Front Page

Content

Authors

Game Index

Forums

Site Tools

Submissions

About

KK
Kevin Klemme
March 09, 2020
35142 2
Hot
KK
Kevin Klemme
January 27, 2020
20818 0
Hot
KK
Kevin Klemme
August 12, 2019
7405 0
Hot
O
oliverkinne
December 19, 2023
3967 0
Hot
O
oliverkinne
December 14, 2023
3495 0
Hot

Mycelia Board Game Review

Board Game Reviews
O
oliverkinne
December 12, 2023
2075 0
O
oliverkinne
December 07, 2023
2582 0

River Wild Board Game Review

Board Game Reviews
O
oliverkinne
December 05, 2023
2250 0
O
oliverkinne
November 30, 2023
2494 0
J
Jackwraith
November 29, 2023
3014 0
Hot
O
oliverkinne
November 28, 2023
1971 0
S
Spitfireixa
October 24, 2023
3692 0
Hot
O
oliverkinne
October 17, 2023
2619 0
O
oliverkinne
October 10, 2023
2461 0
O
oliverkinne
October 09, 2023
2289 0
O
oliverkinne
October 06, 2023
2505 0

Outback Crossing Review

Board Game Reviews
×
Bugs: Recent Topics Paging, Uploading Images & Preview (11 Dec 2020)

Recent Topics paging, uploading images and preview bugs require a patch which has not yet been released.

× Use the stickied threads for short updates.

Please consider adding your quick impressions and your rating to the game entry in our Board Game Directory after you post your thoughts so others can find them!

Please start new threads in the appropriate category for mini-session reports, discussions of specific games or other discussion starting posts.

What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

More
21 Dec 2020 00:11 #317372 by mc
The King is Dead/Konig von Siam is so great.
Talk about paring things down to the rawest essence. This is the tightest moments of something like El Grande just boiled down to almost nothing. 8 actions per player per game, every one packed full of agony and uncertainty. Love it.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Gary Sax, hotseatgames, Nodens, Pugnax555, DarthJoJo

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
21 Dec 2020 10:01 #317375 by Shellhead
Nearly finished the base set campaign for Blackstone Fortress in recent weeks. I completed two more stronghold quests, Null-Gravity Abyss and The Descent, but they were somewhat easier than the previous two strongholds. Then I went after the hidden stronghold.

The 8-encounter leadup was challenging, but I have reached the threshold of the hidden stronghold and set it up on the table, and it looks like a vicious corpse grinder of a layout. Two small rooms, no cover, four sets of enemies, and a nasty but random weapon turret. Enemies are zombie versions of the usual opponents, so slower but tougher. And slow doesn't matter on a tight map like this. Dead enemies automatically reinforce completely each turn, unless I manage to completely wipe out a set of enemies, in which case they are replaced by a fresh group of random enemies. Normally, I can block an inconvenient spawning portal by summoning a maglev there, or by camping out with two of my dudes. But in this scenario, reinforcements are allowed to spawn near a portal, so blocking isn't really feasible. To top everything off, I can't complete this final mission until one of my dudes spends three consecutive turns next to certain spot in the second room, without any enemies close. So I need to think about this tactical puzzle more before I sit down to play again.
The following user(s) said Thank You: DarthJoJo

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
21 Dec 2020 12:04 #317379 by charlest
Shell head, so you have the Ambull expansion? I think that makes for excellent material once you've exhausted the main stuff.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
21 Dec 2020 12:34 #317381 by Shellhead

charlest wrote: Shell head, so you have the Ambull expansion? I think that makes for excellent material once you've exhausted the main stuff.


No, but a local friend of mine has it. We were playing Blackstone Fortress occasionally before the pandemic, and look forward to catching up again sometime next year. I do have the Escalation expansion, and that seems to offer an entire additional campaign of about the same scope as the one in the base set. I will probably take a break from Blackstone Fortress for a few months before starting Escalation.
The following user(s) said Thank You: charlest

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
21 Dec 2020 19:42 #317406 by Andi Lennon
Three games of Eschaton this week. My group can't get enough of it. Also A couple of sessions of Dark Venture which is a fantastic (if fiddly) take on adventure gaming with some really unique ideas and the best art since Dungeon Degenerates.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
21 Dec 2020 23:17 #317416 by Sagrilarus
I played Puerto Rico again for the first time since 2009. That's a good game.
The following user(s) said Thank You: dysjunct, n815e

