What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

NeonPeon wrote: My 10 yo son and I had a blast battling it out in Wizard Kings - the Columbia Games fantasy block game. He wants to play again with more players on one of our game days. I read recently in the block games thread that this game should only appeal to old farts. I guess he's an exception.

It's 4:24 a.m. and after waking up at 2:00 a.m. I read three week old game session reports here for about an hour, and I have to say they are really good. One reason I dug back a few weeks is because someone referred to V:TES and I had no idea what the acronym was (as usual) and so I had to go find out what this amazing game was. But then I came across this reference to Wizard Kings!

I scored a deal on a set of first edition with a lot of armies, and was seduced by Chris Farrell's loving descriptions of the game. I had so many maps, too. I managed to play several sessions with my boys, and for the most part it was pretty fun. Once of the cool little mechanisms was the were-creatures, who would get stronger or weaker based on the moon cycles. I think the last time I played it my son wanted to try it again and I sort of remembered the game but the session was a little bland and fiddly. But I loved the idea of fantasy warfare, and this huge game kit, and sneaking up on people with your hidden units, then *surprise*.

Played one that your in-laws have that doesn't make it to the table very often: Skip-Bo. I hadn't played it in maybe 20 years, and to be honest, I haven't missed it all that much. But it beats Mexican Train dominoes, and makes my mother-in-law happy. There's maybe a drop of strategy, so you have to pay a little attention.

Then my copy of Terraforming Mars: Prelude was waiting when we got back, and I played my wife. Her Prelude cards got her to +10 Mc Income, and she beat me about the head and shoulders with her money. She won by 7 points. I do like the Prelude cards.

Skip-Bo was the only thing i used to play with my in-laws, while drinking blueberry coffee


..i kinda miss it actually

Lord of the Rings: Quest for Mount Doom

This will be an underrated title, not only here but by the gaming community at large.

I've seen a few reviews prior to purchasing this today. Everyone laments that it:
1) Isn't a co-op.
2) Is at thematic odds due to it's "take that" conflict nature between members of the fellowship.

So for #1, I say "Thank god". And #2, I say "I agree, yet it doesn't affect my enjoyment".

Because as light and simple as this game is, it's rather fun.

Since you get 9 different characters to play, I could say that it would have been better to play as Nazgul and be one of The Nine, and perhaps make the Gaze of Sauron into the fellowship itself (more or less the complete opposite of what the them is), but I like it.

Look for this on clearance, because at $40 it's a bit high, but half that, it's a pretty fun game.

That is a neat game and I agree, it's better for not being a coop.

I played three games of Blitz Bowl last night.

In short, James Hewitt is the latter day savior of ameritrash.

GW were utter fools to let him out of their employ.

I've played blood bowl a few times over the years, and it never clicked with me. Mostly, because I believe you need to dive in deep to get the most out of it.

Blitz Bowl doesn't ask that of you in order to enjoy it.

It puts fun back into the game, and that seems to be Hewitt's trademark so far. Fun games.

The challenge cards are a stroke of genius, because it's puts the silly showmanship into a sport, making it essentially a gladiator game.

I hate sports outside of playing sports myself. I hate talking about sports, I hate hearing about sports.

My initial thoughts are that I adore this game. Enough to where I want to seek out the other teams and bring them into the mix.

First play impressions of Savage Planet: Fate of Fantos were solid. It ran a little long, and one player hated it just for being so mean and full of feel bad moments, but the other person and myself enjoyed it. It's largely a self contained reimplementation of Vampire The Eternal Struggle with incredible evil He-Man comic style art. I think generally a super mean, kinda long, political, negotiation heavy, ccg style card game with player elimination is going to be a hard sell to the people i typically game with... But I'm definitely going to try to get it back to the table soon. I can't wait to see how more games play out. It was good with 3 but I think it would be better with 4. It plays up to 6 which seems like it would be crazy, though I think downtime would become a real issue at the higher end. I'm really curious how it would stack up for experienced ccg players, as we're definitely not that.

This link has galleries of the card art because man it's really good
imphouse.com/games/fate-of-fantos/labor-gallery/

Wow, that looks like the same art style as Ferox.

That artist, Michael Lariccia, has done some comic books is you dig his work.

How does it compare to VTES? Comments are very mixed on it. I don't mind the nastyness.

The sum total of my VTES experience is playing 3-4 games of it with my older brother and his friends when I was 15 and thinking it was cool, so I'm maybe not the best one to weigh in on that front.

I broke Okko: Era of the Asagiri out of long term storage last night.

Such a good game. It's like ameritrash chess, if you have a competent opponent.

Sadly, despite it's feudal Japanese setting, the specific theme and art style is pretty esoteric to Americans as this is based off of a French comic book that never quite took root in the U.S.

If one we're to look for an acme of FrancoTrash, this is high on such a top 10 list.

We used all expansions for playing until just a hour ago from a marathon campaign session.

(I was given everything ever produced for Okko by Asmodeé, for writing a single haiku. That was back when Asmodeé were spelled that way and before they became the property of Mammon.)

The Era of the Kerasu expansion should be viewed as absolutely mandatory. The two other small box expansions less so, but they pack a huge punch of content for the tiny box size because of the characters and equipment that is present.

The first expansion, Yakuza Hazu Akai, has some pretty good stuff, and we find Ninja inside. The organized crime theme lends itself well to this game in a surprising way.

The second expansion, Pajan Gun'Tai, has interesting political characters along with soldier buffs in war banner equipment.

As a whole package, there is a lot of content to play through. I've had all of this for the better part of a decade, and played pretty heavily for a couple years of that time. I've barely scratched the surface of it all.

It is nice to have such a fairly meaty skirmish game packed into a box one half the size of the usual FFG fare.

I think that I would like Okko, but this awesome picture has probably ruined me for the normal game components:

Crayons, we need to meet up some time. You bring Okko, and I will bring The Hills Rise Wild.

Shellhead wrote: I think that I would like Okko, but this awesome picture has probably ruined me for the normal game components:

I actually went through this effort for Okko.

The terrain project was complete (there was once a thread on BGG about it before asploding my account), and then got sidelined after depression hit when my mom died. I never painted a single mini for the game, so they sit in a box neglected.

Then during The Great Purge of 2013, I attempted to get rid of it all. No takers, so the terrain found itself on the side of the road in Crystal, MN. Had I any sentimentality, I would have taken a pic of that tragic scene.

Suffice to say, I'm fine e with the game as it is produced rather than through my previous efforts. I won't go through that again.

I haven't yet played hills rise wild.