What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Scott_F wrote: The only problem is we've had 6 people at game night almost every night for the last month or two and I can't find a 6 player game I actually like that much.

Random suggestions for six: Railways of the World, Bucket King, Struggle of Empires, three simultaneous games of Manoeuvre (using only one copy of the game!), Betrayal at House on the Hill, 6 Nimmt!, Cloud 9, Eldritch Horror, Snow Tails, Hare & Tortoise, Leaping Lemmings, Mall of Horror, Medici, Power Grid, Red November, Space Hulk: Death Angel, Terra, Tutanhkamen, Unspeakable Words.

Not many in the "heavier" category, I guess.

Come to think of it, we usually break into two 3-player games with six people.

I agree. At 6 players I'd rather do two 3 player games. And we don't play light games, Thunder Alley and Dogs of War are the lightest and with 5-6 they clock in at about 2 hours. Struggle of Empires was just bought and will probably get played sometime in the next month. Two games of Maria at the same time is an idea I would support.

Been playing a lot of Armada lately. Dig it but a single core set is not a great experience. Played 5 or 6 games thus far and I don't need anymore with the limited options in the core.

Fief last night for the first time. Game rocked. It was a five player game with two players forming a marriage/alliance early. They stomped out a player caught in between them who had two of his lords captured and was basically eliminated, brooding in a stronghold in some poorly developed French ground.

Meanwhile myself and the other independent player started pushing against these allies and we eventually formed our own alliance. We didn't do much fighting and instead opted to make a mad grab for religious titles, securing several bishoprics and my ally was able to grab two Cardinals. We formed up on our borders while the other alliance was still snuffing out the beaten down player and we developed.

Finally we were able to secure election of the Pope and the other alliance was unable to conduct a siege before the round ended with our families having 4 VP and securing the win.

There's a lot going on here and much to sink your teeth into, however, the overall structure and flow of the game is simple. Just quite a few gotchas and exceptions. It's basically any other dudes on a map/area control but the focus in victory shifted to acquiring Titles through owning Fiefdoms as well as the Church. Very interesting and kind of in that Game of Thrones niche. Took us 3 hours for our first game which wasn't bad. We'll be playing again next week.

Scott_F wrote: Absolutely no Imperial. Never. Ever. I only played it once as a 5 player game and it is in my top 5 most hated games after that. There was alot I didn't like about it, starting with you win by investing and wars aren't really wars, they are a form of investing. We didn't even come close to finishing it in about 4 hours. Games where you collect money are just not for me.

Dungeon Run is a better version of Cutthroat Caverns in many ways, is stabbity as all get-out, and is really a go-to, or rather WAS a go-to for us. It got old after maybe 15 plays, which is pretty decent in these parts, but while it WASN'T old, it was awesome. It plays six.

Games that support six players are rare for sure. The only ones I have are Spartacus, Shadows Over Camelot, and Sentinels of the Multiverse. Some of my buddies own Twilight Imperium 3 and they'll break that out with that many. I can't recall if Starcraft supports that many players but if it does it's a good one to get to the table.

The problem with many of those is they're long as hell, which may be fine or not. StarCraft is much better with 4 or 5 than 6. Spartacus is best with 3 or 4 IMO, don't gain much going over that.

With 6, I'd go with stuff like:

Cosmic Encounter
Cash 'n Guns
One Night Ultimate Werewolf/Resistance: Avalon
Betrayal At House On The Hill
Cyclades (with Titans)
Homeland
Pictomania
Sidibaba

We've been playing a lot of Quartermaster General lately, which was made for six. It may not be deep enough for your group, but it's a lot of fun. It plays quickly, too.

Tell ya what....this is weird.....I played Rise of Augustus again. It's simple. It's dumb. It's occasionally fun. Here's the weird part: IT'S ADDICTIVE. It's one of those games that you kind of loathe from the 10,000 foot level because it really is just plain Roman bingo of a sort, but after you play, you immediately think "oh, if only I did that, it would've been so much different" and then you want to play again, like, right fucking now.

Such a bad, dumb game from almost every possible, not even that much fun, but ultimately addictive. Weird.

Gregarius wrote: We've been playing a lot of Quartermaster General lately, which was made for six. It may not be deep enough for your group, but it's a lot of fun. It plays quickly, too.

Can you talk more about this? I've seen positive comments everywhere about it...

iguanaDitty wrote:

Gregarius wrote: We've been playing a lot of Quartermaster General lately, which was made for six. It may not be deep enough for your group, but it's a lot of fun. It plays quickly, too.

