What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Charlie, if it makes you feel any better, I picked up Sovereign's Chain because of your review. It's a good game, just (for me) lacked a bit compared to other choices in the same space.

Jackwraith: I might agree that TEW is my favorite in the family, although I think Tiny Epic Tactics barely takes top spot for now. Squad-based fantasy combat seems a little more thematically realized then the general abstraction that the line reduces to overall.

Eric: I've heard rumors of that, and it's disheartening to say the least. What a horrible missed opportunity to bring people into the fold. It looks like the expansion adds card removal to the game; I'll have to see if that's something that can be seamlessly integrated or not. The whole "this game might be crazy hard!" thing seems very anachronistic at this point. I remember playing a P&P of Barbarian Prince where that seemed to be the major design principle: "make a game where you randomly die, so there's a ton of replayability because maybe this time you'll get to the spot on the other side of the map." Of course the answer in this day and age is "thanks but I'll play something else," and it's a little sad that Harry Potter succumbs to that. Like others have said, a real waste of a license. But not to worry about my spouse; she only games socially, i.e. if everyone else is, so she'll be gritting her teeth regardless! #gamerwin

That makes me feel worse, but it happens. At least it was a relatively cheap one.

My daughter continued her tradition of completely destroying me at Villainous tonight. She won with Evil Queen in what must be record time. I was Horned King and just could get my shit together at all. Maybe I just need to go back to Prince John.

After that I set up Kanban EV to learn. Folks this game is quite possibly the classiest and most refined looking board game I have ever seen. Eagle Gryphon really pulled out all the stops here- it is deluxe in every sense of the word. Opening it up was like opening an Apple product right down to the Cupertino sterility. After being dazzled by it (Ian O’Toole deserves all the praise he gets these days), I set it up and GOOD GOD I felt like a dog staring at a computer. I imagined Shellhead’s brain exploding. Somewhere out there Mr. Skeletor was shaking his head and calling me a hypocrite and a traitor or whatever.

After about an hour of what the hell do I do, it started to come together. I’ve not played any Lacerda games and I went in expecting something maybe Feldian. Point salad, resource conversions, that kind of thing. This was not that at all. It seems to be very much about manufacturing points by hitting certain touchpoints there are only five different workstations and each are supremely focused on specific sub-goals that roll up into your overall agenda of making cars and making them better. You are not rewarded simply for taking your turn. You only have one worker. The only time one resource becomes another is if you use a Parts Voucher as a wildcard. There’s a strong investment angle even though there is no currency.

And here’s the biggest surprise...it’s more “thematic” than TI4. And without a lick of text on the in game components. No player powers to create a setting. It’s incredibly NOT abstract, and I think that’s why it comes across as really fucking complicated. You have to get a design from that department, go to the warehouse to get parts, head to R&D to test the cars after they roll off the assembly line, spend extra shifts to work longer, spend little book tokens to get certified in the departments, give speeches touting your goals, and then have the boss come through and rip on you if you are falling behind. It almost feels like Lacerda has figured out how to use pure Eurogame mechanisms to simulate rather than abstract, like Rosenberg at his best.

Thing is, it’s not as complicated to me as COIN games or something like Navajo Wars is, but it’s a story told completely in player actions and rebuses rather than in text and background. The interlocking mechanisms are intricate and the end results of actions are not clear at first. I definitely had a lightbulb moment when I worked out how the short term goals build into longer term ones.

God help me I am not looking forward to teaching it. I’ve got two buddies interested and I’m going to make them watch Rodney or something. The solo game looks good, thankfully.

There is definitely a game here...I am wondering if it’s going to be “fun” or just interesting though. But as I was packing it in I half thought about going back to one with it and had it been earlier I might have.

I’ve got The Gallerist coming too, the whole art museum setting is an attractant for me. Really curious about his other titles now.

I’ve only ever looked at Lacerda designs with a sense of dread and trepidation but gosh you make Kanban sound interesting. Is there interaction in the multiplayer game? Or just action denial/got there first bonuses? It’s too easy to make general assumptions from a distance on this kind of game but it sounds like it defies cursory expectations.

dysjunct wrote: Jackwraith: I might agree that TEW is my favorite in the family, although I think Tiny Epic Tactics barely takes top spot for now. Squad-based fantasy combat seems a little more thematically realized then the general abstraction that the line reduces to overall.

Totally fair. I really like that one, too, and I agree that they did a great job in presenting the "universe" that it operates in. What holds me back on it is the seeming mechanical flaw of players starting in the bottom two spots being disadvantaged in making it to the control areas (which can be somewhat alleviated by drafting characters.)

Michael Barnes wrote: My daughter continued her tradition of completely destroying me at Villainous tonight. She won with Evil Queen in what must be record time. I was Horned King and just could get my shit together at all. Maybe I just need to go back to Prince John.

