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What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?
Saturday started out with a six player game of Paris Connection. I explained what I thought about general strategy. Nobody listened and I won by 20 points again. I haven't looked into any strategy forums or anything like that but I'm sure we're all playing fast and loose in what number-crunchers might call "sub-optimal" ways. I need to paint dots on the brown trains as those and the purple (that nasty kind of maroon paint that gets on many German games) were causing real problems for our colour-blind player.
After that five of us went all in on the full Terraforming Mars game, with corporate era cards added in. The board was much different by the end this time, with very few greenery tiles (relatively speaking). The player who had a lot of those didn't win in the end, victory went to the player who was collecting points mostly from printed VPs on cards, though he did also lock down Scientist and 2nd place in Thermalist. I was able to grab Builder early on but I came in 2nd to last, though the point spread was 50-65 or so, so it was a lower scoring game overall. It took a shade over three hours (we still do drafting in the research phase) so I'm not sure that I'd play that way again. I enjoy the game, but I'd rather play it for an hour less.
After that was the return of Zombicide, which we hadn't played for a while. We were using the Prison Outbreak set but with Rue Morgue tiles and a downloaded mission of only four map tiles. We had a group that was half "non-gamers" if such a thing really exists, and only two of us had played before. Even so we had a great time fighting off berserkers and dogs (horses, because of proxies) and we called it when we saw we couldn't lose. It wasn't a cake-walk by any means, but you can tell when you're one turn from winning (getting to the exit).
I was going to go home, but some cheeky sods had pulled my Terraforming Mars and I had to hang around while they finished that. I ended up playing/running a handful of five, then six-player Resistance games. I own Avalon, but haven't played Resistance for a couple of years, I think mostly because the people in the area who enjoy it are fucking nightmares to play with. I caused a Resistance loss in the final game, because I didn't go with my gut. I'd pinned one spy and had a 50/50 feeling about the other, but chose poorly and we lost. I enjoyed it though, but I know I won't want to play it if/when the usual suspects return to the group.
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I liked a lot of the changes to the game. It feels much more fluid than the full rules.
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wkover wrote:
Highlights of the group, with names changed to protect the innocent.
Mr. B: Refuses to play co-ops, complicated games, games longer than 90 minutes (some exceptions), games with too much reading (i.e., all deck-builders), and most new games (some exceptions). Loves party games.
Mr. E: Won't play games with dice, a significant luck element, or direct conflict (e.g., Tigris and Euphrates, Evolution). Always brings the same three games: Ticket to Ride, Thurn and Taxis, and something that I'm forgetting because I never want to play it.
Mr. B - banish him to the local Barnes and Noble meet up group. Basically he wants to play party games. Fuck that shit.
Mr. E - tell him to tag along with Mr. B.
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Msample wrote:
wkover wrote:
Highlights of the group, with names changed to protect the innocent.
Mr. B: Refuses to play co-ops, complicated games, games longer than 90 minutes (some exceptions), games with too much reading (i.e., all deck-builders), and most new games (some exceptions). Loves party games.
Mr. B - banish him to the local Barnes and Noble meet up group. Basically he wants to play party games. Fuck that shit.
Mr. B's the host of the group and one of the founding members, so that might be difficult.
He and I have something in common, actually. We've both gotten far more cranky and selective (with games) as time has gone on. We've both realized that we're simply too old to play games that we don't enjoy. Same goes for TV, movies, books, and anything else in life. If you don't like it, don't do it.
More than just avoiding bad games, actually, I now actively avoid games that are just OK. If it isn't excellent - or at least really fun - then why bother? My free time is limited, as is my life on Earth generally.
That said, if you're a social gamer and in it for the company, then the game itself doesn't matter that much.
Edit: This is the gaming forum, so I should mention that I played Hogwarts Battle last night (scenario 6). It was really fun. The seventh and final scenario looks tough, but we're looking forward to the challenge. We haven't lost a game yet, but it's been close. A really nice family game overall, but that's true of most co-ops.
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- Black Barney
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I think the only rule I bring to gaming days (this Saturday btw!) is NO MUNCHKIN
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Afterwards, we played a few games of Codenames. My brother thought the fastest man alive's name was 'Hussein Bolt', which didn't help us win that game. That would have been sad, if he hadn't realized his goof right after he gave me the clue. The s-i-l liked Codenames better than Takenoko, which makes sense because party games are more her thing.
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In principle, I like the card-based combat vs the usual dice. But it has 2 major drawbacks. It is long. Like, really long. You shoot a guy by flipping a card. He defends himself by flipping a card. Then both you can "cheat" the result by playing a card from your hand. If you succeed, you flip another card for damage. Which maybe you can cheat. Or maybe he will use a soul-stone to prevent the damage. And then, you have another action - which might well be shooting again, going through the same phases. If it was just flipping and living with the results, it wouldn't be so different from warhammer... but the possibility of cheating adds this layer of decision-making. It makes the game "smarter", but also a lot of downtime. We had 8 dudes vs 7 dudes. It took at least 1 hour for the first due to bite the dust, and the whole skirmish clocked in about 4 hrs. If my opponent and I played this game consistently - like every week or so - we could cut about 1 hr, 1,5hrs at most. Still a lot of time for a skirmish. Just to think that we could have had a game of Dune/Rex with 4-5 players in that time made me feel sad.
