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Mycelia Board Game Review

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30 Jun 2016 16:41 #229562 by Egg Shen
Got a chance to hang out and play games with Engineer Al, Uba and Josh Look for the first time in a while. Prior to a four player game I took to the jungle with Josh in GW's new version of Lost Patrol.

Let it be known that there is no company, other than GW, on the entire fucking planet that could publish this game and get away with it. This is straight up, "No Bullshit Jack" ameritrash. The game is essentially unwinnable as the rules are written for the Space Marine Scouts. These unlucky bastards are smack dab in the middle of this "devil's armpit" style jungle with death coming from pretty much every angle. Get ready to start dropping Predator quotes because that's essentially what this thing is. Big ass marines, that are outmatched by nightmarish aliens.

"So you cooked up a story...and dropped the six of us in a MEAT GRINDA?!?!?" Pretty much sums up the entire experience. Despite it being a very simple dice chucker the game is an absolute riot. You can play it twice in 20 mins without much of a problem. Josh mentioned that GW says that the marine's only have an 8% chance of making it to the dropship/choppa. So basically you can play it and see how close you make it to the end, switch sides, and then compare scores. Again, no other game company could get away with this type of game design in 2016. Somehow GW pulls it off and makes it enjoyable.

Afterwards we all sat down and enjoyed a nice tame n' quiet game of Blackfleet. And by quiet and tame I mean a game of ultimate dickery and fuck you! Sometimes you play a boardgame and it is very much like teenage love at first sight. After about three rounds of Blackfleet I could already tell I was head over heels smitten with it. This is a family style pirate game cut from the same cloth as something like Survive. It has that 1980s mass market feel to it. The most amazing thing is how it somehow manages to make all the straight up "fuck you" tolerable. You get to control both a pirate ship and a merchant ship. The goal of the game is buy all of the special cards in front of you...which cost gold. Once you buy a card it gives you a permanent and unique ability for the rest of the game. Merchants are trying to get goods and sail back and forth between ports to sell them for cash. Meanwhile pirates can steal goods from merchants and attempt to bury them for treasure/money. In the mix of all this madness are two neutral navy ships that can be used to sink the pirates. With four players it absolute madness and there is seemingly nowhere safe on the entire map. The game plays extremely fast, the rules melt away after a turn or two and you can just get focused on having a great time. Oh and the game looks positively stunning. Easily one of the prettiest games on the market today. After I won I proclaimed it game of the year from now until the end of time. You can take that kind endorsement to the bank!
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30 Jun 2016 17:13 #229569 by Michael Barnes
I just wrote about Lost Patrol on my weekly...you are damn right, no other publisher in the business could get away with Lost Patrol in 2016. No other publisher, quite frankly, give less of a fuck about what BGG thinks about their product. That's the long and short of it.

It is outrageously unfair and if you are worried about winning the game as the scouts...maybe go check out something more "balanced". But if you want the fun, obnoxious challenge of surviving a 20 minute tops game that makes DungeonQuest look generous, it's a blast. It is TOTAL Ameritrash, not this super-balanced hybrid stuff with a bunch of fancy mechanics to buoy you.

I did tweak up the rules a bit so that my son wouldn't feel like it was too hard, the shotgun scouts throw two dice, the heavy bolter dude throws three, and the captain gets a reroll. All are looking for sixes but only one die per throw can hit. It's worked a lot better for him but it hasn't made the game less dangerous. The wins have been with just one or two scouts making it to the pod.

I love this thing they've got going on with minimal cards, minimal counters. So refreshing.

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30 Jun 2016 17:24 #229571 by Egg Shen
Josh warned me upfront about how brutal the game was and asked if I wanted to try the tweaked rules. I waved off his advice and demanded to play thing as the GW Gods intended. I got slaughtered and I had a blast. I think playing it with the brutal rules (which we dubbed nightmare mode) and switching sides to see how well you did is fine. However, playing "hard' mode with the tweaks is probably just as fun.

I think the big reason that I'm teetering on the edge of the rabbit hole that is GW most recent boardgame offerings is that they're pretty much the only company out there that is making 100% authentic Ameritrash style games. The funny thing is that most people that think they like Ameritrash actually like hybrids or FFG's style of Ameritrash. Most gamers don't have the stomach for it. I fucking love it and I'm pretty sure that I'm about to go "Full Alice" and fall headfirst down the rabbithole with GW. Fuck I need to find a free weekend to put together my Warhammer Quest stuff!!!

