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27 Jun 2016 09:21 #229400 by Legomancer
Finally played Argent this weekend. Man, what a dumb name. Here's what I had to say:

Argent is a game set on a fictional Earth where Harry Potter wasn't a load of faff. You're students or something at a wizarding school where everyone is still a jerk but they don't waste their time fighting a moron dark wizard. They still don't learn how to do anything useful, though, like algebra.

I digress. I'd heard good things about this but seeing pictures of the extremely busy board and such made me think this was nothing but a more in-your-face Agricola, just another one of these overcomplicated New Euros doling out infinitesimal rewards that eventually turn into victory points for doing...something, anything. It almost is. But unlike so many others, this one remembered it should also be fun too, and have some kind of personality. It should inspire more than just "darn, you took the wood I needed. I guess I'll get a pig instead."

Argent is long and sloppy and I think some weirdo expansion stuff was included in this play that may not be needed. But we had a great time playing it, and I'm not just saying that because I won. However, the fact that I won does say something about the game, as I usually cannot muster up the intelligence or interest to excel at things like this. But here I could see how the pieces fit, could identify things to focus on and things to ignore, and actually pursue a path and stick to it. I felt like I worked with the game against the other players instead of the usual other way around.

It was long as hell, but I was engaged in it a lot more fully than in much shorter games it's less "elegant" than.

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27 Jun 2016 10:39 - 27 Jun 2016 10:43 #229406 by JEM
I also got a game of Argent in at the weekly meetup. We had five players but all but one had played several times before so for all that it was long, it was not overly long. The winner claimed six voters, and I was a fairly distant second with three. I was doing well on grabbing IPs but couldn't match his engine with his multiple shadow placements each round. I lost two categories on IP tie-breaker, which demonstrated again how important it is. I enjoyed it; a healthy mix of A and B side rooms (B side Infirmary is always fun, especially offering strategies like wounding your own mages to claim the reward).

One of the guys who comes out a couple of times a month brought Cuba Libre. Others would rather play Lords of Waterdeep but I suggested we could play one on one and I could learn the game that way. I've done some solo efforts with other COIN games but this was my first competitive attempt. I took the 27July and Directorio vs his Government and Syndicate. I found myself pushing too far on short term gains, and tripping my allies over each other (presence of 27J pieces thwarting Directorio control attempts, etc), and not focusing enough on setting up for the Propaganda rounds by eliminating Govt control to stop civic actions flipping all support. It took us a while with some referencing rule books, etc but I really enjoyed it.

At the end of the night he pulled out W1815, which is a tiny 15 minute Battle of Waterloo game. We played one round, and likely incorrectly, but it was an interesting little skirmish. In the full game you would each play both sides, and as the game might not be balanced, the scoring in the margins becomes the target to win.

Back at home, we ran our two characters through Shadows of Brimstone, into the Caverns of Cynder. I appreciated the re-use of the monsters from Swamps of Death, except that half of the threat cards are "Lava Men" so it became a small running joke whenever we saw an Attack or Threat card draw that here come the lava men. One did surprise us with a batch of lost souls (Cynder Undead, or ghosts, essentially). Still, Cynder opened up some tactical options- when to use two vs one gun, whether to equip clothing for a turn to get the bonus and take the wound, etc. For the final room, I pulled from the main threat deck (we could have pulled a high Cynder threat, but the default is an epic threat, which is only in the main decks). and we had a horde of spiders, stranglers and tentacles all with two elite abilities. They took some killing but we cleaned house eventually.

So far, I like the Cynder expansion. The adventures seem to run slightly shorter (one even stops when you hit the fifth space on the depth track), the lava floor element adds some fun risk/caution options while traversing the map tiles, the lava men were fun to fight (though at the third fight feeling a little samey- surprise mid-fight ambush by a Night Terror who had got lost perked that up). Added to that, a bunch of useful tokens for covering numbers on sheets, using as xp/money etc, it was a good deal I think.

