What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Had a great 4 player game night last night:

Thunder Road: Vendetta - I just have the retail version. Much fun was had by all, and the whole thing was over due to one player going out just as we were about to introduce the fourth road section. When a player is eliminated, the current last road section becomes the finish line.

Betrayal at House on the Hill 3rd edition - We were supposed to start Betrayal Legacy, which my friend has been sitting on for years. But he was too lazy to punch it out, so we did his also new copy of 3rd edition, which he apparently HAD punched.

Some minor rules adjustments have taken place between 2nd and 3rd edition, mostly involving how the haunt comes to be. These changes seem fine. There is also a handy "omen tracker" now so you don't have to keep counting every player's omen cards. The mini sculpts are better, but they are unpainted now.

The art has been upgraded, and overall things look good... which leads me to my only real component complaint. The color (a very dark green) used on the character boards to indicate your starting stats is virtually unreadable against its black background.

The earliest that the haunt could start would be the third omen card revealed, and sure enough, it was the third omen card revealed. Only one person had any items. The Haunt ended up being fully cooperative (Friendly House on the Hill) and we swiftly perished. Good times.

They Live! the card game - This game continues to delight. I was an alien, as was a friend of mine. The shuffle was not ideal, leading to a ton of pistol ammo being offered, but nary a pistol to be seen. My compatriot was Frank, I was Nada. Frank has a real bummer of an early game disadvantage, in that since he has the most health, he always goes last, which gives him essentially no choices of what cards to collect. As a counter to this, he also ends up getting clobbered by enemies until his health gets low enough that he gets to go earlier in the round.

As Nada, I'm almost as strong as Frank, so I would normally go third in turn order, but I obtained the Preacher, who allows me to roll a die and potentially go first. This was of great help to me. Eventually one of the humans used Hoffman lenses (everyone loved the real glasses gimmick this game uses, and it is truly a great effect) to identify my partner as an alien. Interestingly enough, he kept his info to himself, not even trying to convince the rest of the table of what he had seen. I used this to try to turn the other human against him, to limited success.

My friend was soon eliminated after that, and since it was his first game, he didn't think to do a self reveal before he got killed. This would have fully healed him. Both humans were near death, and one of them used Hoffman lenses on the other. So they both now knew I was the remaining alien player. On my turn I did a self reveal, fully healed, and then used a sniper rifle to destroy one of them. Taking all of their cards, I now had 3 of the 4 city districts required to win. On the next round, I killed the other human, for an alien victory. SLEEP

hotseatgames wrote: Had a great 4 player game night last night:

Thunder Road: Vendetta - I just have the retail version. Much fun was had by all, and the whole thing was over due to one player going out just as we were about to introduce the fourth road section. When a player is eliminated, the current last road section becomes the finish line.

I played two games of this with 4 players yesterday as well. I have Maximum Chrome and use almost everything. Our first game didn't get to a new road tile either. The lead player managed to take out the last car of someone else before his next (winning move).

The second game we added in the Final Five motorcycle faction. You get five motorcycles that are small vehicles and they can always move through other vehicles when moving. The previous game's winner took the bikes and he was on the very last space on the lead tile and tried the same tactic as before but failed his shooting attack. The next tile turned out to be the Ring of Fire tile (most of it covered in fire, obviously) and he was able to hit a ramp and rolled a 4 to catapult him forward. Of course the road condition we drew for that new tile was Windy, which prevents choppers from being deployed on that tile, so by the next time it came around to him, it was the final tile and he won again. He deserved it, after his abysmal showings in previous plays of the game.

That was the first time I've seen the motorcycles used and they are better than I anticipated. They are hard to shoot at and driving through other cars is huge. I can't wait to try the Big Rig next time.

THUNDER ROAD (base game only) with the 9yo this morning. She demolished me before we got to the fourth road tile. Proud geek dad moment.

She likes the game a lot, so I went all-in on the Kickstarter to get Maximum Chrome and all the expansions. Will have a base game for sale this winter sometime.

The old crew made the trip down the freeway for a weekend of gaming. Lots of established favorites. We only cracked rulebooks for two games. We took a second run at Ra and actually followed the rule that auctions triggered by Ra tiles don’t wipe the lineup if no one bids. Much better. It’s been said before, but Ra is the realness. No notes.

Also tried Sheriff of Nottingham for the first time because a friend scored it from Goodwill for $7. Doesn’t quite feel there. The pageantry of the inspection is fun, but the incentive to lie doesn’t feel strong enough. Getting runs of legal goods and scoring the majority bonuses was way more powerful than the occasional mead or pepper. Liar’s Dice doesn’t have the same thrill of staring down the sheriff after declaring five chickens but is just the better game in the same zone.