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30 Jun 2016 20:15 #229577 by SuperflyPete
Lost Patrol is and has been the king shit.

I've been playing the hell out of Guildhall Fantasy and Defenders of the Last Stand. Love it. Wholeheartedly. It is the nearest thing to a perfect adventure game.
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30 Jun 2016 20:33 - 30 Jun 2016 20:39 #229578 by Colorcrayons
Blackfleet is indeed awesome, and highly underrated in my opinion.

I don't play it with the kids yet though. They can handle survive just fine, but the dickery in black fleet is a bit more intense for them as well as being a touch more complicated.

Played a few games of Forbidden Bridge with the family. The dynamics change when playing with kids. Its just more enjoyable than with adults who stand around saying "is that it?" Expecting something more than a cursed tiki idol dropping you, your stolen property, and your friends back into some forsaken carniverous reptile filled river.

The only thing that's FORBIDDEN about it...



...is these old folks having fun.

Kids love it, and its one of the best games ever because of that. Now if I could only find tornado Rex... I love these 80's and 90's mass market ameritrash games that get no respect, even here.
Last edit: 30 Jun 2016 20:39 by Colorcrayons.
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01 Jul 2016 09:59 #229598 by charlest
This week I played a bunch of One Night Ultimate Werewolf (which is not a rare occurrence), several games of the Flick 'Em Up Wide Release version, and two very enjoyable plays of Mare Nostrum: Empires.

Mare Nostrum is seriously good stuff. It's kind of a simple, elegant game and it doesn't quite force conflict, but my group was pretty brutal in both games. I lost half of my provinces as Carthage as I was worried more about the leader boards and controlling economy/culture. Egypt just beat me down hard.

We also saw Greece launch a very early attack on Rome in our second game. That was brutal and probably cost them both the game.

This is definitely more a Euro than anything else, but it has a dose of Wargame in it that's pretty slick. Love the trading system as well. This is certainly a keeper for me.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Frohike, scrumpyjack, aaxiom, Scott_F

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01 Jul 2016 10:07 - 01 Jul 2016 10:08 #229600 by JEM
I had another solo attempt at a Rallyman rally (three special stages) that's up on an online forum. Two stages went fantastically well. I was time-attacking with five, sometimes six dice like a boss. Then on the third stage, I spun out on the first turn of the stage. It was like watching the RAC when some guy slides off into the bales before even leaving the grounds of Harewood House on day one. That cost me a black die, which was fine, because you generally don't use all of them, but it put me back in neutral in a section I could have been hitting 5th gear, which cost a minute at least. The puncture I caught while using a short-cut really sucked though- losing a white die really hampers your ability to navigate the sine-wave of your car speed against the speed limits (and opportunities) on the map. Crossing onto tarmac with the snow tyres meant no white dice at all, and a pedestrian limp to the final time trap. It was still excellent, with a real sense of nursing a damaged car home to get some kind of time on the board. I'll be less gung-ho with the time attack dice in future, for sure.
Last edit: 01 Jul 2016 10:08 by JEM.
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02 Jul 2016 10:40 - 02 Jul 2016 10:42 #229647 by SuperflyPete

Colorcrayons wrote: Blackfleet is indeed awesome, and highly underrated in my opinion.

I don't play it with the kids yet though. They can handle survive just fine, but the dickery in black fleet is a bit more intense for them as well as being a touch more complicated.

Played a few games of Forbidden Bridge with the family. The dynamics change when playing with kids. Its just more enjoyable than with adults who stand around saying "is that it?" Expecting something more than a cursed tiki idol dropping you, your stolen property, and your friends back into some forsaken carniverous reptile filled river.

The only thing that's FORBIDDEN about it...



...is these old folks having fun.

Kids love it, and its one of the best games ever because of that. Now if I could only find tornado Rex... I love these 80's and 90's mass market ameritrash games that get no respect, even here.


Tornado Rex, Fireball Island, and Forbidden Bridge fall into my favorite category of games. Those and Key to the Kingdom...they just don't make cool shit like that. We have this Scooby Doo 3D mystery game and it's the same thing...just plain fun.