Can you talk more about this? I've seen positive comments everywhere about it...

I've heard several people refer to it as "Axis & Allies Lite," but I've never played A&A so I can't comment on that any more than just surface details.

The game is set during WWII, and each player represents a country with its own pieces and a unique deck. Everyone has a turn, but you win or lose as teams (Axis: Germany, Italy, Japan vs. Allies: England, Russia, USA), which forces players to coordinate to the best of their ability. Even though there are battles, they are very abstracted and simplified. As evidenced from the title, QG is far more focused on supply lines and tactical advantage. You score points for possessing certain areas, and win by either accumulating enough points or capturing two of the enemy's home spaces.

The gameplay is very simple-- everything stems from your deck of cards. On your turn, you play a single card, then discard as many as you want before refilling your hand. But even that is a dangerous proposition because you *never* reshuffle your deck. Once you are out of cards, you're basically done. You can still earn points, but you won't have any more actions.

Without going into too much detail on the rules, the cards come in five basic types: build something, destroy something, react to something, enhance your abilities, or attack another player's deck. (Teaching this game is a breeze.) The cool thing about the different countries is how unique all of the decks are. They're not even all the same size. Japan has a ton of reaction cards, but a really small deck. Russia can keep pumping out military units. The USA offers great support and can devastate other country's decks. Because you only get to play one card every turn, it can be agonizing deciding which is the best to play at a given moment.

It's such a quick game (about 90 minutes), that you want to play it again immediately afterwards to better implement what you learned the first time. But even knowing what's in your deck doesn't help too much because you never know how long you'll have to wait to see a particular card. We've found it very difficult for the Axis to win, but I think that's mainly due to lack of coordination on our part.

I could see how the game might feel scripted after a while, but really the randomness of the deck ameliorates that quite a bit.

I really dig Quartermaster General. Still grateful Sag brought it up some time ago. Knowing the decks is important. Not for your first play, necessarily, but over time to play well. Like Gregarius said knowing your deck won't let you plan a master strategy, but it will help you make better tactical decisions. Each nation has its own deck that is different from the others both in content and size, and once your deck runs out you don't get to reshuffle and therefore don't get to draw any more cards. The decks are thematic for the nations -- playing your WWII role is generally good -- but they don't force you to play historically.

I think Axis and Allies lite is a fair comment to make about it. It's a different beast, sure, but it has a good thematic WWII feel that takes a lot of what's fun about A&A and distills it down to a 90-minute card-play VP-getting game. Normally I can be pretty lukewarm about games that boil down to getting victory points, but Quartermaster General is a good example of how VP can be done well.

Also, the battles are brutal and important, because whoever initiates the attack wins the battle. Just like that. I play the card, I kill your tank. Boom. BUT players will have those out-of-turn cancel/fightback cards sitting there on the table face-down, making you really think about where the best place to attack really is. It's the sort of thing that should be in Game Design School 101, and here it's executed very well.

FINALLY got to play Pax Porfiriana for the first time, 3 player. Did enjoy it a lot - although at the end it came down to who would get the last topple. I had tons of gold, way more than anyone else, and was using it to try to play balance of power. Sadly one player got a bit too far ahead on Loyalty, and then the last Topple card came out right before his turn.

Did enjoy it though, and would play it again. Seems like once you understand the rules it goes quickly. Thanks to all those who kept extolling its virtues.

I picked up Quartermaster General at Gencon last year, and still haven't had a chance to get it to the table. Grr!!!

Just finished an epic 3 player battle of Dungeon Command. My goblin horde was against the undead and the drow. I managed a victory thanks to the undead and drow clashing against each other early.

This was the first time we played this game 3 player, and it worked better than expected. I hope it's not another 6 months before I get it to the table again. Great game.

Legomancer wrote:

Sevej wrote: I found Imperial Settlers a little bit too dependent on the table meta. How's The New Era in this regard?

What do you mean by "dependent on the table meta"?

It means players have to watch other player's tableau all the time to keep the balance in check. Often, raids happen against the wrong player or, worse, not at all.

Hyperborea:

Had a good time playing this "Bag Builder"' as opposed to deck builder, where you use different colored cubes instead of cards. It has a spacial element with a map made of hex tiles on which you move your minions exploring, looting and fighting.

It played smooth and looked great and was good fun.