What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

I was able to get King's Forge to the table this weekend. We had great fun with this title and found it getting pretty tense and cutthroat during the resource gathering phase. The replayability seemed reasonably high since you don't use all the craft or gather cards each game.

After two days of playing Android: Netrunner non-stop I finished 4th at the Spanish Nationals, losing to a really cool Portuguese guy I knew from my blog/Twitter aftyer a great match. Was really fun, though I'm going to take a break until the next datapack is released, I've played the game too much and I really need to relax.

wadenels wrote: I like Clue. But I also like the concept of the game more than that actual game. Is this Uncomfortable Guests game available in English?

I don't think it is, at least for now. It was released through a Kickstarter-like platform. It might see release in English at some point, though, the designers seem very ambitious.

If you like the concept theme of Clue, I think you might really like Uncomfortable Guests. It's actually quite lovely in that regard, everyone has slighty ridiculous names like "Mortimer Woodroof" and look like old caricatures. It's for of a farce then the original but not overly ridiculous, just funny.

Mythos Tales, the Cthulhu version of Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, is pretty good. The first case didn't surprise me too much, but it was exactly like SHCD and has what makes it great. The first time I saw some of the Elder gods mentioned I sat up in my seat a bit. I'm excited to see where the game goes.

It's particularly interesting evaluating this design post TIME Stories. I need to think about this some more for my review after I've played a couple more cases.

Also got Wiz-War back out which was great. Only a three player game and I died because both of my treasures were stolen (we use that optional oldschool rule). The winning player froze the other person and made a B-line for his base. Good stuff.

Also played a fantastic 6 player game of Skull.

Next up is the Mansions of Madness 2E expansions and lots of X-Wing Wave IX this weekend.

charlest wrote: Mythos Tales, the Cthulhu version of Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, is pretty good. The first case didn't surprise me too much, but it was exactly like SHCD and has what makes it great. The first time I saw some of the Elder gods mentioned I sat up in my seat a bit. I'm excited to see where the game goes.

It's particularly interesting evaluating this design post TIME Stories. I need to think about this some more for my review after I've played a couple more cases.

Looking forward to reading your review. Consulting Detective is one of my all time favorites, so when I head about this one I got pretty excited. I think this could really be something special if the 'Lovecraftian Angle' isn't too overbearing or heavy handed.

jay718 wrote:

charlest wrote: Mythos Tales, the Cthulhu version of Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, is pretty good. The first case didn't surprise me too much, but it was exactly like SHCD and has what makes it great. The first time I saw some of the Elder gods mentioned I sat up in my seat a bit. I'm excited to see where the game goes.

It's particularly interesting evaluating this design post TIME Stories. I need to think about this some more for my review after I've played a couple more cases.

Looking forward to reading your review. Consulting Detective is one of my all time favorites, so when I head about this one I got pretty excited. I think this could really be something special if the 'Lovecraftian Angle' isn't too overbearing or heavy handed.

In the first scenario it's not heavy handed at all. We'll see as I dig deeper.

One of my great hopes for this game is that it's more true to Lovecraft's stories and doesn't veer off into the pulp FFG shoot Cthulhu in the face with a Tommy gun thing. Because of the format of SHCD, I think this may be that game that finally nails the actual Lovecraft feel.

Is that the KS version? Did it ship on time?

I believe it did ship to KS backers already (not sure if it was on time), but I got it from MM who ordered a bunch direct from the publisher I believe.

hotseatgames wrote: Is that the KS version? Did it ship on time?

If anything it's early - KS page says "Delivery October 2016".

As part of my ongoing defense of Specter Ops, I played a four player game last night for the first time in over a year. It was incredibly tense. The agent was able to complete three objectives, but ultimately was caught shortly thereafter. Overall length was about 2 hours with an explanation of rules. I had a blast getting killed. Good stuff!

Star Trek Ascendancy arrived this week, so I’ve had about 1.5 games to digest it. The factions have a genuinely unique feel, and the map layout is really clever, but the length and turn mechanism is really going to be an issue with some players. My ½ length game was about 3 hours. My first full game was probably closer to four. I don’t personally have an issue with length if the game has substance. This game has enough meaningful decisions to make it worthwhile. I will be playing with simultaneous turns for the first two rounds to jumpstart the action a bit, but I wouldn’t advise doing so in the company of a new player. Overall, I think it’s pretty great- worthy of the hype.

Had a couple of no-shows last night for D&D, so we tried to do the next best thing and played Wrath of Ashardalon. The early going went pretty well. We crushed all of the monsters and built up a good amount of XP. But about halfway through our luck started to change. We didn't seem able to roll high enough to hit anything, and we also started encountering a bunch of tougher enemies like Duergar Guards and Cave Bears. Still we did find the Dire Chamber, and the Otyugh was there waiting for us. He actually killed our rogue twice over, but on the last possible turn before we would have run out of healing surges, our wizards (me) hypnotized the Orc Archer standing next to the Otyugh to attack his overlord and deal the killing blow. Heroes win!

