OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

[YellowKing]

Tobago is next up on my wish list. The Board to Death review made it seem like a lot of fun and the gameplay looked really unique.

[AWS260]

My Twilight Struggle plan worked -- I put it on my Amazon wish list, got it for Christmas, and got in several full games with my brother -in-law over the holiday.

[edit] My son helped:

[MonkeyFinger]

Has anyone here played any of the 'Dungeon Twister' games? I'm a sucker for the 'random tiles' kind of games and this one (particularly the newest version - Dungeon Twister Prison) sounds like fun.

[YellowKing]

Had a friend over last night to try out some of my new games. Well, Pandemic ended up sucking us in so bad we only got a chance to play one other!

We ended up beating Pandemic on Novice after four tries. It was a huge hit. My friend loved it and is going out to buy it for his family. My wife also loved it a great deal. Awesome game that we really had to tear ourselves away from.

Next up was Last Night On Earth. This one played out just like an actual zombie movie. I was playing the zombies and my buddy was playing four heroes. To win, I only needed to kill one more hero or last three more turns until sunset. For him to win he had to kill 5 zombies. He had all three heroes trapped in the church and my zombie horde had him completely surrounded. I also had a hand full of Fight cards that I was sure was going to cinch the victory.

What followed was some of the purest dumb luck in gaming history. On two separate turns I attacked all three heroes with three zombies per hero. That's NINE fights, plus I had extra die due to some Fight cards. He ended up rolling lights out, hitting doubles 5 times over the nine battles and killing 5 zombies thus winning the game. We could do nothing but sit there and laugh at how insane that all played out but it was cool. I do think that the game probably plays much better with more people; unfortunately my wife had to drop out so it was just the two of us, and I thought the pace dragged a bit with him having to control all four heroes. It was still fun though, and I'm looking forward to playing some of the other scenarios.

Setting up another game night this weekend to tackle Small World and Ghost Stories.

[baelthazar]

I predict you like Ghost Stories better than Pandemic, the theme is stronger (although the game is harder). If you want some REAL awesome story and fun, get Defenders of the Realm, which is like Pandemic on fantasy steroids.

I just glued the helmets on to my Martians for Invasion of Planet Earth, which is the alien invasion game from Flying Frog based on the ruleset for Last Night on Earth. It looks very good, and will add some spice to the more simple LNoE zombie tactics. Can't wait to somehow merge the two games together - zombies attacking Martians who are trying to kill the Carnies!

[Daveman]

I introduced my wife and 8.5 year old son to 7 Wonders and it's been a big hit. As advertised, after our first game we've been able to easily knock out a game in about 30 minutes. All of our games have been close and we're starting to play with a little more attention to keeping cards from our neighbors vs. just playing what's good for us... although it's generally the military cards that get discarded more than any other.

No one strategy has been a clear winner in our games either. Military strength looked like it might have been but our last couple games it wasn't a big factor in the game at all, in fact I won once even though I was pounded on at the end of each age.

Tobago is next up on my wish list. The Board to Death review made it seem like a lot of fun and the gameplay looked really unique.

Tobago was a big hit with us as well. A word of caution... after our first few games we felt like there was this great split between the whole clue-playing figure out where the treasure is part of the game (which we love) and the race to collect the treasures once they're revealed part. The two just didn't seem to fit so well, or at least seemed like the race to the treasure part was just tacked on as an afterthought. It took a couple games for us to see how you have to mesh both parts together... and how important collecting the talismans are for the extra actions they give you.

[Chaosraven]

YK - don't forget, they don't get another Hero to replace a dead one unless (a)it is the last one that player has, or (b)the scenario has the keywords Heroes Replenish. Also - when you kill the last Hero a player has, it becomes a ZOMBIE HERO for you to use and abuse. From one Zombie player to another, with love.

[baelthazar]

I just noticed you said this YK, about LNoE:

I do think that the game probably plays much better with more people; unfortunately my wife had to drop out so it was just the two of us, and I thought the pace dragged a bit with him having to control all four heroes. It was still fun though, and I'm looking forward to playing some of the other scenarios.

I've actually had the opposite experience. We had a couple of friends over, I played two heroes, my friend played two heroes and our wives played the zombies. It was a slog... just a slog. Part of it was that we played a new scenario that required some pretty strange tactics (destroying buildings rather than heroes) but because the zombie and hero turns are pretty short, it just seemed like too many people controlling tiny moves. The game also took 3 times longer than any other time we had played LNoE. I really think these games shine as a 1-v-1 (or perhaps 1-v-2 with 1 zombie player and 2 hero players) tactical game.