Second issue with the card-based combat, specially with cheating - it is not thematic. You spend time and energy to manage your hand of cards, which does not represent anything specific, instead of moving your dudes and making bang-bang sounds. Anyway, it is kind of stupid bashing a game that nobody here is playing...
But it is also damn frustrating to invest time&money in a miniature game to realize you're not going to play it.
Oh, by the way, the minis are totally cool and on par with warhammer. And it has great female characters. I don't regret having painted them at all.
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Vlad wrote: Oh, by the way, the minis are totally cool and on par with warhammer. And it has great female characters. I don't regret having painted them at all.
I like the look of a lot of the minis, but I have heard that many are absolutely awful to assemble. Has their move to plastic helped on that end?
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I have only worked with the new plastic models, they're not as easy to assemble as Warhammer miniatures, but in the same ballpark - way easier and pleasant than any metal or resin I've tried. They also have a more kinetic look and posture than GW stuff, so you don't feel duped. And the models are all different, which makes the painting more rewarding - you never get the feeling that you have painted the same model ten times. My wife liked them a lot -
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Only game I bought at the Con, picked it up after watching a demo. The game definitely oozes theme for what is essentially an area control game. The weapons are generally very good and remind you of weapons you've used in an FPS. I've done poorly in the two games I played, but enjoyed it nonetheless (a good sign). The only down side is that the game is better, IMO, if it's played quickly, but the game rewards more deliberate play. Looking forward to see how that expand it.Grudunza wrote: Adrenaline, y'all. It's amazing. Played a short 4 kill game at TOS.con and can't wait to play a longer one tomorrow and/or Saturday. (If anyone from F:AT is here, let me know and I'll play it with you.)
It's a first-person shooter skirmish, but done as an area majority game, where the player's damage is the area that scores the points, if that makes sense. Awesome weapons, simple to learn, powerful, tactical and super-thematic stuff that happens with kill shots and overkills and power-ups and attacks of opportunity. Love it.
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PWU had me checking out Malifaux for a while, but I like PWU enough to just stay with it rather than buy into a true miniatures game. Although PWU does have fantastic miniatures. Some of them were tricky to assemble but I managed fine.
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cdennett wrote: Only game I bought at the Con, picked it up after watching a demo. The game definitely oozes theme for what is essentially an area control game. The weapons are generally very good and remind you of weapons you've used in an FPS. I've done poorly in the two games I played, but enjoyed it nonetheless (a good sign). The only down side is that the game is better, IMO, if it's played quickly, but the game rewards more deliberate play. Looking forward to see how that expand it.
I wish I had grabbed a copy, but they sold out the second day. I played four more times, though. My favorite new game, for sure (though Clank! is a close second). I know what you mean about being more deliberate, as there are often tactical things to suss out, especially about which weapon to grab. But other than one game where a guy was being very AP and deliberate about every move (and still lost badly), all plays were fast-moving, even playing the full 8 kills plus the frenzy round. I can see this being a new go-to in a pinch with our game group... teach in about 5 minutes, and play in about an hour, and super fun.
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The first phase of the game is Broadsides: secretly choosing three movement cards to outmanuever your opponent and fire loads of cannons. Repeat until one player is dead or surrendered, or the second phase happens. As you take damage you lose crew, cannons, hull sections, and masts. Losing hull sections or masts means you have to play damage cards when you play your three maneuver cards so taking damage gets pretty limiting pretty fast. The second phase is Boarding Parties, which is putting the two ships alongside each other and running your pirates around to kill the other player's captain. The second phase is the kind of thing that only happens as a last ditch hail mary or a total screwball move. Better to take out the other ship with cannons if you can. You can only cannon fire from an adjacent space though, so with smart maneuvering if you're on the losing end of the Broadsides phase you can still try to ram the other ship and kill his Captain via hand-to-hand in Boarding Parties.
I'm putting a small-box travel friendly PnP Broadsides & Boarding Parties on my to do list.
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- Michael Barnes
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Bloodborne is the second Eric Lang "meh" in a row. It is really, really, not that great. It's kind of like a streamlined Cutthroat Caverns. Everybody teams up to fight monsters, scores separately. Secret card pick/simultaneous flip action selection mechanic. Hopefully you stabbed/shot/whipped/sawed the monster more so you get more Blood Echoes. If you die, you lose all the Blood Echoes you have on hand. So you have to go to the Hunter's Dream to bank them. This is kind of cool and it is like the video game, but the rest of the game is pretty uninspired. Weirdly, there is more loot than there are monsters. I do also like how the exploding dice are used, they can make a "weak" monster suddenly very dangerous which is exactly what happens in the video game if your timing is off or if you are sloppy.
It's a fine game, I guess...it's pretty easy, it has illustrations from the video game, there's some drama/surprise...it's just not particularly interesting to play. I just played with three, it may be more compelling with 4 or 5 so I'll try it that way before I land on a rating.
The new edition of Kaleidos on the other hand is a smash hit with the family. My wife even played it with us, which is...kind of strange!
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Michael Barnes wrote: I almost got some Malifaux from Miniature Market on review copy, but I backed out of it...the reality of it is that I am not really interested in getting into a bunch of other miniatures games when I'm committed to the GW stuff.
That's a bummer. Malifaux deserves a well-balanced review from a pro. I only found one on ShutUp&SitDown, and although it is a well-written piece, I found that, for most part, it was not at all about the game I played (or maybe they were just reviewing the 1st edition).
On a different note, the best adaptation of Souls games is Lord of the Rings LCG.
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