What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

charlest wrote: I'm 3 scenarios completed as well. Very simple. Love the artwork and the mechanics themselves aren't horrible. It just needs another layer to keep it interesting. Also, only having one of each ghost class in the retail addition sucks big time. Getting a little old trapping Galloping Ghouls.

Having to trap Ghosts and deposit them in the Ecto-1 is the most interesting element. I also like how the spirit world works and how you lose if it's empty and you need to spawn.

Not a good game but not a bad one so far. About 5.5-6. Maybe a half a point bump if the film is on in the background.

The added material really gives it a hell of a boost. Just the additional figures:

Class 1:
Zombie Taxi Drivers
Fearsome Flush

Class 2:
Spawn of Cathulhu

Level 3:
Spectral Ghostbusters

Bad guys:
Sandman
Boogie Man
Samhain
Librarian
Ivo Shandor
Big Boogaloo
Cathulhu

Nuisance to Ghost Busters: Walter Peck

Walter Peck and the Spectral Ghostbusters being in the game really adds the next layer. We just put Peck into each of the scenarios -- he prevents ghost depositing when in LoS with Ecto-1 and he can free all of a Ghostbusters trapped ghosts if he moves adjacent to them. We have played one game with the Spectral Ghostbusters -- they actively hunt the Ghostbusters and take XP (we just put them on in addition to the other Ghosts, so not part of the Spirit World) -- and it makes it much more difficult in terms of success and challenging in terms of planning.

Also, we play with a mandatory house rule (in fact, we have played since game one because it was necessary): NO CROSSING THE STREAMS. This means that players can't target a ghost that would cause their stream to cross another player's stream -- so basically, once a ghost is "tethered", the LoS cordons off a section of the board. Additionally, we don't allow movement between a Ghostbuster and a "tethered" ghost. This also enhances the decision making -- and it is a common sense rule that should at least be included as an optional advanced rule.

There really should be an event deck for when you cross the streams with really crazy shit occurring.

Couple of first impressions to report. Had my first game of Theseus with a couple of the rules wrong. Somehow I read that cards go to your hand and you can select which one to place in a pending slot. Anyways. I didn't enjoy the game much. Even before realizing that there is no hand of cards to select from but rather you use the top card of your deck it felt like there was too little choice in the game. We used the Marines vs. Aliens and the aliens used tentacles right away to slow down the marines, and then upgraded it so my guys simply couldn't move out of a room until enemy units moved in. I don't understand the love for this game, having two potential moves per turn and no choice over what card to install didn't create a fun experience for me. The mancala aspect also didn't do anything for me - I haven't liked that game for at least a couple decades now. Maybe it needs more plays, but it isn't getting that chance from me.

First game of Magnates, kinda based on an old Martin Wallace game, God's Playground. Area control in a map of Poland, five provinces total and four bordering fiefs, with bidding each game round based on a hand of strength 2-14 cards. End game scoring is one point for each estate, one point for presence in a province, two points for having more estates than each opponent individually in a province, three points for having more estates than all opponents combined in a province. Bidding is used for winning offices (offices = one time use to bump up card stats), winning privileges (cool one time use abilities that can affect fights or estates or count for points), and for conflicts (all players play a card and the total strength must meet or exceed the strength of the conflict). Anytime you win an office/privilege/conflict you can place between 1-2 estates in a single province. Five conflicts are randomly drawn per round that target one of the five provinces. The part that is most interesting involves failing the conflict - which can produce all kinds of negative results in the province the conflict took place. Failure leads to everyone losing one estate (VPs at the end of the game), and a variety of other bad things like partitioning the province (no adding estates to the province until the conflict is defeated in later rounds) or making future fights in that province more difficult. The player who played the least strength to a conflict loses two estates. The game is four turns, and after each turn you take back your hand of 13 cards to use next round. You must use every card during every game turn.

Here is the cool part - say I have no estates in province A and two of my opponents are heavily invested there. A conflict shows up there with a strength of 27. I play my lowest card strength, a 2 value, and add a privilege card to be spiteful, a -2 strength. In a four player game on average the conflict is around 23-30 strength. I basically played a 0 strength, and if we lose the conflict everyone loses an estate there and all future conflicts there decrease every card played by -2 based on the random negative conflict event. But I don't care about that province, I have nothing - let the countryside burn. The players invested there either 1) suck it up and spend their highest strength cards and try to defeat the conflict, thereby allowing me to spend my high strength on good privileges, or 2) lose the conflict, losing VPs and making conflicts in that area in the future even more difficult to defeat. Awesome.

