OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 11:00 am

Big snowstorm coming our way. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my copy of Earth Reborn gets here tomorrow before the snow does. It would be nice to be shut in with some paints and the figures...if I can work up the energy to actually paint them, that is.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 11:03 am

We did a bit of standard games this weekend. It was good. Of note, was Remus picked up the Kings Port (?) blah blah expansion for Arkham. Not only did we lose for the first time ever, the game completely kicked our collective ass three times in a row. I think we are now offended and determined to figure out how to beat this thing.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 11:15 am

My favorite is still the Innsmouth expansion. Very few new rules to bog things down, but tons of flavor.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 11:19 am

He got Innsmouth as well. We played King's Port because we experimented with Innsmouth at OctoCon.

Jow · Post by **Jow** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 11:47 am

Get used to it, LM. In particular the GOOs in the bigbox expansions are significantly nastier than in the base game. How's Innsmouth?

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 11:57 am

Jow wrote:Get used to it, LM. In particular the GOOs in the bigbox expansions are significantly nastier than in the base game. How's Innsmouth?

Adds back stories for characters that earn them special rewards for finishing an objective.

Adds the Innsmouth track that you have to monitor. You need to spend clues to reduce if it gets too high (happens when a monster spawns in Innsmouth, if I'm not mistaken) or the old one awakens. It doesn't fill up quickly, so it's more of a flavor addition.

Adds a bunch of new player characters.

Includes a mechanic for revealing someone as an aquatic descendant of our favorite amphibians. Optional.

All in all, it's just a big ol' box of fun.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 12:39 pm

Played a round of Magic: The Gathering yesterday for the first time (in non-digital form) since high school. That was a good time, and good for some nostalgia. Plus going to a Magic gathering always makes me feel extremely cool. Now I'm not cool by any objective measure, but as the saying goes in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

Plus talking about card values has reminded me to sell my old cards. Apparently dual lands are worth ~ $50 now? I happen to have 12 of those sitting at home...

SpaceLord · Post by **SpaceLord** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 12:49 pm

Played a LOT of Dominion with Intrigue and Prosperity over the weekend. Determined that City is just sick. Combined with Chapel, I was drawing my deck each turn.

Also played Agricola, 4-player setup. Man, the Wood tiles in the 4-player game go really fast. It's incredibly difficult to stockpile enough for rooms *and* fences.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 12:59 pm

The extra board in King's Port is the hugest thing. It basically ties up a player by the third or fourth round for the rest of the game. At that point, collectively we seem to somehow forget the primary objective is to close gates, we get cockblocked by a few monsters that are too tough to take out or have to take the time take those monsters out to get to the portals and boom, we're at 6.

One of the three games, we probably should have won, only the turn I went to seal the second of three gates in a row that I was going to seal, I got lost in time in space, losing a turn. That turn a gate came out. The next turn a gate game out. Then the other four players had to fight the big bad guy as if there were five of them... which we were unprepared to do even if there were five of them...

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 4:56 pm

Okay, I've decided that the remainder of my board game purchases for the year will be Mansions of Madness and Stronghold. Fortunately, both should be available sometime within the next month and a half. I may also spend the extra $20 to get Death Angel to put myself over the $100 Cool Stuff Inc free shipping mark. Then I'm done for the year, I swears.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:12 pm

Managed to lose as the humans in LNoE. First time in the group that the humans have lost, but we were going with the Records/Townsfolk VC, and when we got all four pieces and realized that the zombies went to endless spawning made it so that we ran out of time. My two characters were Billy and Sherrif Anderson (son/father). Billy had the Antique revolver at one point where dad had the regular, and Billy kept outshooting him.

The LNOE card got used on the nurse and pastor that the other human player was going with. And the nurse eventually got turned as a zombie hero.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:15 pm

The pastor that can't use firearms? He's specifically immune to the LNOE card.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:20 pm

Nevermind, I'm getting it confused. It was the nurse and Billy, now that I think about it.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:28 pm

El Guapo wrote:
Isgrimnur wrote:The LNOE card got used on the nurse and pastor that the other human player was going with.
The pastor that can't use firearms? He's specifically immune to the LNOE card.

