What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Hey, so War Chest is really, really good. There’s a whole lot of tension packed into a short playtime, so many tough decisions with so few rules. The bag building brings that addictive tick you get from a deckbuilder that really makes the whole thing more fun than it is stressful. The production is simple but excellent. I think this is one of the best games of the year.

Okko is bad ass. I wish I’d have had that terrain!!

Played Brass: Birmingham today.

I really enjoyed it. It's a serious brainburner, of the good kind and there's something very interesting about: It's a very open-ended game, with many paths to victory and strategies and tricks but also a game that imposes some pretty hefty limitations on the player. I really like this, too many games make the mistake of watering down the play experience by giving out options.

I hadn't played Brass before and people at the club thought I would like it. So yeah, they were not wrong.

Josh Look wrote: Hey, so War Chest is really, really good. There’s a whole lot of tension packed into a short playtime, so many tough decisions with so few rules. The bag building brings that addictive tick you get from a deckbuilder that really makes the whole thing more fun than it is stressful. The production is simple but excellent. I think this is one of the best games of the year.

I can’t help but look at it and see Dirge (Small Box Games)

More Azul and Terraforming Mars with the missus over the past few days. In TM I tried to make a win out of science and space cards, and got wrecked when my wife got everything else. Then I'm not sure what she was trying, but I beat her pretty badly with greeneries, cities, and TR advances. Maybe she was letting me win because she couldn't stand to hear me cry anymore.

She doesn't have a problem beating me up in Azul, though. Evidently I suck at it.

RobertB wrote: Maybe she was letting me win because she couldn't stand to hear me cry anymore.

I really thought I was out of my game of Brass by turn 3 and ended up winning by like 40 points. So yeah D:

@Erik Twice - I played Vitor, she played Point Luna, and we played on the green board. I picked Terraformer as the free Award, and pushed TR really hard. Close to the end of the game I was 20 points ahead of her there, so I forced the ending. Usually she relies on end-of-game points, and if I try to play a long game with her I usually lose. But I like 60-70 Me income turns too much to play smart all the time.

Had a friend over tonight to play Sekigahara. I got this game from one of our locals here on TWBG last year, just before we made plans to move out to Manila. I wasn't sure I'd drag it across the world, but after a single game last summer I was so impressed that I went ahead and made room for it in our move. Tonight was the first time I have been able to play since I've been here, so it's been over a year since I last tried it. Tonight's game was an affirmation of just what a great game it is.

My first game had a lot of big battles, and the clashes were generally pretty back and forth. The battles in this game were far more surgical. Most of them ended up being skirmishes over castles and resource locations, but the scale rarely extended beyond four blocks on a single side. This was partially inexperience (I was teaching the game to someone with little wargame experience), but there was this sense of feeling out what needed to be done. At one point my opponent, who was playing as Tokugawa, brought Tokugawa himself into a battle. That battle turned into a prolonged siege, and having exposed where his leader was, I made a beeline with a contingent of troops from my capital. My own leader was in that stack of blocks as well, because any ability to play leaders without cards in a battle was necessary. I came against Tokugawa, with card support that all came together at the right time, and I was able to win in turn three.

I realized the necessity of keeping your troops on the move. There's no real reason to "hold territory" when that territory is your reinforcement points. Even if you don't have the support, you need to put blocks where they can be useful. You eventually will have support, and anyway it obfuscates where your position of actual strength is. The board design does such a great job at creating little choke points, many of them away from the major cities and roads.

I don't want to keep harping too long on a seven-year-old game, but I just can't get over this one. I am so impressed by this design at every level. It is exactly the wargame I have always wanted to play.

You should keep harping about it. It's a brilliant game.

I regret ever selling it.

Played a card game called Cat Lady. Players compete to feed the most cats and fill your life with cat toys, cat nip, and costumes that would normally get you mauled if you ever tried to use them. You would think that this would appeal to the crazy cat lovers of the world but if you want to win you’re might have to off some cats to pull out the win. I thought the game play was fine and the art was attractive. With enough alcohol, I think there are some serious role playing opportunities to boot.

Followed that with cockroach poker. 64 card deck, 8 cards each of 8 different types of critter. Deck is distributed among 2 to 6 players (ours was 3 player). During your turn you put a card face down and pass to someone declaring what it is. They have to decide if you are truthful. If they are right, you are penalized by having that card placed face up in from of you...if not, they get it. Alternatively they can look and then pass to someone who hasn’t gotten it and declare what it is. If you have 4 matching face up critters, you are out. Basic rules with lots of laughter. It’s definitely going into the family gathering rotation.

We play Cockroach Poker with a Bohnanza deck (Bean Poker the kids call it). Fun game. Although I feel slightly uneasy about the skills I am giving my kids, this is offset by learning the signs, I guess.....

Sekigahara is still my favourite war game. I was so impressed I wrote a shitty review here and it’s become better since (the game, not my review lolol).

Killing a leader for the win tends to hit Tokugawa more often from my experience. His path to the capital allows for fewer stack shuffles due to the linear highways and fewer friendly troops on route to typical battlegrounds. If located, he tends to stick out for more turns.

One of the greatest designs of the last decade imo, perfectly blending wargaming with Euro streamlining. I guess some might get bored of the same map each game, but it always seems to play out in a unique way. My favorite matches tend to have heavy action in the Date section of the board - the card cycling seems to lend to an explosive battle along the highway in this case after the eastern skirmishes resolve.

Agreed. Sekigahara is brilliant. I've had so many interesting games of it. I wanted to write something about GMT's block games like I did Columbia's, but I don't think I have enough experience with Hellenes to write it properly, so I'd only be talking about Sekigahara.

Played a 3P FTF game of CATACLYSM yesterday and despite my Fascists getting overrun, had a great time. There is a very interesting design with some clever bits for sure. More later, but def worth a look .

Laundry night, so I alternated ironing shirts with playing turns of Death Angel. I chose the Tyranids for the opposition, and the standard space marines for my side. I drew the yellow (lightning claws), green (hammer), and blue (Sergeant Lorenzo) teams, so 1/3 of my team lacked ranged attacks. We lost one marine in the void lock due to a lucky cheap shot by a tyranid. I focused on activating the door location every possible chance, so at one point I blew up five Tyranids as we moved to the next room. In the third room, we lost another marine to a relentless stack of five tyranids. But I made it to the final room with four guys, where our mission was two kill two hivelords. I lost one more guy, but still had one from each team when I won.