[SpaceLord]

Sounds fun, YK!

Truly, board gaming is my favorite hobby. Have fun and bond with friends, socialize, develop strategies, TOTAL WIN. Board games beat watching TV together by a mile!

[Jow]

+1 to that, Spacelord.

[baelthazar]

Yessir! I concur! Boardgaming is also sorta fun solo, thinking up strategies, sometimes painting the pieces, reading the cards. Opening up a new boardgame and checking out all the pieces and rules is always a joy! So, with this hobby, you get the best of both worlds!

I just wish I lived closer to a regular gaming group! Would love a weekly gaming meeting.

[YellowKing]

We tackled Ghost Stories last night. Really fun game but it kicked our ass.

First game we got annihilated because we got too complacent with haunters.

Second game we lasted much longer due to using Buddhas early. However we had such good control of the board that we again got complacent. We ended up burning too many turns killing easy ghosts, so when some heavy bitters came along we were caught with our pants down. Got overwhelmed around 10 ghosts short of the incarnation.

Can't wait to try It again. I love really difficult challenges like that.

[baelthazar]

YK,

The expansion for Ghost Stories really makes the came more interesting as well. And it is something you can either add or not add depending on how you feel. Once you get some games under your belt, I suggest looking into the.

[Chaosraven]

Well LordMortis was Unstoppable yesterday. 2 games of Dungeon Lords, 3 games of Dominion. If not for Arkham Horror I may not have been able to show my face again. Remus West and I kept him around until he was too tired to win and Remus stuck a win in for the day.

[LordMortis]

Well LordMortis was Unstoppable yesterday. 2 games of Dungeon Lords, 3 games of Dominion. If not for Arkham Horror I may not have been able to show my face again. Remus West and I kept him around until he was too tired to win and Remus stuck a win in for the day.

You can take solace in the fact the Arkham win was almost 100% your making.

[hentzau]

My vacation was very devoid of gaming. I was supposed to hook up with some of my old gaming buddies and get in a game of Gamma World, but it never happened. The only gaming I got in was a couple of games of Wits and Wagers, and one game of Qwirkle. Sad, really...

[paulbaxter]

I got to try out a few games over vacation. My B-I-L got Ticket to Ride, which I found enjoyable. My nephew really loves board games now, so I played a few with him. He picked up Dominion with his Xmas money, so I had my second try at that. Much fun, even playing with an 11 year old.

I picked up Small World. Only got to play it once with my nephew, so it's hard for me to judge how much I'll enjoy it. Sadly, it's not the sort of game my wife will like since it's competitive. Maybe I'll be able to convince her to play San Juan occasionally.

[hepcat]

Thursday I got to play some Summoner Wars, then a few games of 7 Wonders. Still love both those games.

The owners of our local game hangout kept touting a small release from Rio Grande called Glen More. On a lark, I picked it up. It was a budget game (35 bucks) and comes in a fairly small box so it's easy to transport.

Don't let the physical size fool ya, though. it's not a light game. I'm really, really impressed with it. It's got some Agricola (worker placement), some tile placement, a decent economic system and a unique gameboard that makes your movement around it strategic as well.

In a nutshell, you're the head of a scottish village and you're trying to expand. You do so by buying tiles that are placed on a square track. When you take one and either purchase it (if it has a cost) or place it for free (if it doesn't) you remove the tiles you jumped over except for the tile directly behind the last player. The person in last place now goes first when your action is over.

You place the tiles in front of you using a little bit of carcassone sensibilities. You then activate any tiles connected to it and use the special abilities of those tiles if they have one.

It sounds complicated, but after about 3 or 4 turns it all makes sense. This is definitely a case of good things coming in small packages.

[Zarathud]

I enjoyed hepcat's introduction to 7 Wonders. It's definitely a stripped down, quick civilization building game that keeps military a factor. We played a few games and I enjoyed the combos. The end comes just when things get a little difficult to track.