I'm pretty sure that card only affects the pastor if he's in the same spot as the teenage boy.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:31 pm

AWS260 wrote:
El Guapo wrote:
Isgrimnur wrote:The LNOE card got used on the nurse and pastor that the other human player was going with.
The pastor that can't use firearms? He's specifically immune to the LNOE card.
I'm pretty sure that card only affects the pastor if he's in the same spot as the teenage boy.

That would be awesome.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:33 pm

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:41 pm

Chaz wrote:Okay, I've decided that the remainder of my board game purchases for the year will be Mansions of Madness and Stronghold. Fortunately, both should be available sometime within the next month and a half. I may also spend the extra $20 to get Death Angel to put myself over the $100 Cool Stuff Inc free shipping mark. Then I'm done for the year, I swears.

Chaz, I happen to have a first edition version of Stronghold that I'm thinking about selling. It is open but pretty much Like New (only minor shelf wear). I got it in a trade at BGG and can't see my wife digging it (which means no gaming for me), so I haven't even played it. If you are interested in that, LMK via PM and we can work out a deal.

I'm still kicking around Earth Reborn. I so very much want it, and I think I could get the wife into it (she likes LNoE and the tiered complexity of the scenarios and rules for ER seem helpful). But at that price point I want to be sure.

So many good games coming this year: Vinhos, the winery sim; Mansions of Madness; Nightfall (Dominion-clone card drafting with werewolves and vampires); Troyes (medieval worker placement); Wrath of Ashardalon... gonna be hard for me not to go nuts and overspend!

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:54 pm

I'll let you know about Earth Reborn when I get it and get a chance to play it.

PM incoming about Stronghold.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 11:00 pm

I never thought I'd live to see the day where grown men would get into a heated discussion over whether or not the 10th Regiment of Foot has line of sight on Charos the Dragon from the top of castle battlements, and yet, there we were.

I really enjoy Heroscape but I am beginning to see why it makes more serious miniature gamers mental. I spent a good deal of time crafting a 600 point army for a rematch on a bridge battle. We were dominating the map from the start and it all came undone with a single toss of the dice. The opponent rolled 6/6 skulls and I rolled 0/6 shields. A single shield would have allowed my unit to live and be healed but all my planning went completely down the drain with the toss of 12 dice. Ponderous.

Regardless, we held our own during the castle siege and made quick work of the opponent's army.

We also managed to play a Chrononauts, which is in the same basic vein as Fluxx. Once you get moving it plays pretty quick, but it's definitely something we need to spend more time with to fully grasp.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 11:28 pm

Meh. Warhammer with all its fancy wizziwig details and thickass rulebooks is just as prone to good shot poor armor save rolls.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 12:30 am

hepcat wrote:Big snowstorm coming our way. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my copy of Earth Reborn gets here tomorrow before the snow does. It would be nice to be shut in with some paints and the figures...if I can work up the energy to actually paint them, that is.

Or put on pants, but that happens occasionally even when there isn't a blizzard.

What good is getting snowed in when you can't get anywhere to play games?

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 12:43 am

My game shipment is, of course, scheduled for delivery on Wed. That definitely won't happen. Maybe it'll surprise me and get here tomorrow in the middle of the mini-storm. That'd be neat.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 3:32 am

Since the blizzard is going to "give" me more time to think about my next order - has anyone here played Claustrophobia? While not as deep as Earth Reborn, I'm just too worried - after pouring over the 44 page rulebook - that ER is going to be too fiddly and have too hard a learning curve for my wife. She loves Betrayal at House on the Hill, and Claustrophobia looks just a tad bit more complex than that but still might give me a tactical game to play.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 9:03 am

I played Claustrophobia once (at last year's PAX East). It was pretty fun - I played as the little demon critters, while my buddy played as the heroes trying to escape. It was fun - some interesting strategic options, but not terribly complex (kind of wish the event cards for the demon player were better; maybe I just drew bad ones, but I found them pretty useless on the whole).