There has been a lot of talk here over the best dungeon crawl, Silver Tower, what have you. I'm sure those are all awesome games, but I haven't yet played anything I like as much as the D&D Adventure games. I especially like it now that I've played some actual D&D. It doesn't have the narrative flavor of course, but it does have that same attitude toward die rolling, where everything feels really high stakes and you always feel like you are doing badly, until you narrowly win. I really need to get a copy of Temple of Elemental Evil, and then I need to buy a big tackle box to consolidate everything, so I don't have that huge stack of giant boxes cluttering my life.

Yeah, those DDAS games are really something special. I'd even say that I ultimately think they may be the better route particularly for more casual gamers or at least those not really interested in painting and modelling side of gaming. The DDAS pieces don't require any assembly, are super durable, the rules incredibly flexible for customization, etc. They're the real deal and the true heirs to Heroquest, IMO.

I say all the above not having played Silver Tower yet.

What has me looking at WHQ:ST is the setting and the fantastic models to paint. But yeah, if not interested in those, DDAS is probably a better bang for the buck.

You bring up the flexibility, and I think that's a huge plus. I don't normally feel inclined to play in game design sandboxes, but the D&DAS might be an exception. It's a very difficult system to break, which makes it very easy to experiment with. There were a couple of moments last night where the rules just didn't make clear what we should do, and in all of those cases either option makes sense and works fine. The trade-off is that it's kind of a squishy ruleset, but it also allows for its own version of dice-fudging. I expect we'll have years of enjoyment from those games, because my kids are just beginning to get old enough to enjoy them properly.

yep, you can add levels beyond second, adjust the ease (or difficulty) by increasing or decreasing healing surges, enhance between adventure activities, create new heroes, etc. all very easily. It's a hard system to break.

It's also go so far as to say the release, and success, of Castle Ravenloft basically ended, while validating, the Ameritrash movement. It was the call back to looser mechanics in a nerdy setting that a lot of us missed with the rise of the Euros. I'd guess we have a new WHQ game today because of the DDAS titles. KS has now flooded us with CR descendants...so maybe that's the one bad part.

Castle Ravenloft was a watershed moment for sure though...

EDIT: think about the above idea a little more, I might be inclined to include Last Night on Earth (released three years prior) as having a big impact as well. I know Arkham Horror was a big seller in the 00's based on theme, but it never really felt like the wild games of AT yore such as Thunderroad, Axis and Allies, heroquest, etc. Maybe the true lineage was Nexus Ops (which was a hold out that went under the radar and into discount bins during the euro craze) to Last Night on Earth then Castle Ravenloft before the explosion of plastic filled boxes in nerd themes we see all over the place now. I dunno. Interesting to think about though.

We finished our Pandemic Legacy campaign. Going into November we probably had a W/L ratio of 2:1, but November and December destroyed us. Maybe it was the 2 month break we had between sessions, or just bad draws, but it was rough. We lost both games in Nov. and Dec. Four in a row; kind of demoralizing.

Results:



Overall I really enjoyed the experience. Makes me really want to get Risk Legacy.

Shadows of Brimstone on Friday, more on that in that topic.

Saturday was a good mix of games:
Star Realms in which I got a serious drubbing 45/0. Ouch.
Mythotopia in which we screwed up the end-game trigger requirements so it wasn't quite right. I was way back in last place anyway as I was struggling for Clay the whole game. My own fault for not grabbing the Quarry or Market cards, but I focused on Limes and Cavalry instead, which I think at least delayed a lot of conflict heading my way. Still, it was a great game watching the ebb and flow of it all. Also a bonus that one of the players likes these kinds of Wallace games and would like to try A Study in Emerald (maybe Mythotopia is the gateway drug for that).

Dogs of War with just four players. Better with five but still a good game. I ended up tying for first place, though we calculated that I could have won (with fewer points) if I'd played betrayal in the last round against the player I tied with. Keeping track of hidden information sucks for me, but honestly, the guy I tied with is a total board game shark so I should always bet against him. After the game, one player was reinforcing the idea that the house shields are how you win the game. On the basis that I lost the win due to pushing shields that an opponent had one more of, and I could have won purely on points I scored during battles, I'm going to let him keep thinking that.

Lords of Waterdeep which did not suck. I did suck, but I came in 3rd with 164 points so I felt alright about it. I mostly enjoyed playing the game with a decent bunch of players.

Roll For It was the bookend for the day, and is becoming the favourite option in that Risk Express/Wurfel Bohnanza area. A nice mix of light tactics and random number generators. Good times.