Lots of established favorites otherwise. My run of absolute futility continued in Quacks of Quedlinburg. I went from scraping 70 points in Fantasy Realm to near max points of 253 in two games. Barely missed first in Winner’s Circle but did get to see two pace horses miss the podium entirely. Eventually won four missions of The Crew. There was way more communication than intended, but we needed the wins. Lost Greed hard because someone stole the $10K I needed to build my club and thus cost me $110K. No idea what I was doing in Hansa Teutonica, but it didn’t work at all. The winner of Speicherstadt didn’t take a single ship or contract but did stop every fire and scored all the counting offices and got a point for every dollar left over. Taught one of them Star Wars Unlimited. He wasn’t impressed by the lack of reactions and instants but now has a budget deck of singles in the mail. My oldest boys convinced them to play Ticket to Ride Europe, Marvel United and The DC Deck-Building Game.

Great weekend.

Weird day. Apocalyptic forecasts ranged from 6" to 16" of snow today, but got downgraded this morning to 2" to 4", with a low temperature of 33F (slightly above freezing) for the afternoon and evening that would prevent some of that snow from sticking. My lunch date cancelled because of a medical issue with her dog, and 2 out of my 4 Call of Cthulhu players refused to un-cancel for this evening despite the revised forecast.

So I pulled out my huge Firefly: the Game 10th edition case and set up a solitaire four-player game, to put the whole game (all expansions) through its paces. My four random captains are Petaline (from Heart of Gold), the (lesbian) Councillor, Cap'n Jayne, and Malcom Reynolds. Petaline randomly got the new Restless Sole ship, which has less cargo space but can Mosey for 2. All the other captains randomly got normal Firefly ships, and Mal's is actually Serenity.

Counting shuffling all the decks, priming the supply discard piles, dealing out jobs and money, etc, it took me 45 minutes to set up. During this time, the Alliance Cruiser had mysteriously disappeared from the table. I did hear my younger cat Valerie chewing on something earlier, and yes, found a slightly damaged Alliance Cruiser on the floor.

My young brown tabbie cat is a Browncoat!

I played for three hours, including a dinner break that included watching part of the pilot episode of Firefly. After a very rough start, Jayne seized a big lead after hiring Yolanda and successfully committing two of her capers, including The Lassiter Job. She got disgruntled twice and quit in the middle of the second caper, so Jayne had to fly back to where he found her in order to re-hire her and retry the caper. Mal had a chance to marry Yolanda first, but had his eyes on a different and more reliable Companion. However, there is now a Cortex Alert out on Yolanda, so the other captains may feel tempted to seek her $4,000 bounty.

The Councillor was also having a pretty good game, getting away with some moderately dangerous crime jobs while exploiting her special ability: borrow one item from a discard pile until the end of her turn. She also hired Wash, which may eventually come in handy. Mal started off slow and safe with a couple of very convenient legal shipping jobs, but recently hired Inara and is ready to attempt some serious crime. Petaline started well but lost her sidekick Saffron (aka Yolanda) to Jayne and got roughed up by both Alliance and Reavers. I plan on playing until some Captain has $20,000, and Jayne only needs to pull off one or two more jobs to get there.

The full game is a lot of fun. The various expansions do add some rules, but the fundamental structure of the game is solid, relatively simple, and thematic. The biggest improvement is the travel decks seem more eventful, but not in ways that necessarily slow down the game.

Had quite a game day yesterday. Started by heading over to a friend's house for some two player games:
Ghost Stories - my first time in forever, his first time ever. We got the hang of it pretty quickly, and did exorcise a lot of ghosts, but the game still destroyed us, as it does.

Masters of the Universe - his first play. I let him be the "One" as evil, and I took the Many as the heroes. It was my first time not being the One. The objective of the scenario was to pick up 3 objective tokens, and he was able to accomplish that pretty handily. This game continues to impress; it has excellent components, is easy to understand, and swift to play. I also suspect that when you get a table full of experienced players, it probably gets very cut-throat. I have never played with more than 2 players.

Later was some 5 player lighter stuff. We started with a dice game called Qwixx. It's an extremely casual push your luck dice game. It's fine, but nothing to see here.

Next was another casual game, Five Crowns. This is a casual set collection card game, but we were playing for real money, which turned it into a maddening exercise, as one player continually laid down all their cards on the first or second go-around. They ended up with over $12 of change.

We ended the evening with everyone's first play of Cat in the Box. I had read the rules 2 or 3 times and watched our good friend Rodney's video, so I knew what was going on. Rodney is so goddamn good at teaching. I was not prepared for how quickly this game gets challenging, as the board fills up and your choices get more limited. I ended up in second place, a full 10 points behind the lead, who never created a paradox. Everyone really enjoyed the game. Putting those little plastic gems back in the box is a pain in the ass; I may just take the included insert and chuck it, using small bags instead.

The second game we added in the Final Five motorcycle faction

[reaches for wallet]

hotseatgames wrote: Putting those little plastic gems back in the box is a pain in the ass; I may just take the included insert and chuck it, using small bags instead.

This is the way. Did that exact thing and have not regretted it.

At my eldest’s request (and I stress at his request), I am teaching him Star Wars Unlimited. We started with just 30 ground units that were blank or only used keywords and have worked up to using leader abilities and space units. Upgrades and events are still to come, but he’s doing alright. He follows the rules pretty well and even makes the right strategic decisions sometimes. Mostly I’m happy when he rolls with the punches. He can get stressed and upset when things feel unfair or are unanticipated, but he’s doing better than I expected with that.

