What Board Game have you been playing? ARCHIVE

Time to hit Barnes with a double whammy . . .
Caylus and A Touch of Evil.

Glad you got Alhambra to the table, Hex! How'd you like the 2 player rules with the dummy player? Didnt bother me overly much, but some folks hate it. I kinda liked the incentive to if not beat your opponent, at least not get owned by the dummy player.

I played a lot of Blokus last weekend with both father and father-in-law as well as cousins. Good times. That game is great and everyone I've showed it to has really loved it. Tetris isnt a bad comparison to use.

Also got in 3 plays of Red November (recently acquired from the math trade) solo. First one I won by not knowing you could only perform ONE action per turn. Also forgot to add to the oxy track for each fire (tough one to remember at first!). Whoops. Got super close the 2nd game with one or 2 gnomes in the safe, but heat crept up and bam. Third game was horrid. Couldn't get far at all - died to a timed event.

Question for anyone who's played: Do you fail the timed events if your GHOST marker goes past it trying to prevent it, or your ACTUAL marker?

Whammy!

Actually I haven't been playing much of anything lately. I suck.

Still playing a bit of Infernal Contraption. Since I finally finished the Session Report to Warzone, I think I'll draft up some more force lists and try again. This time, I'll do the classic intercorporate warfare: Imperial vs. Cybertronic.

Ska_baron wrote:

Glad you got Alhambra to the table, Hex! How'd you like the 2 player rules with the dummy player? Didnt bother me overly much, but some folks hate it.

The fact that you can even play it with 2p is what sold it for me and it seems to work just fine. So I don't see what's to complain about. I've not played it with more so maybe I don't see the big picture. I did fuck up our last game though by forgetting to give "dude" his tiles after the 1st scoring. No wonder I was winning!

Really though, I'm pleased with it. It's a lot better than I actually thought it would be. I will investigate euros more in the future I think.

Question for anyone who's played: Do you fail the timed events if your GHOST marker goes past it trying to prevent it, or your ACTUAL marker?

It's both. At least that's how we're playing it. Here's a rule we missed on our first plays - If you fix a timed event you also reset the corresponding "threat" track (if applicable).

Hey so I played Apples to Apples for the first time last weekend and it was actually really fun. I like yelling at people for making dumb choices.

Which is more unscrupulous, Wall Street or the NRA?

Played Starcraft tonight. Like all the FFG coffin box games, I like it less every time I play it.

It does a really good job of translating PC RTS games to the tabletop, and it has some really innovative things going on, but it's starting to feel like another efficiency Euro. A really big, long, plastic-filled efficiency Euro. It seems like it's mostly a matter of getting your best units on the board as quickly as possible, optimizing your combat deck to suit those units, locking in defensive positions that will fulfill your special victory conditions, and then waiting it out until phase III.

Obviously, that's easier said than done, and you may have to break out the silver tongue along the way, but yeah, it's a little boring. I'm not even sure it's much shorter or easier to play than TI:3, which doesn't seem to have all the AP hazards this one does.

Guess I'll have to check out the expansion.

mjl1783 wrote:

It seems like it's mostly a matter of getting your best units on the board as quickly as possible, optimizing your combat deck to suit those units, locking in defensive positions that will fulfill your special victory conditions, and then waiting it out until phase III.

Isn't that basically how the PC game plays?

Hex Sinister wrote:

Ska_baron wrote:

Glad you got Alhambra to the table, Hex! How'd you like the 2 player rules with the dummy player? Didnt bother me overly much, but some folks hate it.

The fact that you can even play it with 2p is what sold it for me and it seems to work just fine. So I don't see what's to complain about. I've not played it with more so maybe I don't see the big picture. I did fuck up our last game though by forgetting to give "dude" his tiles after the 1st scoring. No wonder I was winning!

Really though, I'm pleased with it. It's a lot better than I actually thought it would be. I will investigate euros more in the future I think.

Question for anyone who's played: Do you fail the timed events if your GHOST marker goes past it trying to prevent it, or your ACTUAL marker?

It's both. At least that's how we're playing it. Here's a rule we missed on our first plays - If you fix a timed event you also reset the corresponding "threat" track (if applicable).

Ah, thanks for the answer - and yeah, I'd missed that in my solo games, but read it and played it like that for the first real game. Geez that sub is leaky and flamable.

Oh, and if you need more euros... I've still got a few gems left ;D

metalface13 wrote:

mjl1783 wrote:

It seems like it's mostly a matter of getting your best units on the board as quickly as possible, optimizing your combat deck to suit those units, locking in defensive positions that will fulfill your special victory conditions, and then waiting it out until phase III.

Isn't that basically how the PC game plays?

That's what I was thinking, too.

I played Blue vs. Gray a lot recently. That's a very good casual war/card game. Recommended to all closet grognards and AT fans, too. The battles can have extreme unpredictable results, but that only suits the war depicted (Manassas, Cold Harbor, etc.).

I finally played the Illuminati CCG last weekend.

My first gaming group played the hell out of the original Illuminati back in high school and college, but finally lost interest due to the hellishly long endgame. Even so, I bought the Illuminati CCG one of everything box several years ago, when the game was dead and that box was on deep discount. But I didn't know anybody who wanted to play, so it gathered dust.

A while back, I discovered that some people in my Call of Cthulhu campaign played the Illuminati CCG back in the day. So we got a game together, all using decks built by one guy. It was okay fun, and once I got the hang of the changes, played faster than the original game. The gameplay is okay, even after the humor gets old.

metalface13 wrote:

mjl1783 wrote:

It seems like it's mostly a matter of getting your best units on the board as quickly as possible, optimizing your combat deck to suit those units, locking in defensive positions that will fulfill your special victory conditions, and then waiting it out until phase III.

Isn't that basically how the PC game plays?

Yes, but on a PC it's happening in real time, and it's FUN. Unlike the board game.

The board game doesn't do a very good job of rewarding players with good hotkey memorization and mouse-clicking skills.

lol, even with its classic BGG-patented passive aggressiveness, I find that last post funny