Glen More was a surprising success, and there's an awful lot going on with such a small game board. There's definitely a drive to be efficient in the game engine, and the ability to potentially lose a turns or two to get the tile you need becomes a rewarding strategic option. You also have to be sensitive about growing too much because those with the most tiles placed before them at the end get score penalties. Worker placement is important in your tiles is critical because you can only "build" adjacent (including diagonally) to a village worker. Players can buy 3 resources from the market (at an increasing cost), or sell back into the market (at the market price). So the game nicely folds in tile selection and placement, worker placement, resource management, and markets.

I expanded into cattle and production but didn't have an efficient way to convert them into VPs. hepcat turned into the whiskey king by taking the only production tiles, and then kept converting his grain. The rest of us made plays to compete with hepcat's monopoly using the highlanders and castles, but hepcat had too much of a lead. It had an interesting strategic depth that was enjoyable, even though we barley started to delve into the possibilities.

We also played a game of Summoner Wars and Mission:Red Planet. In games like Summoner Wars, I like to take armies that just go out and smash things without too much strategizing. The Frozen Orcs delivered for me again, although they almost stalled against the regenerating powers of the Undead. Red Planet was an interesting mix of placement and role selection, but I seemed to be the target of the evening. Next time, we'll have to beat on hepcat a little more rather than let him take all the valuable ore.

Mom finally looked at my Amazon list and bought me Cyclades for Christmas. The theme alone should make that entertaining, so I'm looking forward to trying it out soon. As a treat for myself, I put in a preorder for Alien Frontier which should ship sometime in March.

My new year's resolution is to run a few games of Paranoia in 2011, even if I have to fill the game with complete strangers at the local game store. I have a couple of interesting tricks planned if I can get some time to get organized.

[AWS260]

My new year's resolution is to run a few games of Paranoia in 2011, even if I have to fill the game with complete strangers at the local game store. I have a couple of interesting tricks planned if I can get some time to get organized.

Let the party live through an entire evening. That would be the most shocking Paranoia trick ever seen.

[El Guapo]

Just played Chaos in the Old World for the second time. Very fun game that I managed to win (barely beating out the Old World and Tzeentch) as Slannesh. I'm thinking that it's important for the other chaos gods to make a concerted effort to deny Slannesh a tick at all - Slannesh's dial is just too short otherwise. Preferably in the early game, when there are only going to be two noble tokens.

Anyways, good to see the buddies and it's a fun game. There are very interesting dynamics between the various Gods that it's interesting to see play out.

[SpaceLord]

Some old friends and I got together for three consecutive nights of gaming goodness! Was fucking awesome.

Played a lot of Dominion. I lovelovelove Prosperity, some great cards in that set. I find that adding Platinum and Colony often lengthens the game, as players tend to buy Colonies when they can afford it, causing the big VP piles to decrease in tandem.

Taught my friends to play Agricola, which was a big hit as well.

Played Race for the Galaxy as well. I love the game, but I feel that it takes 4-5 plays before it really shines.

Really wanted to have a big Arkham Horror game, but discovered, too late, that I left 1/2 of the bits in another time zone.

I also played Blokus with the family(I got it for my brother for Christmas), and they loved it. Also had them play the Family Game of Agricola, which they liked as well.

[Jow]

Really wanted to get in a game of Chaos as it's still my favorite but ended up putting it off again due to "other stuff".

That other stuff consisted of DungeonQuest, Elfenland, Dungeon Lords, Galaxy Trucker, and what turned out to be an epic game of Battlestar Galactica to end the night. We had 6 for BSG, with a sympathizer and two extra non-cylon cards since Boomer and Baltar were in the group. Baltar ended up being President, with Tigh the Admiral, both two of the more savvy players in the group (which concerned me). We ended up with no cylons in the first game of the game, but we intentionally tanked food so that our upcoming sympathizer got brigged, not revealed as a cylon. The second half of the game saw Tyrol and Helo (played by me) receiving the cylon cards (which was mindboggling considering the extra cards Baltar and Boomer received). The humans played really well, brigging Tyrol on the very turn he received his card. Unfortunately, the guy playing Tyrol had never played as a Cylon before so he really didn't know what to and spent several turns in the brig without really doing anything. Meanwhile, I needed to badly nuke a skill check and got brigged myself as a result shortly thereafter. It looked like one of the most smooth-sailing games the humans were ever going to have, but after I played the cylon attack super crisis and the humans received two more cylon attack crisis cards all in a row, the wheels fell off the wagon in spectacular fashion. We spent the last few turns of the game with every ship in the game, including vipers, on the board. Unfortunately for the humans, both of the crisis cards drawn during this time activated all raiders, which made the Cylon fleet activations even nastier. The very last turn saw an overwhelming attack as the raiders descended on Galactica for the final time, taking out 4 or 5 vipers and *7* civ ships in one turn. The human population went from 7 to 0 in that one turn. The humans also finished on the -3 FTL slot, only needing one more human turn of any kind to make the final jump to victory. It was the only game of BsG that I can remember where I felt we as the Cylons had no business winning but pulled it off anyway. Delicious!