Anyways. We didn't play it very well - the end game score was something like 41-34-27, so pretty varied. We played far too friendly and only lost one conflict the whole game. The three player game (5 players max) felt a little off and we completed it in about 2 hours given a short intro. First impression is very very positive. This game just jumped to the head of my list of games to try again. Great looking map, instructions done in 15 minutes, enough depth to make you think about the game afterwards, and unlike one of the most irritating area control games I know, Tammany Hall, there is hidden info and you cannot stare at the map counting shit in hopes of obtaining majority 5 minutes after your turn started.

charlest wrote: There really should be an event deck for when you cross the streams with really crazy shit occurring.

There really should. We thought of having a random ghost spawn from the spirit world at the point the streams would cross.

I forgot to mention the big three monsters that didn't come in the base game: Vinz Clortho, Zuul, and Gozer. I'm actually surprised about this. Seriously, it makes it hard to want anything to do with the base game.

Who you gonna call?

If I'm calling for a "good time," I would rather take my chances on a random phone number on the bathroom wall.

Robinson Crusoe, cursed island scenario 2p w/Friday and dog so easy. I don't know what it is about this game, but it totally gets me. Even with using easy mode I had a blast.

I just played my first online game of Twilight Struggle on chantry-games.com. It is really weird how different it is than in person. I felt like the other player was waiting on me, so I felt rushed and made mistakes. I also don't know how I feel about the instantaneous application of results. Having to read the log to see what just happened didn't really do it for me. Not seeing the Influence points actually being placed on the board made me not really register them, which meant I never really had a focus of what was going on around the board. I'll give it another try to two, but I'll probably just stick with the AI on the iOS app when it comes out.

I like Kristen Wiig in that shot. "Guys, I'm not sure we should be smiling "

Been soloing Runebound 3rd Edition this week. Thoughts:

- Gameboard looks great on the table. It's a massive improvement over the Second Edition Map, which I always hated the look of

- The story/narrative is generally pretty poor. The one aspect that I like is that each game you flavor the decks with different cards based on the scenario you play. If you're playing the dragon scenario you'll get stuff related to that. Still, you're basically flipping a card and reading text. It's not incredibly compelling stuff. Sometimes you make a choice, sometimes you fight a creature.

- Speaking of combat, I think the pog combat is pretty good. It gives you a nice back and forth and based on what you and the monster "cast" it gives you some good choices to think about. Each side having special abilities is a nice touch as well. It gets better as you level up and buy equipment.

- Easily the most interesting aspect of the game is how you can level up your character. You can learn new skills, get equipment and pretty much shape your character as you see fit. This is the part of the game I'm looking forward to diving deeper into.

- The game is slimmed down in areas, but I wouldn't expect it to be shorter than 2nd edition. With 3-4 players I would fully expect this to last in the 3-4 hour range.

Looking forward to playing this more.

2 games of Gears of War, first short scenario. Lost both, down to the last couple die rolls. About as pure a game in capturing the AT spirit as I can think of.

8 player Turfmaster last night, I think this was the first time we had gathered 8 players in a home setting on a week night which was great. Maybe I had too many libations or the turf was too crowded, but I ended up in 6-7-7 place, only beating the one who crashed against a hurdle in that last race. Made me miss those heady days of ending in 6th oh là là!

Altogether pretty close, with some surprising shifts of fate due to the dice rolls.

OK, so I have never played a game solo before, but I just couldn't wait any longer to get my THUNDERBIRDS into the air. Had a super fun time! I'm not sure yet how much of it was nostalgia and how much was solid game but whatever, I had a great time! Looking forward to playing it with Dan over winter break.

Did I really never review Gears of War here? I see that I wrote up a solid first take on it... maybe I'll have to article-ize it.

It's so good! It's so much more of what I want from Dudes in a Corridor---intense firefights, every hit or miss significant, all monsters can potentially kill you. Equipment fucking matters! Almost no tracking tokens!

The Hot new game I played this week was STAR WARS carcassonne! A game absolutely dripping with star wars theme, and probably other fluids if in the right company.

Its like Carcassonne, or rather it is carcassone except you can attack other peoples stuff with your dudes and throw dice. So its a bit weird and definitely not for purists, any time where ko someones meeple in regular carc is now resolved with dice. Also the cathedrals are replaced by planets and if you place a tile next to a planet you can fight the occupying meeple. Its actually a sort of fun improvement.

Also played some Starwars Risk edition, which is still think is quite neat, but the lightsaber track is a bit useless. Not sure it gives enough reward to be really worthwhile for either side, but hey, perhaps Luke, Vader and the Emperor were not as important as they thought they were.

Played two games of Ares Project, still a favourite of mine. I tried a turtling and deep strike strategy with the Terrans with beat the space wizards two times in a row. Turns out building tonnes of cheap turrets and upgrading them with tech buffs is a good way to hose invading armies.