What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

haha, god, skin gremlins is perfect for those monstrosities.

The slow return to normalcy... Saw a friend that I haven't seen in a year-and-a-half, even though he lives 10 minutes from here. With four people in the house, we decided to break out some cardboard. First up was Taj Mahal, which I haven't played in an age. I have this thing that, when I'm teaching games, I tend to pay less attention to how I'm playing and more toward making sure everything is functioning smoothly. Consequently, my hand management was poor and I missed the chance to chain almost anything more than one province when placing palaces. So, I came in dead last and another player scored six and seven points in successive rounds (11 and 12) which gave them the win with some distance. I still find Taj to be one of Knizia's wonkier games but it's also one that, as a result, improves markedly with subsequent plays.

Then said friend left and I decided to pull out Abyss, since both of the people remaining had played it before and it usually wraps up fairly quickly (much beer had been consumed at this point.) I didn't include either Kraken or Leviathan, since I didn't feel like explaining the extra stuff and both players had only played once before, so we stuck with the base game. However, I've noticed that, if you include the new Lords that came with the expansions, there's some dilution of the number of Lords with keys, so we only used one location among the three of us before one recruited their 7th Lord and the endgame was triggered. That person also won handily, 62-46-36. Next time, we'll use at least Leviathan for sure, since both of them commented on the underwhelming aspect of the monster fights, which Leviathan was designed to upgrade. Plus, useless minis!

My sister in law and nephew came over yesterday and my wife and I played 10 hands of The Crew with them, starting with Mission 1. Nephew didn't know anything about trick taking, and my wife want far behind him there. It's such a great game to play with trick taking newbies so you can see the lights switch on re what we're trying to do. It's just a phenomenal game, and I'm looking forward to getting that group back together soon to continue through the missions. We got up to I mission 8 or so?

My niece joined us then for a 5p game of Ra. Ra is kind of savage at 5, and the luck is ramped up A LOT, but it's still one of my all time favorite games. Everyone enjoyed it, though it certainly ran longer than I want a game of Ra to go (3 first timers will do that). I lost 7 points on the first round, since I literally didn't get a single tile... That's the luck I was taking about I did manage to make a run for it by the end though, and ended up in second by 2 points. My niece won it with 38, and much fun was had by all.

The best part was all the of them saying "man I should come down here and play games more often", since they live like a block up the road. Think we've got a game of Merchant of Venus in the works for the near future. Thanks, covid vaccine!

I think The Crew may very well be the Citizen Kane of Trick taking games- it is an outright master stroke of design. It is just brilliant how it functions as a comprehensive guide to trick taking concepts and strategies. For a modern audience, I think it was smart to write it co op but it still has the same principles of playing to win, playing to lose, playing to lead, using hand information, etc. I’ve played it a bunch on BGA with my D&D group (it is one of our plan B games along with Rallyman and Can’t Stop). We’ve had some totally new players grow into proper card sharps. Really want to get ahold of the sequel.

My son decided yesterday that he wanted to get back into Pokémon and demanded I take him out to find cards. I explained the situation. But he was unwavered. And lo, there just aren’t any out there to buy. He wound up with the Battle Academy thing and we played it a bunch last night. It’s fun worth $20 but man, those decks are limited. Very basic but it is all inclusive if you just want a baseline Pokémon experience.

A close friend was back in town for a few weeks, and yesterday was our last chance to hang out before he flew back to Florida. We played two games of Masters of the Night and two games of Camp Grizzly.

We lost both games of Masters of the Night. Even though it is full co-op, I don't do the alpha player thing even if it means the difference between winning and losing. In the first game, my friend wanted to experiment with the idea of letting the agents (hunters) pile up in a non-critical section of the city and just leave them alone. I knew that wasn't a good idea because our vampires need to be constantly killing agents to rack up body count and level up. Also, the Veil gets knocked down every time an agent is supposed to spawn but can't because there aren't any available. The second game was closer, but we lost because we didn't quite max out the Veil every turn, and a series of unfortunate events knocked it down to zero one turn. This really is a good game, except for the burden of constantly tending to the Veil. But I suspect that house-ruling it would make the game too easy because it's such a tight design.

The first game of Camp Grizzly was a win. We managed to collect a set of three items for a finale early on, but the struggle to get everybody to the exit left 2 of our 4 counselors dead. Then I made a sacrifice play to delay Otis for one more turn so my friend's character CJ could escape. He survived his finale easily, which involved a canoe trip and a waterfall.