[baelthazar]

hepcat turned into the whiskey king

Surprise surprise...

Glen More sounds very interesting... Too bad I've pretty much shot my gaming allowance.

I went ahead and pre-ordered Conquest of the Earth from Flying Frog. Should release in February, so not too long to wait. The pieces and cards look good, as is to be expected for Flying Frog, and I see that they even state the game is solo-capable. Can't wait!

I'm really looking forward to another round of BSG. I got Pegasus for X-Mas, but we didn't have time to run a game.

[Chaosraven]

The kids have been enjoying Magic over the winter break, and I got in some EDH Magic with them before heading out to play EDH all night. Out of six games, I won only one. Looks like the five decks I was trying out need a little tweaking. But I am so glad ALL of the kids in the house are enjoying it, challenging each other for duels and multiplayer games.

[Smoove_B]

While it's probably considered pedestrian, I did manage to play The Great Dalmuti for a few hours on NYE. I think it went over pretty well as an easily accessible, entertaining game while waiting for midnight.

[Chaz]

Great Dalmuti is awesome, and I wish I got to play it more often. In college, we played one game where we made the greater peon sit outside on the balcony in a milk crate that wasn't flipped upside down. It was February in western MA, and he had to open the sliding glass door every hand to clear cards.

[LordMortis]

While it's probably considered pedestrian, I did manage to play The Great Dalmuti for a few hours on NYE. I think it went over pretty well as an easily accessible, entertaining game while waiting for midnight.

I love Dalmuti as a party game. Sadly when you get enough people together to do party games there tends to be little interest in party games.

[Chaz]

I also find that frequently when I start describing or teaching Dalmuti as "it's basically just like Asshole" (because it is, and that's the easiest way to teach it), the response is frequently "Ooh, Asshole! Let's play that!" While I go pound my head against a wall.

[hentzau]

Dalmuti was a huge hit with my theater group, until I introduced them to Apples to Apples, and then that took it's place. I just recently uncovered my original Dalmuti deck, and man is it beat up. Going to a party this weekend, I may have to bring that along.

[El Guapo]

Are there any decent Star Trek or Star Wars based board games? You'd think there would be, there being a significant confluence in my experience between people who like one or both and people who like playing board games.

Personally I'd love to play basically a board game version of Birth of the Federation. Is there anything like that out there?

[Chaz]

I think the only decent Star Wars/Trek is (ironically) a game based on Episode 1 called Quenn's Gambit. Unfortunately, it's wicked out of print. There's also either an official or unofficial Trek tactical combat game that's been around forever, but I can't remember the title right now.

[Boudreaux]

Yeah Queen's Gambit is pretty highly regarded, but you're limited to eBay or BGG sales.

I also seem to recall one of the Star Wars Risk games being surprisingly good, but I don't know if I remember which one. I want to say it was based on the original trilogy. It took the Risk mechanics but threw in some new twists to fit the Star Wars theme.

[Chaosraven]

I think the only decent Star Wars/Trek is (ironically) a game based on Episode 1 called Quenn's Gambit. Unfortunately, it's wicked out of print. There's also either an official or unofficial Trek tactical combat game that's been around forever, but I can't remember the title right now.

Star Fleet Battles?

[Defiant]

I played a number of good games last weekend:

Cranium's Party Playoff. Not a serious board game, but a great party game. You select 8 people, 8 places, 8 things and 8 activities from a large selection, and then play them off against each other in various questions selected from cards, and people argue for which one they think should win and then vote. At the beginning of the game, you try to select the top in each category as well as the winners between those winners, which gives you a motive for why the Swedish Chef has a fancier bathtub than Zsa Zsa Gabor. One of my friends managed to guess all of the winners, and didn't even manipulate us much.

