What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Played anatomy Fluxx (daughters Xmas game), Nations and Fox in the forest duet today

Have a couple friends who work remotely and otherwise care for the elderly mother of one of them, so they're pretty low risk and they've been over a couple times in the last few weeks.

Did a 5-player Cthulhu Wars: Black Goat vs Cthulhu vs Crawling Chaos vs Windwalker vs Opener. I was on Black Goat because I wanted to try the "easy Shub" opening again. But an adept Windwalker player and an aggressive Opener squeezed Great Cthulhu down to nothing, so one of the distractions I was hoping for was neutered from the beginning. Windwalker built up rock (ice?) solid positions in his starting territories and I couldn't slow him down and Ithaqua walked away with the win. It once again stuck out to me how problematic Black Goat is and Sandy Petersen finally agreed, having delivered a couple upgrades to the faction in the latest missive for the now-completed last Kickstarter. We'll see if those work out better in future games.

Then we played a full Vast: The Crystal Caverns. I'd never gotten the Thief on the table, so that was entertaining. Vast, of course, suffers from the same problem as Root, in that people have to know not only what they're doing, but also what everyone else can do for the game to truly shine. I got a decent start as the Knight and the Goblins were falling way behind before something finally clicked for that player and she began wreaking havoc throughout the cave. In the end, the Goblins finally did me in and won the game, but both Dragon and Cave were close behind her, with the Thief another treasure or two away.

We got into Spirit Island next. Since both friends were newbs, I kept the really complex spirits out of the selection pool, but we still ended up with a very Fear-heavy approach, with Shadows Flicker Like Flame, Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares, Many Minds Move as One, Shroud of Silent Mist, and our one counterweight, Heart of the Wildfire. Since we had new players, we used the Event deck and a Blight card, but no Adversary or Scenario. With Bringer and Shroud together on one side of the board, you would've figured that we could execute a fair number of good plays by coordinating Shroud's ability to damage but not kill with Bringer's Predatory Nightmares to produce some Fear explosions. And, given four of those spirits, we did burn through the Fear pool pretty quickly and ended up with a Stage III win. But the inability to do significant direct damage hindered us. Plus, having a first-time player on Bringer and a first-time user on Shroud means that patience was the order of the day. Our usual macro-strategy is also to prevent Builds, if at all possible, which meant that we were often dealing with a surfeit of Explorers, rather than anything that could be targeted to really get the most out of Bringer's To Dream A Thousand Deaths.

Next time, we started with Arcane Academy; a game I'd traded for a while back but never managed to get to the table. In principle, I like it, but it's clearly a filler game and far more concerned with mechanics than story. We played two games and did manage to explore the two overt strategies: getting to 8 Assignments ASAP and cutting off chances to score big items/spells and playing out the game a bit more and bringing those big things to the table. I won the first game pretty handily (there were three of us) and narrowly lost the second. I'm definitely interested in trying it with four.

Then we played some Funkoverse with the Jurassic Park characters. I had Alan, Ellie, and TRex vs Malcolm, Raptor, and Ray. My two opponents were new to the game, so they weren't as ready to coordinate their team as I was. But we also had drafted sides that had two support characters and one big offensive threat each, so it was kind of even in makeup, even if Alan is more versatile on the offensive end than either Malcolm or Ray. We played Territory and I won, 10-6, with all three of my characters camped out in the scoring zone for a couple turns. I'd really like to play more of this.

We ended that night with Tiny Epic Tactics. They were, again, new to the game but they did pretty well. Three players is still kind of unbalanced, though, since two players end up competing directly, as I did with one of them directly across from me in the SW corner (I started in the NW), while the third moved on the big box from the NE corner and camped out in the purple zone. She also made really good use of the ballista, which is unusual in our games. She pinged both of us enough to set up opposing kills for each other, which meant that, even though we each grabbed a flag and had similar scores, she won the tiebreaker for having the most surviving dudes. I'm going to get them back to play more of this, too, as I'd like to try out the wastelands and arctic maps.

On New Year's Eve, we sat down to a game of Tyrants of the Underdark. We used the Dragons and Aberrations decks, which meant a lot of resources and a lot of discard effects, which is always cool. I managed to use a couple Watchers of Thay to cycle Spies on and off the board for a couple big purchases early on (the Red and Green Dragons) which then kind of catapulted me forward, such that I was holding Auramcyros for much of the game (the center city for 3 VP.) The Red Dragon was especially important in retaining the VP flow from there. It was those points that really gave me the edge, too, since I won 106-96-95-77. This was also the first game in quite some time where the ending was triggered by the Market deck being exhausted, rather than someone placing all their dudes. We did have something of a Power shortage, compared to Influence and that's probably a result of using the Aberrations deck, which is extremely limited on Power.

