What Board Game have you been playing? ARCHIVE

My old euro group finally had a Friday night session last week where they will play 'better' euros or even AT-ish products (I've had BSG out twice now) because they know I'm coming along.

Anyway last week someone had Martin Wallace's new Age of Steam version, Steam - Rails to Riches, and since we all love AoS that hit the table. After all of the hyped changes from last year (and I played one of the prototypes that one of the guys got/made from MW) the end result had only a couple of changes plus up market artwork. I managed to get myself built in and surrounded two thirds of the way through so ended up being hammered by the other three. Of the two main changes it was the income and scoring trach change that was the hardest to work out, and I'm not sure I like the new way.

Finished off with my Formula Motor Racing by Knizia. This is a fun little racing game where up to 6 players have 2 cars each and your jockey for position from 1 to 12 by playing cards on each other, and use a 12-side dice for resolving 'take that' cards at someone. The best card is the crash one which has you rolling the dice and the car in that position plus one either in front or behind it are knocked out ... and you would not believe how often I roll one of my car's positions - Friday night was no different. And when you don't have 6 players the spare cars still race, and they often win overall as they get points by default as everyone is screwing each other - no change again that night with the two non-player teams (Alonso and Hamilton) taking 1st and 2nd overall !
Great little game for filling in 40mins.

Red November Courtesy of Lord Humungous/F:AT Arms Deal. Pretty amusing little co-op, good gamblers kind of game too. I like how you can play it safe or risky depending on your mood. It seems like if you want to win then you need to make risky fix-it rolls a little more often. We were crushed in the depths.

Talisman (GW edition) I broke this out for my buddy who wanted the memory lane trip. Typical Talisman, runs way too fucking long until I don't give a crap who wins anymore. It's 4am and the birds are chirping and I just want to go to bed.

Talisman seriously loses my interest after the second hour. A light game like this shouldn't take so long to get finished. There just isn't enough meat to sustain it after a certain point. I really don't understand the huge appeal of this thing. I was wishing we had played Runebound instead. But whatever. The guys and my girlfriend had fun so it was cool.

Still, Talisman can lick my pung.

Been playing Starcraft: The Board Game. Next time will be the first play with the expansion. Also, Sorry Sliders, Race For the Galaxy, and Wings of War.

Big tour would be so great if only I could have made the producers hire more gaming comics! I bought Cosmic Encounter, but the cast have yet to try it. I have though run them thru some great back stage sessions of Wings of War; Famous Aces (simple rules)...the choice to buy them each their own miniature was the key to getting them playing!

Have also had a few hands of Gloom. This is a cute bit of fun.

But I REALLY want to break out Cosmic!

I have still been playing too much Vampire: the Eternal Struggle lately. Mostly playtesting the expansion set we've been working on, but tomorrow I will be playing in the Midwest Qualifier for the annual tournament at GenCon. My decks are never tournament caliber, but after nearly 15 years of play, I am otherwise a competitive player. The number of local players has tripled in just the last year. Tomorrow will be crazy, as there will also be players coming from northern Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, and Iowa.

Next week, two old friends are visiting from Indy for several days, so we are going to get some boardgaming in. We've talked about maybe playing Android, Arkham Horror, Battlestar Galactica, Cosmic Encounter, Pirate King, Star Wars Epic Duels, and Wiz-War.

EVE: The Second Genesis CCG - Played this doing a starter draft with best 2-out-of-3 games. I keep meaning to write a review for this game since there's not much out there on it. So I'll save what I was going to write here for that.

With a couple of old friends in town, I had the chance to do more gaming than usual. We played Pirate King, Android (twice), Dungeon Twister (four player), Fury of Dracula, and Citadels. Now that I've played Android five times, I feel like I might be capable of reviewing it properly.

My wife and I played Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization two nights ago. We played the full game. It's my 12th or 13th game at least. I think we've basically had it with that game now. It's just too damn long. First two ages are really fun and then it just gets really long and dull I think.

My wife and I played Talisman last night with the new Dungeon. The game was over in about 30 minutes. She was the Amazon, and I got to the crown first and won with the Gladiator. I really like the new stuff in this expansion.

I got in a game of Buffy last night which was particularly rewarding because my group usually vetoes such trash. But there were eight of us, so half played Stone Age and half Buffy. I was able to cull the herd and get things to go my way with a selected group.

Everything Last Night on Earth should have been.

Sag.

Michael Barnes wrote:

Hey, welcome aboard Pnumekin...sounds like you're getting the young'uns off to a good start.

I'm not really playing jack shit right now. One of my game groups is a shambles and the other doesn't meet regularly. Lately, I've been playing oddball fare with Branham...FORTUNE 500, a surprisingly good old timey business game where you can run real-life corporations such as Guiness into ruin...tried SMALL WORLD, it was OK...played GAME Z last week, full review coming at Cracked LCD...

LOTS of ROCK BAND...DISGAEA on DS (does the game ever really end...PUNCH-OUT...LUNAR KNIGHTS...NEW SUPER MARIO BROS....

Sorry to hear your groups are in the can, Barnes. But I meant to ask you back when you posted this, if you could be playing anything "board game" right now, what would it be? You have a passion for anything?

Right now, I'd really love to playing either STARCRAFT with the BROOD WAR expansion or ARKHAM with INNSMOUTH. Haven't gotten to do either yet, and I'm really eager to try them out. Unfortunately, among people I play games with right now, playing a new game one time is more common than playing an old favorite multiple times.

I've really been wanting to play ESCAPE FROM COLDITZ too.

Last weekend I played the amazing Battleground: Crossbows & Catapults! Any game about firing projectiles, killing orcs AND you risk losing an eye just by playing is badass.

Alhambra Courtesy F:AT Arms Deal. Trying to broaden my horizons a little bit as this is my second euro. Hey, these euros aren't too shabby. The girlfriend and I have been enjoying this one quite a bit. Gameplay is not too long or too brief and it picks up quick. I'm not certain that I would break this out at guy's night though.

Descent Scenario Well of Darkness. If that doesn't happen (it didn't) the heroes are meat pie.

Runebound: Island of Dread Still in progress. I chickened out and didn't go for the win and now it's all dragged out. The boss battles chewed my ass the last time round though... I was starting to get spacy and AP'd so we quit and hit the Elder Scrolls: OBLIVION a bit before bed. Because casting paralysis on a mud crab is just too funny.