best job giving you a sense of really how to exploit magic, but it will absolutely facilitate playing the game and learning how it all works together. It's such a great game, I'm sad that it might never get a real reprint or an attempt at an update.