My friend played CJ again in the second game, so I declared the second game to be the sequel: Camp Grizzly II: CJ's Reckoning. One of my characters died early, but again we managed to pull together a set of three items. Two of our characters made it to the finale exit, but the remaining character was reduced to a Move of 1 due to injuries, so we left him behind instead of chancing three more turns before leaving. We got the Road Rage finale, which required us to identify one player as the driver. Thematically, I thought that CJ should be the driver, but he was better armed than my hippy chick Saffron, and he guessed that he might need to do some shooting while I drove. I laughed and warned him, "Lady drivers: no survivors." Sure enough, he had to defend us against a hostile driver, but then Saffron failed her driving roll and we went off a cliff and died in a fiery car crash.

The counselor that we left behind was the badly-injured and misanthropic Jackson, who was now our only chance to win. He soon got injured in a way that left him bleeding out slowly. A d4 roll of 1 at the end of his turn would do 1 point of injury, which would be just enough to kill him. And the only available set of keys was in a square where there was a fire burning (50% chance of 1 point of injury). And yet, Jackson just wouldn't quit. He crawled around, found weapons and other useful items. Otis kept attacking, and Jackson won every fight. Eventually, Jackson collected 2/3 of a set of items and even found a camper who did some first aid on him. He ran out of shotgun shells, but picked up a meat cleaver and a bully camper who gave him a combat bonus. He cleared every remaining objective token without completing an item set, so a whole new set of objective tokens entered play. But Otis finally caught up with Jackson again, and finally managed to win a fight. Jackson died and the bodycount hit 13. Game over. My friend couldn't stop raving about how cool it was that it looked like the star of the first game was going to win again and died in that fluke car accident midway through the second game.

We had a nice time in a 5p (five on and off, paying various levels of attention) game of Exit: The Enchanted Forest. This was our first such game, and my older daughter, whose game it was, was the one most engaged, in part because she likes escape rooms. Even though this was on the easier end, we struggled with several of the puzzles, even though, when we looked at the clues, we were usually very close conceptually. Anyway, it was great having all three kids around the table for what ended up being about three hours, and this particular Exit had some really neat elements. We may end up trying another one now that we have a little idea of what we're doing.

My wife and I took Fast and Furious: Highway Heist, from Prospero Hall, for a ... drift. We both like the movies, so the theme was the main draw. This game seems solid, but I'd guess that they missed the mark if they were trying to get a playable game for the general public. I was shocked, in fact, when I saw the Rodney Smith Watch It Played was over 30 minutes, but, other than arguably spending too much time on all the if-then logic, it really probably does take about that long to convey given that there are eight(?) actions that can be taken and a lot of literal and figurative moving parts. But for a $30 package, it's a fair bit of game and has a nice table presence.

Played a few games of Lovecraft Letter last night. We had four, which I would offer as probably the minimum where the game (or any version of Love Letter) becomes really good. There's enough interplay at that number to really let the various options presented by the cards, including the Insanity cards, shine. Two games were won by Cthulhu being discarded into a pile that already contained two Insanity cards and then several were won in the more conventional manner, leaving me and another player sitting on a Sane and Insane victory token for a while before he finally picked up the second Sane victory needed to end the game. The whole session actually ran a little longer than I expected. It didn't overstay its welcome, but I remember thinking that it was intended to be the opener to some other stuff (we played more Abyss afterwards) and it had kind of turned into a "game" game in its own right. It might've been just a group that is somewhat prone to AP and although the decisions presented by the cards aren't especially complex, they're certainly somewhat moreso with this version of the game than with others.

Love Letter tops out at 3 imo, specifically because it lasts longer than I want Love Letter to last with more than 3.

I taught Merchants of Venus to Sornars and Mezike the other day on TTS which was quite enjoyable. Personally I find it hard to track board states on TTS regardless of game, and MoV didn't help. I believe the version we were playing was a PnP update of the original AH version. Keeping track of what is in demand etc wasnt the easiest, and I'm used to the FFG reprint's renumbered civilizations and slurpy easier readability rather than the weird 1a 1b stuff in the original. Anyway, all that being said it was still a lot of fun! The supply and demand system of MoV combined with the straightforward game mechanics that put the focus squarely on picking up and delivering and planning efficient routes to do so, but sometimes tempting you out of your planned route to tactically take advantage of emerging demands... I just love all of it. I think the gents I taught it to picked it up by the end and enjoyed it, but it's certainly a game that makes more sense after you've played about half a game of it.