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
25 Dec 2020 00:21 - 25 Dec 2020 10:40 #317501 by Shellhead

Shellhead wrote: The 8-encounter leadup was challenging, but I have reached the threshold of the hidden stronghold and set it up on the table, and it looks like a vicious corpse grinder of a layout. Two small rooms, no cover, four sets of enemies, and a nasty but random weapon turret. Enemies are zombie versions of the usual opponents, so slower but tougher. And slow doesn't matter on a tight map like this. Dead enemies automatically reinforce completely each turn, unless I manage to completely wipe out a set of enemies, in which case they are replaced by a fresh group of random enemies. Normally, I can block an inconvenient spawning portal by summoning a maglev there, or by camping out with two of my dudes. But in this scenario, reinforcements are allowed to spawn near a portal, so blocking isn't really feasible. To top everything off, I can't complete this final mission until one of my dudes spends three consecutive turns next to certain spot in the second room, without any enemies close. So I need to think about this tactical puzzle more before I sit down to play again.


Quoting myself in case this post lands on top of a new page. I finished the base set campaign for Blackstone Fortress.

My Christmas miracle was that I got an unbelievably lucky draw on the enemy cards. There is a fixed quantity of each type of opponents, and each enemy card specifies a certain enemy in a certain quantity. If your enemy cards for a given encounter require more of a specific enemy than there are minis (or tokens in my case) of that enemy, you just use what you have. So out of four possible enemy groups, I drew 3 Negavolt Cultist cards, which called for a total of 10 cultists when there are only 4 in the whole game. My other enemy group consisted of 1 Chaos Marine and just 4 Traitor Guardsmen. However, I had to be careful to never completely kill off the Negavolt Cultists, as that would have required a draw of a new random enemy group, and it would be unlikely to be more Negavolt Cultists.

One of my dudes had a one-shot item that let him set up anywhere on the combat map at the start of the first round, as long as the space was unoccupied. I dropped him next to the target spot (the stasis cube) in the second room. He got the jump on the guardsmen and cleared most of them out. The rest of my guys struggled to get across the first room while avoiding potential fire by the annihilation turret.

Long story short, the hidden vault was much easier than expected. By the end of the seventh turn, I had opened the stasis cube. I was instructed to open the special Hidden Vault envelope and follow the directions on the card to finish the mission. Unfortunately, I didn't get that envelope with my stripped eBay copy of the game. I thought that I got a great deal since I could make my own tokens and not deal with the huge hassle of painting the figures, but it turns out that the seller likely sold the envelope to somebody else. I checked, and I could buy one from an eBay seller for $29.

Instead, I googled to find spoilers for the Hidden Vault envelope. Everybody talked about the reward, which is a random permanent enhancement to your whole team of explorers. There are at least 9 different enhancement cards, and each base set comes with just one of those cards. The other side of the card was the instructions for how to finish the mission, but nobody online posted spoilers about that.

So I decided to skip the non-existent prize, and made my own victory condition, which was to try to evacuate my whole team back the way we entered the vault. And that was hard enough, as it turned out. My murder bot was pretty banged up at the end, and the ratling brothers Rein and Raus got killed during the escape, when one of them got picked off by a random blast from the Annihilation Turret.

I look forward to playing the Escalation campaign in the spring, but I will spend the near future on other games, including Cyberpunk 2077.
Last edit: 25 Dec 2020 10:40 by Shellhead.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
26 Dec 2020 21:18 #317530 by hotseatgames
For Christmas I received the small box expansion for the Fallout board game, Atomic Bonds. This makes every scenario co-op, and adds some other stuff that is not terribly relevant. I set up a large mission and got my two sons to agree to play.

I have conflicting emotions about this game. I want to like it more than I actually do; so much about it is proper Fallout. They got the tone right, the questing, the leveling up. Those things are great.

What isn't great, and is not Fallout, is just how FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE it is to get a weapon. I swear if I ever convince my kids to play again, we will all start with a random weapon. You have to fight a lot in this game, and if a super mutant gets a hold of you, you are screwed.

The other issue is the co-op itself. This game, for some reason, was originally made to be adversarial. I don't think they ever should have done that; or perhaps they should have leaned into it and not tried to cram co-op into it. By changing to co-op, they invalidate outright some effects in the game, making completing entire quests completely pointless in some instances.

