What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Went to my regular old Thursday night group for the first time in nearly a year. I didn’t expect to play one of my games, but no one there owned Root because they were used to me bringing it. So they were eager to play it.

In turn order: Vagabond (Adventurer), Eyrie- myself starting as Despot, Corvids, Duchy. We played on the mountain map with the E&P deck. Corvids had been a bird player in previous games, so took it upon himself to put me into turmoil when I put a Fox in battle. (The tower was on a fox space so I thought people would keep fighting over it, but he just vacated). A novice mistake on my end, duly punished. I switched to builder and we all crafted the Vagabond player to a questy victory. We never attacked him or got attacked by him. Corvid played bombed me a couple times and was threatening the lead, but with the Vagabond also going first he sailed into the win.

Corvid player happily announced that they’re his new favorite faction, Vagabond player said he doesn’t normally like DOAM games but will never turn down Root. Mole guy similarly enjoys it and doesn’t expect to win unless he’s the Vagabond. So despite having 19 points I’ll chalk this up as a successful return to Root.

@Legomancer sent me his extra copy of Dark Venture and the expansion, so i tried that out today on stream. Man... i kinda think this game is great?

To be fair, it is fiddly as hell and the rules are vague AF, but beyond that man I had a blast. the basic flow of the game is straightforward, the CYOA stuff is fun and makes the exploration more than just "i put out a tile that maybe has a monster on it", the combat is chunky and deadly, the heroic quests are flavorful and cool, and man the VIBE and the ART!

I don't think I would want to play it competitively... ever? maybe coop 2p, but as a solo game (using the unofficial/official solo variant) i think its fun. the two action/location books is such a great idea, so its not always the same thing on the same card every game. i hope the guy puts out a couple more, though it seems highly unlikely. I definitely am going to break out the expansion next time.

in my game i played as Dead The Fierce, who appears to be a robot or android. after having a variety of misadventures (becoming a knight, aiding the king's legionairres, being imprisoned by a plantman, hunting down my friend's murderer for vengeance, chasing a thieving Eggman all over the map, etc) I found a Temporal Beacon, which a warlock had told me held the key to returning to my own time. I made my way to the top of a tower and shouted "MY MEMORY, MY HOME!" and dissappeared through a temporal rift back to my original timeline. that was the last turn of the game, and I ended with 36QP (30 needed to win).

I like it a lot too. It's messy and way too fiddly, but it has something magical about it.

i punched and integrated the expansion stuff for next time. it adds crafting, and more cards to all the decks. the crafting seems potentially interesting, i guess it just remains to be seen how time effective it is.

i definitely messed up some rules here and there, but the overall shape of the game was preserved at least. i need to look through the massive rules FAQ thread on BGG. like i dont know what npc characters do at all, for one. the rulebook says they have 2AP but... for what?

i also was definitely tempted to late pledge Battle of the Ancients just now, but i know it would never ever get played so its hard to justify. it looks pretty awesome though, so we'll see if i tempt myself into it sometime between now and the unknownable delivery date. its got solo play...

Seems like a real low level activity vibes game.

Gary Sax wrote: Seems like a real low level activity vibes game.

its entirely vibe centric, which is why i wasnt too fussed about the rulebook being... pretty not good. like you can get the thrust across without worrying about the specifics too much. when in doubt probably its whichever thing is worse for you, and go. its also the reason i would hesitate to play this one multiplayer competitive. its all about dicking each other over, and the game is so random alread on top of that that the competitive aspect would be completely meaningless and the constant fucking with each other would be a grind. like solo it would be funny if i got locked up by a plantman in a dungeon and couldnt escape for half the game. not so much in a million hour long 4p game while im watching everyone take big turns and my turn is "i failed to roll high enough to escape".

That's the same mode I tend to be in for like a Rosenberg game. I respect it.

My boys have regressed. We have devolved from Carcassonne and Kingdomino to Go Fish. I would rather play Candy Land. At least then I can zone out when it’s not my turn.

And yet I can’t help but be a little proud of them. They’ve picked up that if I ask one brother for a five, the other should ask me for it to complete his pair. Just tonight the eldest realized he knew my hand when I had just one card after asking for a seven.

They're on the right track. Pretty soon they'll be tossing TeddyKGB lines at you:

"You're on a draw, dad? Throw away this one. It's not good for you."

Not yet, but one did tell me to stop asking him for tens after four rounds of getting nothing just to take it from me his next turn.

Manipulative or cheating? You be the judge.