Ah_Pook wrote: Love Letter tops out at 3 imo, specifically because it lasts longer than I want Love Letter to last with more than 3.

That's fair. I just like the loose, social nature of the game because it moves so quickly and because the '1' cards (Investigators and Deep Ones in this version) allow for some 'play the player' poker guessing (I knocked out players three times by guessing their card in hand.) The Cthulhu theming is an upside with most of my players, too. That social nature is enhanced with more players, too.

Speaking of that Abyss game: In contrast to the previous play, locations were much more prominent, since I took the lead in grabbing one early on. My girlfriend continued with her winning approach from the previous game, only taking Lords without keys and generally Farmer Lords, who tend to lack powers and have higher IP values. We got a LOT of Farmer Lords this game, which put Seahorses in some demand on the Explore track. But there was also a lot more traffic in the Court, which meant that we went through several surges of building up stacks and then having multiple players in succession take those stacks off the board. Since we had two new players, we again didn't use either expansion and again both new players commented on the underwhelming nature of the monster 'fights'. So, next time for sure, we're adding Leviathan (and probably Kraken.) I was actually the only one who did fight the monsters, getting three monsters tokens and a key token which propelled me to a 75-71-61-56 win.

I play Lovecraft Letter a lot with the kids and I find the two player game pretty good. However, I also enjoy standard Love Letter with just two players. Obviously there's not as much guessing, but the three face up cards give just enough information to allow you to make informed choices.

Oath - It is what people say it is. Totally enthralling. I haven't even really played it yet because we haven't seen the repercussions of the past age. You really need to play this multiple times and give it time to develop and breathe.

Everyone in my group loved it and we found it easy enough to get along with. I basically copied Cole's teaching structure from the Dicebreaker playthrough and of course used the standard chronicle setup. We did not do the tutorial and it caused no issues. Everyone picked it up fast enough. I didn't explain Citizens and the Banners until the second round which kept the information burden lower. I explained visions right when the first one came up (why does the Law of Oath not give a list of what all of the visions are? That seems like a mistake).

It took about three hours, not including teaching, and we went the maximum length of 8 turns. The Chancellor barely pulled off victory by maintaining the Oath of supremacy. Yellow exhile grabbed the Oathkeeper title twice in the last few turns but the Chancellor had made red a Citizen which really allowed him to narrow the field and focus on just yellow and myself (blue).

I nearly won with the Banner of the People (or whatever its title is) and the associated vision, but the red citizen had just enough coins and just enough supply to stop me. If he was one shorter in either (or if I had one more coin when I nabbed the banner) I would have won. I timed the reveal almost perfectly.

Red did try some shenanigans and almost used the vision of the Conspiracy on the Chancellor, but he couldn't quite pull it off.

In the final turn I could grab the banner of the people back and hold it, but I couldn't win as either yellow would fulfill their vision of supremacy or the Chancellor would win on Oathkeeper - due to the board state. So instead I ended the era in a campaign of hate, attacking the Chancellors holdings and attempting to weaken his foothold for the future. I made an agreement with the yellow exile that if he won, he would make me a citizen post-game. Then I smashed two Chancellor sites in the provinces.

This wasn't enough as yellow failed to capture Oathkeeper due to not enough troops after a massive campaign. He couldn't settle the areas he conquered and the Chancellor won by hanging on to two sites.

Wow.

In terms of criticisms, I do worry about the end game where we spent tremendous time stopping people from winning. I don't find this quality too terrible, as I'm a big fan of Cyclades and Inis, but it's also not fantastic when it's drawn out every play. I'm hoping this doesn't occur every game but we will see.

Also, the board state is messy by game's end. Trying to remember what all of the denizen cards do is troublesome and turns would take much longer as people desperately tried to see if there was any neat synergies they could pull off. This may evaporate with time and as we become more familiar with our world deck.

Uk'otoa is not good. It's the first game from Darrington press, the Critical Role board game company that will put out games set in the Critical Role D&D campaign universe. This is like low-rent Survive. Just not much here.

Fort is a nifty deckbuilder. I really like how you steal cards from each other's decks.