I don't think it's you. I'll be getting into that problem in parts 2 and 3 with Hades and Horned King, respectively. Both of them are burdened by pace issues that makes them basically immune to "the perfect draw." No matter how good your cards are, it's still going to take 4 turns to put all your Cauldron Born in play and that's assuming that you somehow have the Power to pay for all your Ancient Soldiers every turn (basically impossible.) There are a couple villains that they kinda missed the boat on in terms of difficulty and I think Horned King is one of them, not because of reaching too far in design restrictions like Ursula, but simply because he's too slow to compete with most of the other characters.

I hate those Eagle deluxe reprints. They take a totally fine $40 game and turn it into a $100-200 game that doesn't fit on the shelf and is stuffed with extra crap for no reason. I wouldn't care if they also reprinted the sane version of the game. But like their reprint of Rococo is more expensive than buying the expensive OOP original secondhand. Fuck off with that

Re Lacerda games, I haven't liked any later ones I've tried. They skew too far into complexity for the sake of complexity, and feel like too much work for the enjoyment i get out of them. I do still want to try Kanban sometime. Vinhos is the only one of his games that I've really enjoyed with no reservations.

LOL that Rococo looks amazing though...I thought about it but $130...I dunno, I actually really like that they went full, well, Rococo with it. But that is also as much as buying 2 or even 3 other “really nice” games. And they MAPP, so it ain’t no cheaper anywhere else.

I’m definitely thinking about the question of complexity for complexity’s sake in Kanban...so far I don’t think that’s what I’m getting out of it because I’m feeling more like it is using layered Eurogame mechanics to create a more simulationist, very specific kind of highly structured design. And that -may- be worth the complexity. But I’ve also just fumbled through a two hand learning game so I’m left with questions...

In other news, in finally sorted out how to play Terra Mystica...I kind of learned it when it came out and then forced all knowledge of it out of my head. Playing the app is kinda good? I can’t imagine playing with other people though.

@mezike It’s definitely passive aggressive interaction. There’s a good bit about jockeying for position on these certification tracks because when Sandra the Boss comes into a department whoever has the least training gets reviewed and subject to penalty. There’s some push and shove on the assembly line. But I would say it is mostly get the bonus/points/benefit first kind of stuff.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. By the look of it Eagle did a really good job on Kanban regardless of their other premium editions, the board seems much easier to parse than the first edition. I like that they made Sandra the factory manager but less so they chose a pink meeple, it’s like they got so much right while getting so much wrong.

It kinda looks like a boardgame about competitive internships - who will be selected as the best at the end of the tenure including plenty of shameless self promotion.

I’m going to try this out on TTS later this week; the learning video put out by Jongetsgames is good, I prefer his presentation style to Rodney.

charlest wrote: That makes me feel worse, but it happens. At least it was a relatively cheap one.

Don't even sweat it; every other game purchase that one of your reviews factored into was a hit. It's not a bad game; I just prefer others in the space.

We borrowed a copy of Root from some friends who were overwhelmed by the rules and asked for my help in teaching it. After a couple of two-player games with my son, we finally met up with them and played a full game of it this weekend. I was the Forest Alliance, and in spite of kind of a slow start at some point I figured out that using their Organization action was a really strong one later in the game. I ended up winning a narrow victory over the Eyrie, who could just get to 29 points in the last turn. It turns out that the Marquis de Cat was also quite close on a domination victory. Both would have won on their next turn. The only person who wasn't close was my son, playing the Vagabond. He was spending the game picking fights but not getting quests. He didn't play very well, but he had fun still.

It's a pretty great design. Even though it is quite challenging to internalize, it does a good job of giving a few basic things that everyone does, and then showing all of the unique processes for each player very clearly on the player board. Each player needs to figure out the things that bring them VP, and it takes about half a game for someone to say, "aha, I should be doing this."

Seems like the sort of game that is really pleasurable the more you play it and internalize it. Looks like we'll have the chance, my son wants us to get a copy of it at some point. Looks like we'll be taking a look at the reprint whenever that comes around.

Should be soon, there's a new printing on the way.

Played Spirit Island 3 times this weekend, which is as endlessly inventive as ever. Played the Shroud of Mist spirit which wants to damage things without killing them, making them hang around damaged. It's a fear spirit so it still sort of has that problem that it's hard to feel like you're doing much or making progress even when you're tearing through the fear deck for the table, which is a big contribution.

Played a game of Arkham Horror, my wife's favorite game. We won in a battle against one of the easy GOOs (ice guy) by just gunning him down. We had a great time overall, as usual, despite the big investment of setup. Obviously, that end game being too easy is a problem they fixed later. One thing that I never get used to, though, is how I really do not like the rumors. I think it's actually the biggest problem with the design. You get no preparation for them and even though they put the pressure on they're just kind of unfun spendathons for the most part. I know it's been ages since anyone played here, but did anyone ever come to any good house rules on rumors? Part of me just feels like pitching all of them.

The best GMs know which rules to ignore.