Friend came over for boardgames yesterday. He requested Arkham Horror 2nd in advance, so I had it all set up. Setup would only take me about 10 minutes except that I shuffle all the cards. All the cards. I played Tommy the cop and Tony the bounty hunter, while my friend played Jenny the dilettante and Rita the athlete. We played with all the expansion boards on the table, with the house rule that we would only deal with the special challenge for the first expansion board that got referenced in an encounter, which turned out to be Dunwich. Our great old one was Atlach-Nacha the spider, aka Nacho. We did not want to do final battle with him because his "attack" kills an ally or investigator of our choice each round of combat. We also used a house rule of a maximum of one rumor per game, because rumors suck the fun out of the game.

All the strengths and flaws of Arkham Horror 2nd were on display this game. Every character had interesting encounters, but they didn't add up into a coherent narrative. We methodically marched towards sealing six gates for a win, and only had one burst gate along the way. We were awash in cash and clue tokens for much of the game, and ruthlessly whacked most of the monsters shortly after they hit the table. Sanity checks were a problem, so ended up collecting four different madness cards during the game. No spiders of Leng ever showed up, and we sealed six gates to avoid final battle, so Atlach-Nacha never really made his presence known. Game took about three hours, because my friend suffered from a bit of AP at times.

Then we put it all away and played a very short game of Camp Grizzly. We never found any weapons, and Otis got an average of 2-3 attacks every turn, due to Otis Strikes cards, the woods, Tempting Fate, and his normal move and attack turns. I think the whole game lasted 5 or 6 turns, and the final body count was 6. We actually managed to find all the items for a van escape, but made no progress towards the van before Otis killed all four characters. The final kill was slightly funny. Our last counselor was crawling at 1 speed, as Otis steadily closed in and got to the adjacent square. He was hoping to get a lucky cabin card draw, like maybe the shotgun or the chainsaw. He had just enough movement to reveal an objective token in his square, and was praying that it would be the first aid station. Instead, the token said Otis Strikes, and that was The End.

Ah_Pook wrote: @Legomancer sent me his extra copy of Dark Venture and the expansion, so i tried that out today on stream. Man... i kinda think this game is great?

I'm glad it found a good home! I admit, I hated it. I'm just not down with vague rules and a whole lot of fuss at the moment. So I'm glad it's in the hands of someone who appreciates it!

I finally set up my copy of High Frontier 4 All and am playing...not the game, and not the beginner game, but the tutorial for the beginner game. It's a scripted turn by turn introduction to actions and concepts. Europe just tried to send a rocket to Mars but alas, it blew up trying to land. So it goes.

It's introducing things pretty well, though I went through the whole fueling and moving a rocket thing twice to make sure I understand it.

I'm of course not reading Phil's notes because I try not to hate myself, but naturally one crept in to a footnote. The funny thing is, the footnote is attached to a bit in the tutorial where it's telling you to put a certain card into play, and there is no card with that name. Someone on BGG asked, "hey, when you mention the card of name "X", do you actually mean "Y"?" which is a yes or no answer so we can play the game. Phil once again dives into the footnote issue and the simps all reply with "EXCELLENT BON MOT PHIL WHAT EXQUISITE SATIRE LOLMYGOD!!!" but no one will answer the fucking question. It took someone else restating the question and saying "YES OR NO DO YOU ACTUALLY MEAN THIS OTHER CARD" to get Phil to reply "Yes". As I then observed, I suppose pushing his philosophy was more important at that point than proofreading the fucking tutorial rulebook.

(That's a little exquisite satire of my own, since these are the same types of dimbulbs who would complain that a game was too "political" or "pushing an agenda" if it included a black person or a woman.)

ANYWAY, despite knowing that I put a buck in Eklund's pocket I'm stoked to have this and am having fun learning it!

Legomancer wrote:

Ah_Pook wrote: @Legomancer sent me his extra copy of Dark Venture and the expansion, so i tried that out today on stream. Man... i kinda think this game is great?

I'm glad it found a good home! I admit, I hated it. I'm just not down with vague rules and a whole lot of fuss at the moment. So I'm glad it's in the hands of someone who appreciates it!

I fully understand not digging it, the game is very much a mess. But it vibes hard with my personal likes in that kind of thing, so I can get past the issues yknow.

I own both Magic Realm and Dark Venture. Both games offer a comparable experience, which is an adventure in a dangerous and uncivilized land. Both games also readily offer solitaire, cooperative, competitive, or semi-cooperative play. Magic Realm is highly respected and influential, in part because it allows players an unusual degree of control over their adventuring, while still offering a deadly and unforgiving combat system. Dark Venture is a lower-rated game, more random in play, with no chance of death though a risk of losing more than one turn due to unconsciousness. Objectively, I should get rid of Dark Venture and focus on playing Magic Realm. However, Magic Realm is a cumbersome game to set up, is weighed down with a very detailed and complex rule set, and takes a long time to play. Dark Venture is easy to set up and takes maybe 3 hours to play. So while I have spent many hours studying the Magic Realm rules and strategy, Dark Venture is the game that I actually end up playing.