Been playing a lot of Company of Heroes lately. It is a pretty excellent board game adaptation of the video game. I'm trying to really dig in and figure out how good I think it is.

Deranged ended up being relatively flimsy. There are things I really like about it (semi-coop, blend of scripted scenario events with emergent narrative, neat deckbuilding), but overall it sputters a bit too much and feels as though much should have been cut.

Ruination is still singing.

I played Clash of Cultures for the first time (with expansion), and it was good. I much prefer 4X games to Civ games, but I did enjoy how the tech tree in this game isn't exactly a tree and is pretty flexible. We didn't have conflict until way late in the game and the guy who avoided it the most won (building wonders). I didn't get a lot of tension from the first half and I'm not sure the game is worth the length, but it was enjoyable and I understand why people love it. It was probably the best civ game I've played - I'm not down with New Dawn like many of you here are.

Wins and losses determined by a margin of 1, king making, pacts to change the outcomes of future games - yep, that all sounds like Oath! Sounds like you had a blast. Minor quibble, the Law of Oath does list the vision conditions under the Victory section in 3.2. As Visions match the other Oaths, it might be handy to have the non-selected Oaths out for a first game just to demonstrate what the other win conditions can be. I'm deeply envious of the quality and quantity of gaming your group gets up to @charlest.

As for myself, a lot of my gaming has been online with folks on TWBG which has been one of the nicer things to happen as a result of the pandemic.

Oath I've been playing a bit of Oath async. One game with garysax and myself and another ongoing one with matthr and garysax. Async works surprisingly well but the 2p game is not really how this game is intended to be played. The social pressure of playing in real time is interesting as you often find yourself making gut decisions but async you have the space to breathe and explore the sequencing of your turn to make more optimal plays and plan out combos. I love this game, despite its evident flaws; this is easily a top 3 game for me. I find it so deeply compelling and interesting to play. Before the pandemic I never played games solo and I never would've imagined playing multi handed solo but I've played a few games of my physical copy three handed and the game has managed to surprise me despite being open information. Massive last ditch attacks and reversals of fortune have happened and the stories generated by my play and recorded in the chronicle are still entertaining. I look forward to my physical copy accruing its own weird personality in its World Deck, I have no intention of resetting it even if I have to teach any newcomers.

Merchants of Venus with Ah_pook and mezike. Ah_pook cautioned us against going through the center of the board while doing the initial teach but that information must've leaked out of my brain as I immediately started the game navigating the warp points and continued to bounce around there for a good 30-40% of the game. This game is pretty fantastic, I love the shift from exploration to finding optimal routes but the constant pressure of your opponents really makes it feel like a race. I know a common criticism of the game is that it's multiplayer solo but I think there's sufficient interaction through the demand cup and the market that forces you to be aware of the presence of the other players. I'm really looking forward to giving this another go. With a teach out of the way, I think we can get the playtime down to a reasonable number.

Unlock: Mythic Adventures I failed to follow my own advice from earlier in this thread and avoid this series. I saw a copy of this going for cheap and decided to pick it up, much to my regret. This has the same flashes of brilliance and flaws as the previous Unlock game I played. The highs are highs and the lows are low but the sum of the parts net out more low than high. I did appreciate the inclusion of the solutions booklet which at least explained things better than the app solutions.

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective This game is absolutely brilliant and does a wonderful job of capturing how insufferable it would've been to work alongside Holmes. Some cases were better than others but I've never felt a solution to be obtuse or unfair. I do find reading and remembering the newspapers to be a bit tedious though. I endeavour to minimise pointless trips but I don't feel too bad about my terrible scores, if I can correctly solve the mystery then I'm happy to consider that a partial win.

Unmatched My brother is not a board gamer but I managed to play a few games of Unmatched with him and he quite enjoyed it. The game is smart and plays fast and the small boxes have an excellent footprint for a 2 player game on the go.

Yes, I think you really need to observe closely what routes your opponent is planning on fulfilling in Merchant. The supply is not unlimited and getting halfway through a route and having the resources go out of stock is an absolute killer.

Good tip Sornars, glad the visions are listed and I just missed it. I looked first in the Law, heading to the section on Visions. Then I pivoted to the player aid, then I went to the Playbook and read about visions. At that point one player suggested it's fine if we're just surprised.

I did explain that I recalled one each having to do with the banners, and one pertaining to supremacy.