Attachments:
Last edit: 02 Jul 2016 10:42 by SuperflyPete.
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02 Jul 2016 12:12 #229648 by aaxiom

JEM wrote: I had another solo attempt at a Rallyman rally (three special stages) that's up on an online forum. Two stages went fantastically well. I was time-attacking with five, sometimes six dice like a boss.


Do you have any interest in sharing the configuration and your time(s) by chance?

I find myself addicted to time-attacking (in that I seriously don't want to stop, consequences be damned) once I start. I have to really use it judiciously when I do, but I certainly get the feeling for rolling those dice like a boss.

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02 Jul 2016 15:23 #229653 by Colorcrayons
I've never seen the Scooby doo board game before. Thanks for the heads up. I must investigate further...

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02 Jul 2016 18:12 - 02 Jul 2016 18:30 #229655 by Grudunza
Star Trek: Frontiers - Played through one round and then packed it up. If you want it, it's available for $49.95 plus $13.45 shipping.

Here's the thing... Mage Knight is one of my all-time favorite games. And if you like Star Trek and want a great game with that theme, and don't already have Mage Knight, then you should definitely get this. The system does work quite well within a Star Trek context. But if you already have Mage Knight, then you really don't need this. I had read about there being some differences between this and Mage Knight, and there are several things, but they are all quite minor. In the grand scheme of things, it is the base game of Mage Knight. And what made me pack it up is that I just didn't feel like it was worth the effort to relearn what all of the different locations were.

And with some of the details being just a little different, that turns out to make it more annoying... You think you know what the analogs are for Mage Knight, but then, ah, there's some little element that's just a little different. I don't want to bother having to keep all of that straight, or to confuse myself between this and MK. And graphically, the game is okay (for WizKids, the components are solid), but the map tiles and the different planets and such are not really easy to distinguish, which makes it more of a pain to remember which planet is which kind of thing. So as it turns out, I'd have preferred it to be either a straight-up reskin, or much more different from MK than it is. But really, no need for me to have this.
Last edit: 02 Jul 2016 18:30 by Grudunza.
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02 Jul 2016 18:25 #229656 by Michael Barnes
That is pretty much all why I passed on a review copy of it...I just didn't feel like fussing with it for a pretty small ROI. Mage Knight is still awesome, and I still don't get to play it enough. Trek wouldn't change that.
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02 Jul 2016 18:36 #229657 by Grudunza

Michael Barnes wrote: That is pretty much all why I passed on a review copy of it...I just didn't feel like fussing with it for a pretty small ROI. Mage Knight is still awesome, and I still don't get to play it enough. Trek wouldn't change that.


I should have known that would be the case, but I was encouraged by hearing about there being some differences. And some of those differences are things that I would say are improvements, or interesting. But in practice, the annoyance of having to learn and keep in mind the minor differences was too much. Heck, it's hard enough keeping the MK rules in mind, much less confusing them with a slightly different system. If I had an intention of getting rid of MK in favor of this, I suppose I'd make the effort to get with the new system. But I already have the MK expansions, and still think MK is a better overall fit for the system. For someone who doesn't already own MK, though, this would be a fine choice to grab if you prefer the ST setting.

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02 Jul 2016 18:52 #229658 by Grudunza
By comparison, my daughter and I played another game of Star Trek Panic today. That's also a revision of an earlier title, but as I mentioned previously, ST Panic makes some pretty significant differences to the Castle Panic system. Considering the relative weights of Castle Panic and Mage Knight being drastically different, any change to Castle Panic would seem bigger. But I think the changes are also more meaningful, with the missions and maneuvering of the Enterprise and such. Turns out I was playing the game wrong the first time, and also this time, where ships moving in are always supposed to fire on the Enterprise (I was only doing that when they reached the inner ring, having misinterpreted one of the rules). That will make the game MUCH harder going forward, which I like. This one might end up with more life than I thought. As it was, even playing it wrong and giving ourselves a big handicap, we still lost, with the Enterprise being destroyed.

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02 Jul 2016 23:45 #229662 by SuperflyPete
I hated Mage Knight because it felt impossible to learn properly. So, I guess I'll hate this too.

I guess Ascendency will be the one to fulfill my Kirkian dreams.

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