We then moved on to Amun-Re, which is another recent trade acquisition that hadn't seen the table. I'd played a few times years ago, so I'm a fan, but just hadn't found time to get it out recently. Amun-Re is one of Knizia's more mechanically complicated games and also one that benefits more sharply from repeated plays (like Vast...), as the strategies become not just more obvious but simply apparent in the first place and people don't have to keep referencing the rulebook for cards every two seconds (I have the 2003 version. Not sure if the reprint has cards that are easier to comprehend/remember.) My draws were very poor, though, and I went the poverty route, constantly using my resources and playing the -3 card for the sacrifice. I ended up with both the cards that would've given bonuses for provinces only on the west side and only on either the north or south half of the board. But I either couldn't pass up the provinces that were on offer, since I was behind on cash if not on points, or I couldn't outbid the initial bidders to try to meet the card conditions. Appropriately, we finished the Old Kingdom right before midnight, took a break to celebrate, and then played the New Kingdom in the new year. I ended up tied for last, 12 points behind the winner and 10 points behind second. It's not a favorite Knizia, but still solid.

^great read, thanks.

My spouse and I just had a complete knock down, drag out, down to one blight left win of Spirit Island vs. lvl 3 Hapsburg. Difficulty 6 is about where we comfortably top out, I think. I bet we would win some difficulty 7-8 games but I think we would lose a ton of them too.

Yeah, we just don't play often enough for us to really engage the adversaries and difficulty levels as much as I'd like to. I thought that Spirit Island would be the game that I could get my girlfriend into playing on the regular, since it's a co-op and has a lot of mechanisms to think about (She's an engineer.) But it just hasn't turned out that way and almost every time it comes out, we're playing with new people. Thankfully for me, there are still a number of spirits to explore from Jagged Earth to hold my interest.

Through a weird fluke or some kind of crazy 2020 energy vortex or whatever, my kids got a copy of Marvel Champions from their aunts. I’m not even sure where they bought it or how they knew about it or whatever since it’s not at Target, Costco, or any other the other North Atlanta suburban retailers they shop exclusively at and they have zero knowledge of hobby games. So we played it and WOW am I impressed with it, especially since I heckled the shit out of it when it was announced and in fact kind of grimaced when they opened it

The design is really solid, and it feels like the best iteration of the FFG LCG format (barring Netrunner, which kind of doesn’t count.) I really like that it has a very classical CCG feel to it- it’s intuitive and has the details in the right places such as the hero/alter-ego thing, which is something not often attempted in superhero games. Managing attacks versus thwarts makes for some interesting choices and the encounters add some drama and surprise. 4 games in and I’ve not yet felt that feeling that LOTR and AH both had, where you lose because of the order the cards are stacked in the deck rather than bad choices, misplayed cards, or missed opportunities. The co-op elements work well and it also plays just fine solo- because the enemy deck is done well and doesn’t require any kind of automata or flowcharting to provide opposition. We’ve just fought Rhino and are 2-2 against him, really want to see how the other villains work now. Captain Marvel is my favorite hero so far, I find myself wondering if folks think she is OP but I don’t care to look into any forums or whatnot about it outside of TWBG.

I might be all in on this one...I’m kind of wondering if it may unseat Aeon’s End as my card game of choice...it’s easier to mount, play, and manage and that counts a lot for me. AE is definitely the richer, more complex, and more expansive game but if MC can provide a similarly satisfying card play experience in a tighter, more contained package...

And FINALLY a comic book card game that doesn’t have embarrassingly awful illustrations, thank Kirby.

ubarose wrote: 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.

I noticed this game when it first came out, and just assumed that it was fancy version of a freebie game from an old issue of Dragon magazine. That game was only slightly more complex than Rock-Paper-Scissor, and I remember playing it with friends while standing in line for The Empire Strikes Back. Anyway, your brief comments made me look into Knockout. It isn't the Ringside game that I remembered from Dragon #38, and Knockout looks to be a great game that took similar ideas and implemented them well. I'm tempted to go looking for a copy, except that I rarely ever play 2-player games.

Michael Barnes wrote: And FINALLY a comic book card game that doesn’t have embarrassingly awful illustrations, thank Kirby.

That's funny, I think a lot of the art is off-brand Marvel bad!

The game is pretty good, though, Ah Pook and I have been playing it (see the dedicated thread). It's way better than its LOTR LCG baseline. I still don't love the reliance on meatshield stuff but you just get over it.

Oh it’s still not straight off the page quality but it’s still a few cuts above the usual party favor artwork or anything that has ever been on a Legendary card!

Meat shield thing seems OK but I’ve just started with it...it makes sense, Nick Fury, Daredevil, whoever shows up and helps and goes away...I think it captures the team up storylines pretty well at a very high level. But I can see where NOT having meat shields might make the game off balance or especially harder.