Craniums Scribblish, which is like a doodle version of telephone. Everyone has their own paper, starts with a caption from a card, and draws a doodle based on it. Then they get swapped, and you try to make a caption from the doodle. Then they get swapped and you try to make a doodle from the new caption, and so on (the devices the game comes with allows you to cover up anything before the last thing written/drawn). Theres a scoring system, but really, it's all about the telephone hilarity (indeed, while for a few pictures, they were followed by captions that were similar to the ones that my doogle was inspired by, there was a lot more telephone hilarity than is usually found in telephone.

Dixit, which is a card game where everyone gets a hand of cards with very unusual pictures on them. The person who's turn it is selects a card from his hand, and tries to give a sentence, or word or even sound to describe the card. Everyone else then selects a card in their hand that best fits that description and gives it to the player. He then puts down the cards in a random order one by one. Everyone tries to vote for the one they think was the original. If they vote correctly, they get a couple of points. For every person who votes incorrectly, the person whos card they selected gets a couple of points. The original player (whos turn it is) doesnt vote, but gets 3 points (total) as long as one person votes for his, but not everyone. So he wants to make it at least a little vague (so its not obvious to everyone) but not completely vague (so at least one person does).

All of these are fun party-game games.

And we played Battlestar Galactica. Us Cylons won.

[Boudreaux]

Craniums Scribblish, which is like a doodle version of telephone. Everyone has their own paper, starts with a caption from a card, and draws a doodle based on it. Then they get swapped, and you try to make a caption from the doodle. Then they get swapped and you try to make a doodle from the new caption, and so on.

There's an almost identical game called Telestrations. Very fun, and it's all in the hilarity in how, for example, "Benjamin Franklin" turns into "bank robber" over 3 or 4 drawings.

Played a game of Twilight Struggle last night and won in turn 8 as the Americans. After four games in the last few weeks and a couple dozen overall, it's pretty clear that the USSR almost has to win within the first 4-5 turns to have any chance of winning overall, unless the Americans completely ignore dominance or control of regions. Middle and especially Late War cards have far too many opportunities for the US to score points off of card events, rather than just from scoring cards.

Also played White Star Rising, a new wargame that I believe comes from the guys who make Lock and Load but is a bit higher scale (platoon level) and is a bit simpler. Lock and Load gives me headaches but White Star Rising is pretty good. Almost all the relevant info is right on the chits, and the rules for movement adn combat are pretty easy to remember. Good intro into more serious wargames.

[YellowKing]

We're taking another crack at Ghost Stories tomorrow night, and hopefully getting a game of Small World in since I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

[hentzau]

Just played several games of crokinole at a party tonight. I lost every game, against a bunch of people that had never played before. My wife was my partner when we were playing.

Divorce proceedings start tomorrow.

[Smoove_B]

Played a few rounds of Zombie Fluxx and Zombie Dice and then moved on to the main event -- two epic draft battles for Heroscape. For a game that's designed to be played by ~12 year olds, a bunch of old men in their mid 30s sure find it entertaining.

[YellowKing]

We beat Ghost Stories for the first time! (Initiate Level).

Four player game that came down to the wire. Numerous times we escaped losing by the skin of our teeth - at one point we had four haunters on the board at once. Through a combination of crazy maneuvers and lucky dice rolling we managed to survive. There were many occasions in which the fate of the game rested on one die roll or it being a certain player's turn, and we managed to pull it out.

When the incarnation finally showed up we had one player dead, 5 of 9 village tiles haunted, 8 ghosts on the board, no Yin-Yangs, and 1 Chi (HP) each. Fortunately the incarnation was one of the weaker black incarnations and one of our surviving players had some black tokens saved up. We were at the point that to kill him we HAD to roll a black die, or we would lose the game. When I rolled it we literally all jumped out of our chairs and started screaming and running around the table slapping high fives.

We tried a Normal level game immediately following but got our asses handed to us. So an attempt at that will have to wait for another day. We've all agreed that Ghost Stories is probably our favorite game of the ones I own at the moment, just for the sheer difficulty and stupendous level of cooperation it requires to succeed.

After that we tried our first game of Small World. After a couple of bad false starts trying to understand the rules, we got a full 2-player game in and I got smoked due to my opponent drawing two extremely good races to start with. He dug me a hole the first turn I just never could climb out of, though I gave it a valiant effort. After the match I went out and bought the Small World iPad app so I could practice playing against the AI to better understand the game rules and strategy. So far that has been a big help.

Lots of fun. I'm really enjoying board game night as it is nice to take a break from the computer and engage in some really challenging, thought-provoking strategery.