Perhaps the real problem is something that this game has never been able to do; stick the landing. The process of playing and questing is fun, but actually trying to *win* is a combination of impossible and not fun. It should be called Fallout: The Journey, and you play for 2 hours exactly, and whoever has the highest level and most caps is the winner. Done.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Msample, mezike, WadeMonnig, DarthJoJo

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
26 Dec 2020 21:36 #317531 by Msample
That was my recollection as well. Usually you’d just run away rather than fight since you could tell beating a monster would be nigh impossible.

I think you nailed my overall feelings as well. The tone and feel is right, but play is a grind.
The following user(s) said Thank You: hotseatgames

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
26 Dec 2020 23:16 #317535 by Gary Sax
Big game day today. Fields of Arle with my spouse, then a 3p game of John Company with Mezike and Not Sure that went completely off script. Both great, great games in very different ways. It's a real pleasure to get so much John Company played, since it's a real "planned ahead game day" type of game. Tabletop Simulator is really nice for this sort of game which is usually a miserable shelf toad that you're desperate to play.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Msample, mezike, sornars

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
28 Dec 2020 21:31 #317561 by dysjunct
Binging on a new one on BGA, a 2p trick-taking game called JEKYLL VS HYDE. Some interesting things going on here. If you are the Hyde persona, you win if you get to 10 points. If you are Jekyll, you win if Hyde doesn’t get to 10 by the end of the third round. At the end of each round, Hyde gets points equal to the absolute difference between each player’s tricks. So if Jekyll gets 7 and Hyde gets 3, that is the same as if it ended with Hyde 7 and Jekyll 3 — thus Hyde wants to preserve balance and ideally end with a tie in the number of tricks won.

There’s three suits, and you must follow the suit led if possible. The first suit played every round is the weakest suit (and the second the next weakest, with third being strongest). If you can’t follow suit then strongest suit wins.

It’s a tight little game that is very different depending on which persona you play, and has surprisingly difficult decisions. It’s a Korean design that doesn’t have an international release yet, but it looks very good and worth picking up.
The following user(s) said Thank You: sornars

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
29 Dec 2020 00:39 #317563 by hotseatgames
For the last several years I have held an "all day game day" after Christmas with my board game group. Instead of doing that, we scheduled two different TTS games today. First up was TMNT: Shadows of the Past. This is a hit with our group. The game is very good, although it can overstay its welcome. And man... with TTS, it sure did. It took us 4 hours to do one mission. We did end up winning, but by that point I hardly cared.

After a few hours break we joined online again for a TTS game of Nemesis. For the first time, we tried out the Void Seeders expansion. These aliens can drive your character insane, and based on how insane they are, worse and worse things can happen to them. Based on how it went, I might be surprised if we ever played with the Void Seeders again; their added complexity doesn't translate to added fun. I think they would be good for people who were so hardcore with Nemesis that they could consistently kick the hell out of the regular Intruders, because playing with Void Seeders ups the difficulty of an already difficult game.

I hope this doesn't indicate how useful my Carnomorphs will be when they ship later this year.

As for the game itself, at the end of round 4 we drew the shitty event card that spreads fires, and the ship blew up. It's funny, but anti-climactic.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Gary Sax, Msample, sornars, Ah_Pook

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
29 Dec 2020 07:29 #317564 by Ah_Pook
Taught a friend of mine The Edge: Dawnfall on TTS yesterday, and it's quite fun playing opposed. The rules are straightforward, The decisions are hard, the die rolls are dramatic, the cards are impactful, the factions are crazy... Yea it's just a fun time. Looking forward to playing it more with him, since he's a big fan of tactical games.

Offer is still on the table to play with anyone here who wants to :) it loses something playing on TTS without the wild miniatures, but the gameplay is still the thing yknow.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
31 Dec 2020 00:00 #317599 by ubarose
Tonight I declared Knockout the most thematic game in out collection. It’s an old Victory Point boxing game. We played twice, and both times laughed out loud with delight at how well this game simulates a boxing match.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Shellhead, jeb, Gary Sax, Sagrilarus, DarthJoJo

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
01 Jan 2021 00:00 #317614 by Gary Sax
Sometimes I wonder why my spouse and I have any other games we play together besides spirit Island. We make these games to play lists for breaks and we should probably just play spirit Island over and over instead.
The following user(s) said Thank You: jeb, DarthJoJo

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Moderators: Gary Sax
Time to create page: 1.731 seconds