Also at home, solo plays of Rallyman, which I am already really digging. I love how the nature of your choices of which gears to run reflects pretty well the notions in racing/rallying of "slow in, fast out"- you're having to balance the benefit of finishing a turn in a high gear (fewest seconds added to your overall time) to the fact that this makes your next turn being only downshifts- finding the right path of speeds through each section tickles that puzzling part of the brain in a nice way. The dice also add an additional element of push your luck- roll all at once to gain (lose) seconds of time tokens, which can themselves be expended to guarantee safe die rolls when rolling with the cautious method. The map tiles seem almost endlessly configurable, and new stages could be easily drawn up and printed out. I really enjoyed this for solo gaming (the sweat pants of gaming- practical and comfortable).
Last edit: 27 Jun 2016 10:43 by JEM.
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27 Jun 2016 18:05 - 27 Jun 2016 18:13 #229432 by aaxiom

JEM wrote: Also at home, solo plays of Rallyman, which I am already really digging. I love how the nature of your choices of which gears to run reflects pretty well the notions in racing/rallying of "slow in, fast out"- you're having to balance the benefit of finishing a turn in a high gear (fewest seconds added to your overall time) to the fact that this makes your next turn being only downshifts- finding the right path of speeds through each section tickles that puzzling part of the brain in a nice way. The dice also add an additional element of push your luck- roll all at once to gain (lose) seconds of time tokens, which can themselves be expended to guarantee safe die rolls when rolling with the cautious method. The map tiles seem almost endlessly configurable, and new stages could be easily drawn up and printed out. I really enjoyed this for solo gaming (the sweat pants of gaming- practical and comfortable).


I love Rallyman myself, and break it out from time to time with the kids (but particularly for solitaire). With that said, I think I like it even more than I might because I met the designer at Essen, and he's one of the most enthusiastic and affable people I've encountered in my travels. Seriously... his enthusiasm and outward expression of gratitude for allowing him to not only show me his creation, but for my purchasing it was nothing short of astounding. I'll never forget the guy, I'm tellin' ya!

The game itself is really immersive, and I've gone through his website's track configurations (complete with times that people have posted) in attempts to improve my scores. As you say, the boards offer a wide variety of choice in their configuration.

Thought I would add this as a side comment to your apt summary of the game.

An example of this man's enthusiasm is found here:
Last edit: 27 Jun 2016 18:13 by aaxiom.
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27 Jun 2016 22:55 #229439 by Jarvis
I found that I've been just replaying a lot of the same games and getting my money's worth out of my previous purchases.

With my casual gamer friends we have been playing a lot of Betrayal at House on the Hill and I introduced them to Adventurers. These have been the perfect beer and pretzel games where we are just hanging out and not worried about winning and losing.

I've also really been enjoying playing campaign style with games. Lately some friends and I have been playing the campaign versions of Pandemic Legacy, Agents of Smersh, Imperial Assault, and I found the old summer campaigns of Arkham Horror that we've been enjoying.

I'm going to be going to Gencon for the first time in 15 years in a month where I figure I will try some new stuff, but overall I've just been happy playing some of my favorites again.
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27 Jun 2016 23:03 #229441 by SuperflyPete
This is going down
Attachments:
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27 Jun 2016 23:03 #229442 by SuperflyPete
Rallyman is BAD ASS
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28 Jun 2016 08:37 - 28 Jun 2016 08:42 #229446 by Erik Twice
Chicago Express keeps delivering, every game is fun, different and tense. Everytime I play it, I'm surprised at how different the game develops despite the complete lack of luck or any hidden information. Sometimes a company is good, sometimes a company is bad and it's always difficult to know if making the game go longer or shorter is to your benefit.

I think I should pick up German Railways or Continental Divide or another game like that.

I finally had a fun, non-explosive game of Blood Rage. There were not any big blunders and we hate-drafted heavily so scores were close and the game was tense. I hope the game can stabilize like that.

Tried 51st State. I thought I would love it because I liked the idea of building and attacking and such, but deep down I think it's as euro as it gets. The attacks are a red herring: Sure, you can destroy a building, but its owner also gets something back so it all ends up being very similar to taking a positive action. It's a very "feel-good" game, there are not really any bad options and it snowballs very hard. Found it quite dissapointing.

I also played Elder Sign again, this time with the expansion. I found it as dull as I did during my first game, if simply because out of the hour it takes to play the game, less than half is actually spent playing it, the rest is spent on the physical act of rolling die.
Last edit: 28 Jun 2016 08:42 by Erik Twice.
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28 Jun 2016 10:35 #229452 by Msample

SuperflyTNT wrote: This is going down


Pete what game is that?

Played a 2P game of the new version of Through the Ages this past weekend . Had not played the old version. Overall, I like what I see so far. We played the stripped down version - no Age III, stripped the nasty cards out of the deck as instructed. Probably took us til halfway through the game to figure everything out and play correctly. Still need to go back and re-read the rules. Its about as heavy a Euro as I've seen, not counting some Ameritrash titles. And I can now see where NATIONS attempted to streamline stuff. While I think TtA is a more complete game, NATIONS is both faster as well as a bit more engaging, as players have less downtime since they alternate actions rather than doing all at once.