The eldest also continues to death march me through every new DC Deck-Building Game variant. We tried the multiverse mode which offers a more interesting way to use your entire collection instead of one big pile with multiple, rotating line-ups and new cards that encourage buying from multiple sets. There are some interesting ideas in multiple victory conditions and direct attacks made by controlling super villains, but it’s so clunky. You’re constantly shuffling and switching between 100+ size decks just to play a single card. That’s a big problem for a game whose greatest asset was its speed and ease of play. Sometimes I want to give the designers credit for doing the best they could by innovating on a basic system. Then I see the incredible solo and co-op modes for Ashes Rise of the Phoenixborn and Fantasy Flight’s Legend of the Five Rings LCG. These are much more interesting and fun and built on way more complex foundations. Like every iteration of the DC Deck-Building Game I’ve played, the multiverse just feels lazy. It feels like no one cared about it. It was just a work assignment.

My oldest son is officially a teenager, and among other things he requested a play of Oceans with the Legends of the Deep expansion.

Legends of the Deep adds special character cards that you have a pre-game draft of, and then you can play them during the game. Something like a Leader from 7 Wonders. These give all of your species special powers, some big, some small for a points cost.

I ended up playing Turtle People - which gives everyone 10 defense, and then replaced it with Lobstermen. Lobstermen makes is so that you no longer age, instead you gain it the population you would have scored, and instead score overpopulation. Which should put a huge target on your back.

I *like* legends of the deep, but i don't love it. It's an expansion that's easy to use, and easy to take out. it feels like the power levels on the legends varies wildly (but we only played it once) and can take focus away from the cool deep cards that can come out. Still, for a game about combos, it's nice to have another piece to combo with. Not a must have, and we'll definitely play without them from time to time.

I also got a free copy of Evolution: Another World. another game in the evolution line, this one is simplified, but still not a 'kids' game. Gorgeous art. No 'population' scoring like in previous games, but instead you are in a race to 'transmute' three of your species, which basically means generate 3/4 resources on a species and use an action to spend those resources.

It only has 16? i think traits. and it has attacks, but they are fairly minimal and there are a lot of 'defensive' abilities to counter them. Cards are used both as species markers and as traits. traits are doubled up (top/bottom different traits) which means you have alot of options in each hand.

It's fine. There was a lot of effort to get away from VP counting, which is good. and a lot of effort to make attacking useful, but less mean. There are several ways to 'jump' on a score, but it feels like there's less ways to connect your species together and gain a turn on your opponents. It's absolutely quicker than Evolution or Oceans. I think it's the weakest of those three. but we did only play one game of it. We did run out of cards in the last hand, which probably means that we should have ended it one turn earlier, but still frustrating.

DarthJoJo wrote: The eldest also continues to death march me through every new DC Deck-Building Game variant. We tried the multiverse mode which offers a more interesting way to use your entire collection instead of one big pile with multiple, rotating line-ups and new cards that encourage buying from multiple sets. There are some interesting ideas in multiple victory conditions and direct attacks made by controlling super villains, but it’s so clunky. You’re constantly shuffling and switching between 100+ size decks just to play a single card. That’s a big problem for a game whose greatest asset was its speed and ease of play. Sometimes I want to give the designers credit for doing the best they could by innovating on a basic system. Then I see the incredible solo and co-op modes for Ashes Rise of the Phoenixborn and Fantasy Flight’s Legend of the Five Rings LCG. These are much more interesting and fun and built on way more complex foundations. Like every iteration of the DC Deck-Building Game I’ve played, the multiverse just feels lazy. It feels like no one cared about it. It was just a work assignment.

It's too bad that your eldest latched on to the DC characters, because Marvel Champions is a very good game.

Tomorrow, I have 3 or 4 friends coming over to play Android. This will probably be the first time I have played since 2010. I soured on the game slightly because one of my smartest friends found a way to break the game the last time we played. He focused on the conspiracy puzzle, stockpiled political favors, and managed to connect all four sides of the conspiracy to City Hall, for a big VP haul. Somebody else solved the murder, but earned less VP and therefore lost the game.

Anyway, I'm psyched to play again. The smart guy lives across the country, and I won't be telling the other players about his broken strategy. We first planned to play this game four years ago, but the Covid lockdown got in the way and then we were all spooked for a long time afterwards. I like to burn music mixes for my favorite games, so I spent some time during the first year of the pandemic putting together music mixes for an Android game of up to six hours. The Blade Runner theme, of course, and then a lot of synthpop and synthwave.

Shellhead wrote: ...Android...

I've never played this one. I know that a lot of people really loved it, and FFG obviously never gave it a version 2.0 treatment, but did any other game ever really represent an update of any variety?

Forsaken, an upcoming Travis Chance game that funded on Kickstarter last year, looks to be the closest thing. At least from the perspective of heavily character driven narrative adventure game.

There is a fan-made complete rewrite of Android's rules that some have argued completely missed the designers' intentions. I haven't tried it.