I only played it once, so I can't say whether it holds up, but from the one time I very much enjoyed it. Didn't take too long, though that might vary by the scenario.

freelunch · Post by **freelunch** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 10:25 am

I've played Claustrophobia a couple of times and didn't have as much fun with it as I hoped - on both occasions I felt the heroes were underpowered (I played once as demons, once as heroes) but that might have been my fault and not the game. I didn't enjoy it enough to bother bringing it out again but my 12yo son has played it a few times with friends and they seem to enjoy it.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 11:17 am

Snow day gaming with the kids: Munchkin Booty (pirate), Super Munchkin, and EDH Magic. (plus a bit of xcom terror from the deep for daddy after kids in bed)

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 11:35 pm

Chaosraven wrote:Meh. Warhammer with all its fancy wizziwig details and thickass rulebooks is just as prone to good shot poor armor save rolls.

And yet...another 34 Heroscape figures showed up at my house today. There's no way I can be defeated now!

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:27 am

Smoove_B wrote:
Chaosraven wrote:Meh. Warhammer with all its fancy wizziwig details and thickass rulebooks is just as prone to good shot poor armor save rolls.
And yet...another 34 Heroscape figures showed up at my house today. There's no way I can be defeated now!

and I have the entire DnD Heroscape collection... Unopened... On a shelf next to my DarkAngels army

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 11:24 am

I have D1 and D3 unopened.

I purchased them on impulse and after playing a bit with the Underdark set, my general feeling seems to be that D&D and Heroscape don't mix. Maybe that's why WotC dropped the license.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:24 pm

Chaosraven wrote:
Smoove_B wrote:
Chaosraven wrote:Meh. Warhammer with all its fancy wizziwig details and thickass rulebooks is just as prone to good shot poor armor save rolls.
And yet...another 34 Heroscape figures showed up at my house today. There's no way I can be defeated now!
and I have the entire DnD Heroscape collection... Unopened... On a shelf next to my DarkAngels army

If you feel like unloading them, bring them to OctoCon. I'll use them for my D&D games...

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 4:56 pm

Whoo hoo, my copy of Earth Reborn arrived this afternoon. I took a look at lunch and it appears to have no broken minis...something that seemed to be an issue if the forums at BGG are to be believed.

you gotta love a game that gets a special video dedicated to putting stuff back in the box.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 5:32 pm

I got mine last night too, and all my minis were equally fine. I'm not crazy that one of the sides is primed in a semi-pinkish color. Damn it, I'm not painting them, but pink? I suppose I could yank them off their bases and re-prime them black, but that's a lot of work.

I was pretty mystified about the insert, but it makes more sense after reading a thread on BGG. I still think I'll be going with baggies for most of the bits, but it's nice that they made the effort.

Unfortunately, my copy of Middle Earth Quest did have broken and warped minis, which is apparently also a common problem. If it was just warping, I'd try the hot water trick, but two are flat out broke, so an email was sent to customer service.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 1:41 pm

I too, ordered a copy of Earth Reborn (along with Innovation, because it was cheap). It should be here Wednesday and I hope that I don't have warped boards or minis.

Very excited to break it open!

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 1:24 pm

Good lord, it took me about an hour and a half to unpack Earth Reborn and to put them back in the box the "correct" way. I did end up using baggies (that were so kindly included) for most of the smaller cardboard chits, though.

The rules are laid out really well, I have to say. They walk you through the rules by slowly including them in a series of scenarios that play out like tutorials in a video game, culminating in the ability to create your own scenarios using a nifty little scenario/story generation system.