Michael Barnes wrote: Oh it’s still not straight off the page quality but it’s still a few cuts above the usual party favor artwork or anything that has ever been on a Legendary card!

Meat shield thing seems OK but I’ve just started with it...it makes sense, Nick Fury, Daredevil, whoever shows up and helps and goes away...I think it captures the team up storylines pretty well at a very high level. But I can see where NOT having meat shields might make the game off balance or especially harder.

A lot of the art is literally taken straight from comics!

Re Marvel Champions vs AE, they're probably my two favorite solo games these days. I've got all of both of them, and my preference is basically whether Im in the mood to construct some decks or do in game deck building. The deck construction in MC is constrained enough to be fun and easy rather than overwhelming (assuming you buy all the card packs to have the card pool).

Michael hit me up sometime if you want to try a round on TTS, see what some of the later heroes/cards/villains are like before you buy in

Edit Re Captain Marvel, imo shes an A tier hero. Dr. Strange and maybe Captain America are S tier, but she's right below them. Especially paired with Justice and built with a lot of energy resources.

On mission 47 of The Crew and still enjoying it. In fact I’m in two games. Really a well crafted cooperative title.

Finally got to play two games of Cosmic Frog (on TTS) with 5 players. God what a great game, curious to see how it handles 3-4 players.

My kid is way into Marvel at themoment so I got him the Love Letter Marvel version for his birthday. Had really low expectations (mostly I figured he'd just like the purple bag with the infinity gauntlet on it) but it turned out to be a pretty fun, albeit simple, little card game. It's been a while since I've played vanilla Love Letter and I've not really looked at any of the multitude of spin-offs but this version plays quite different I think.

One player is Thanos with his own deck. The rest of the players have a deck of heroes. There is a life tracker for Thanos and the heroes. Thanos is trying to either kill the heroes or deploy all the infinity stones, the heroes are just trying to beat down thanos (they can't really do much about the stones). It is surprisingly thematic in a limited way and it has all the stones, all of Thanos' henchmen, and most of the heroes from Infinity War. So naturally my kid loved it and all his friends are now eager to play. It uses the ascending numerical trump thing from Love Letter so I guess that is the connection.

Anything that interrupts the endless Roblox/Among Us digital cycle is a win in my book

themothman421 wrote: Finally got to play two games of Cosmic Frog (on TTS) with 5 players. God what a great game, curious to see how it handles 3-4 players.

I've not played at 4, but I'm sure it's be good.

2 and 3 player games are pretty enjoyable if you play 2 frogs per player and the team rules. 3 players was particularly nuts.

This weekend was my birthday so I imposed on my family to all play Cosmic Encounter with me. My wife and older son had both played before, but our eight-year-old was bribed into joining us through an offer of fudge. He did pretty well with it, even though he's not much of a gamer, since the game allows for a vindictive style of play. (His favorite thing to do in games is to be an absolute goober.)

We actually had a little retreat with some of our other staff this weekend, and so I brought it then too, anticipating playing it with some of the kids. I actually did get two games in with my older son (who's 10) and some other kids all ranging from 10-14. It's one of those games that I think makes more sense to younger players, since it's got a deep vein of goofy and is so interactive. I've struggled to sell adults on it since moving here, but maybe I had the wrong approach. I did have to play without Flares, just to make the game a little more manageable, but it's a small price to pay when I almost never get to play in the first place.

Epic Duels was one of my first hobby games played in the late 00's, and people kept talking up Unmatched: Cobble and Fog, so I picked it up this week, my first in the system.

Played 3 games 2p. I like it but don't love it. I did go to nearby stores to see what else was available. Both the FLGS and Barnes and Noble just had they Buffy set. I could see it maybe being more interesting with 3 or 4, but I wonder if it'd result in one person just being ganged up on more often than not?

One thing I will say is that I liked the graphical layout of the spaces just fine. Didn't Tannhauser do basically the exact same thing except only do the outlines of the spaces and people knocked them for being nearly illegible?

RobertB wrote: In the "I can't believe you haven't played this" department, I had never played Race For the Galaxy before last night. My ex-coworkers organized a Tuesday night game on Boardgamearena, and that was the game they picked. So I sprung for the Steam version a half hour beforehand and played a couple of games to get familiar with it, then played a couple of games against real live humans. I can see why it has its rep; I can see there are multiple ways to get points and win. It feels like a revved-up San Juan, which isn't a bad intro to tableau builders.

RftG is still one of my favorite games of all time. It single-handedly fired most low to middle weight Euros for me. I'd generally rather play X number of games of RftG in the time it takes to play any similarly complex VP churning game.

That Keldon link is addictive though, and the AI is pretty good too...