I can now see where 3, is the ideal number of players. Four would drag due to downtime, even with experienced players. 5 would be fucking insanity so I am glad there is no option for that . And I am glad there were only 2 of us as far as having a new player.

The iOS port has been in development hell, which is too bad - this would be an excellent candidate.
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28 Jun 2016 11:26 #229455 by Frohike
That is Defenders of the Last Stand. Excellent game! Smelly Clash of Cultures plastic & ugly fonts notwithstanding. Also, Pete, FYI, one major rule omission from the manual: you can't attack a boss if there are minions in his space.

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28 Jun 2016 12:26 #229459 by SuperflyPete
More than one, buddy.

It has no reference to what happens if your character loses all their life tokens.

Guessing you just warp to Last Stand on your turn and heal fully then lose turn but how the fuck did that get missed?

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28 Jun 2016 12:28 #229460 by SuperflyPete
As an aside, the models look like shit. Nothing like advertised. Casting was shitty. Chad Hoverter did the model sculpting...been chatting with him today.

I don't think he's happy.

They're also too big. They should've been 15mm scale.
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28 Jun 2016 19:26 #229473 by Michael Barnes
It isn't often I play other people's games anymore, but I played a friend's copy of Zombicide: Black Plague. We did the first scenario with three players, everybody controlling two characters. I had the nun and the elf. It seems pretty fun, very straightforward hack-and-slash play with SUPER simple enemy activations and some SUPER questionable omissions of content. Only two vault cards, really? No weapon that can actually beat the Abomination included in the base game? Lots of keyword abilities not on any of the characters in the base game? Ugh. He had Wulfsburg, but I felt like the whole time that there were things missing. Maybe it's psychological, knowing that it is a full product line.

But I did like it, the medieval setting was cool and I liked the overall flow of it. I liked that RUNNING AWAY was OFTEN a good idea because the zombies clump together and the heroes are fairly squishy unless they find armor/shields. The friendly fire rules are great, and they did result in one character death as one of the others whiffed a couple of crossbow shots into a melee. That's fun stuff.

Advancement mechanics are good, they feel like a video game. I also like how advancing levels escalates the game, I actually think that is kind of a brilliant way to up the stakes. Too many other games don't scale the difficulty with advancement, it works really well here but I do wonder if that can get gamey with players sandbagging until everyone is close to leveling up. We didn't do that, but it seems like it could be done.

Also PLASTIC CONSOLES THAT YOU STICK PEGS IN. Hallelujah. Along with paper money and spinners, that is something that automatically adds one star to any game.

But I am ready for this new trend of elaborate internal boxes/trays to end. My friend wanted to put all of the figures back in the trays, I would have been happy throwing them into a baggie

I'll probably pick it up to play solo and with the Hellfire Club gang, especially since you can do 6+ with it.
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29 Jun 2016 07:15 - 29 Jun 2016 07:53 #229480 by JEM
The main problem I have with Black Plague is the "rich get richer" aspect that was not there in the older boxes. The best weapons in BP now have minimum level requirements to use them. That means when you're stuck on 5XP and find a Chaos Crossbow, instead of thinking, "Finally! Now I can level up with the rest of the team," instead you have five people telling you that you need to give it to Dave who's at orange already because you can't use it.

Also the base box and Wulfsburg don't have any variety in zombies- they all do the same thing, just more or fewer activations. No toxic or berserker zombies to really mix up the tactical elements. I kind of hated the peg boards (which are at least not as awful looking as the Massive Darkness ones). Speaking of MD, though, obviously there's added value in Black Plague if you get that with the kickstarter exclusive crossover pack.

I'm with you on the boxes of trays, though. All my Zombicide minis are poured into a Blood Rage inner box inside the main box.
Last edit: 29 Jun 2016 07:53 by JEM.

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29 Jun 2016 19:55 #229513 by Sevej
I'd love to have a game with Zombicide leveling system, but flat for the whole party ala Heroes of the Storm.

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30 Jun 2016 07:07 #229522 by JEM
You can play Zombicide that way. Instead of players leveling up at six points, the group levels up at 36 points, etc. There may already be missions done that way, I'm not sure (there are over 100 and some do change the base rules in similar ways).

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