The real test will be when I put it on the table later this month while visiting Redwarlord for some gaming.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 1:50 pm

Since I just got laid off, I probably have more time for boardgaming. Now I just need to work up the will to do so.

My copy of Stronghold came in today (thanks, Bael!), so at least I had that going for me today.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 2:58 pm

Chaz wrote:Since I just got laid off, I probably have more time for boardgaming. Now I just need to work up the will to do so.

My copy of Stronghold came in today (thanks, Bael!), so at least I had that going for me today.

ah man, i'm sorry to hear that.

cheer yourself up by coming to chicago for octocon. we'll cheer ya up!

p.s. going back to earth reborn...be VERY careful when punching out the chits. A few of the order markers weren't fully punched at the manufacturer and subsequently tore a bit during removal.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 5:42 pm

Chaz wrote:Since I just got laid off, I probably have more time for boardgaming. Now I just need to work up the will to do so.

My copy of Stronghold came in today (thanks, Bael!), so at least I had that going for me today.

I'm sorry to hear that Chaz! But happy to hear that it got to you. Everything was alright and undamaged, I hope?

My copy of Earth Reborn should be here on Wednesday, and I'm excited to see that. I hear that your experience, Hepcat, is not uncommon - it's like playing Tetris to get the board back together.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 9:53 pm

Yeah, everything was in fine shape. I'm looking forward to getting a game played.

Tomorrow I might try and get everything jigsawed into the Earth Reborn insert, but I have no doubt that it's going to be way easier to just baggie all the small tokens.

Daveman · Post by **Daveman** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:59 am

Bored at work, feel like discussing/comparing Battlelore and Memoir 44 after this weekend...

My son and I have enjoyed Battlelore a lot, but on a whim I picked up Memoir 44 to give it a try. I liked the idea of Battlelore as a fairly simple, uncomplicated miniatures war game to play that avoids all the pitfalls of "traditional" miniatures war games. Just wanted something that was fairly quick to play, involved moving cool little miniatures around but was still a war game with interesting choices/decisions to be made about where to move, where to attack, etc. Battlelore seemed to have delivered that experience for us, but felt like it took a relatively long time to setup compared to actual playtime, and could get bogged down with niggling little rules about what certain units do compared to others and so on. I started to feel that Battlelore expansions often added complexity, but not real depth, to the game.

After just a few games of Memoir 44, I already feel like eBaying my Battlelore collection. On the surface Battlelore looks like it would be the "better", more detailed game with more options. But in the end the many various unit type/race/quality differences in Battlelore just don't mean as much as Memoir 44's simple infantry/tank/artillery system. Battlelore is a mostly melee type game, with battles that generally end up being a clump of units in the middle whacking at each other. Memoir 44 has a lot more ranged combat, resulting in more attention to movement and terrain and is much more interesting to us. Game setup in Memoir 44 is also a breeze, compared to Battelore where you have to sort out your swordsmen from your spearmen and your halberdiers, stick the proper sides banner with the proper unit type and quality color, etc.

On top of all this Battlelore is just difficult to find any more. Days of Wonder sold the game license to Fantasy Flight and while they've had put out some expansions the base game itself and a few initial expansions are rare finds and haven't been republished.

Anyway, suffice to say if anyone's been looking at either game... unless you really, really don't care for WWII I'd strongly suggest Memoir 44 over Battlelore.

Beyond that I also played a lot of 2 player Small World. I've yet to play Necromancer Island as my wife hasn't wanted to play

Of the Be Not Afraid races though I think I'm in love with the Leprechauns. Had a game where I got the Bivouacking Leprechauns and made a ton of money with them. No one could get to my pots-o-gold

The Rocketman · Post by **The Rocketman** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 10:32 am

I only have the base set of Battlelore, and haven't played Memoir 44 yet. But on Boardgamegeek it seems that Battlelore has more fans, due to the inclusion of a Magic system, which compensates for bad rolls (eg. if you roll 'lore' icons, they're useless in combat, but boost your mana supply).