OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Remus West · Post by **Remus West** » Mon May 02, 2011 12:13 pm

Played 51st State yesterday. I really liked it. Still need a few more run throughs to be sure though. Also need to read the rules more closely to be sure we are doing things correctly.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Mon May 02, 2011 12:18 pm

Remus West wrote:Played 51st State yesterday. I really liked it. Still need a few more run throughs to be sure though. Also need to read the rules more closely to be sure we are doing things correctly.

You'll make Hepcat a happy Hep at OctoCon...

Remus West · Post by **Remus West** » Mon May 02, 2011 12:20 pm

hentzau wrote:
Remus West wrote:Played 51st State yesterday. I really liked it. Still need a few more run throughs to be sure though. Also need to read the rules more closely to be sure we are doing things correctly.
You'll make Hepcat a happy Hep at OctoCon...

I'll leave that part to CR but I will be willing to play 51st State.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon May 02, 2011 12:20 pm

Remus West wrote:Played 51st State yesterday. I really liked it. Still need a few more run throughs to be sure though. Also need to read the rules more closely to be sure we are doing things correctly.

What a coincidence. I did the exact same thing and have the same opinion, short of the really liked it part. The jury still out based on a few more plays and a better confidence that I understand the rules. I do like the dynamic of the game. I'm just not sure about the execution yet and won't be until I'm confident I understand how it's being executed.

I hate how cheap the company were. Why couldn't they give you four sheets with all of the card symbols? Getting cheap about the scoring track, I actually understand. Their scoring system is actually just a tally for all of the points you keep anyway... Which they didn't give you nearly enough of. We ran out of score tokens in a three player game. We'd assuredly run out a lot in four player game.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon May 02, 2011 1:43 pm

Remus West wrote:Played 51st State yesterday. I really liked it. Still need a few more run throughs to be sure though. Also need to read the rules more closely to be sure we are doing things correctly.

Important things that get forgotten in 51st State (let's face it, the rules aren't that well done):

- Factory sites when incorporated come into play with the resource they produce the moment they're incorporated.

- You can produce Universal Resources during production phase only (according to game designer). This actually isn't that big of an issue since I don't believe there are any worker sites that produce UR's. However, remember that UR's CAN be stolen so it's best to convert them as soon as possible if the Thieves Caravan is in play...or whatever the other location is that allows you to steal resources from other players.

- Leaders can hold up to 5 VPs, Locations up to 3, and your base an unlimited number. Don't forget that the VP cost is irrelevant for this limit...so a location that generates 2VP per turn can amass 6 VP's, and a 1 VP counterpart only 3.

- When you assassinate a leader, it's 2 VP that goes to your base, not 1. 1 VP for executing him and 1 VP for his worth. locations redeveloped have the same rule. You have to remember that once a card gets a VP for existing (locations, leaders), that VP never goes away.

i love this game.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon May 02, 2011 1:58 pm

hepcat wrote:- When you assassinate a leader, it's 2 VP that goes to your base, not 1.

We did not play that way (nor for redevelopement of locations. we only added one point) And had a lot of other interpretations happen midway through multiple games.

I need to sit down and read the rules for myself and most especially to learn what all of symbols do.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon May 02, 2011 2:55 pm

If some folks are interested, I'll run a game or two on Saturday morning in the West Hall since it's about a 1 to 2 hour game. that should take us up to noon when we can move over to the other hall. We can go over the rules as we play.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Mon May 02, 2011 3:39 pm

I almost picked up Nightfall and/or 51st State, but Eminent Domain should be coming soon, so I'll pass.

Decided to put a pre-order in for Troyes. It looks good and is getting high marks from early adopters/reviewers. They said that the publisher had sold out of copies, so it's best to grab a FLGS copy ASAP if you want one.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon May 02, 2011 4:03 pm

baelthazar wrote:I almost picked up Nightfall and/or 51st State, but Eminent Domain should be coming soon, so I'll pass.

Decided to put a pre-order in for Troyes. It looks good and is getting high marks from early adopters/reviewers. They said that the publisher had sold out of copies, so it's best to grab a FLGS copy ASAP if you want one.

I'm not sold on Nightfall yet. I've played about 3 games and each time it just felt...meh. I've heard it's one of those games that you grow to appreciate after multiple plays, though. I'll have it at octocon for those who are attending and want to try it.

51st State is a game that succeeds for me in spite of its incredibly cheap contents. I love the diversity in the paths to victory. And the theme is incredibly well done. Each location card's benefits for incorporation, spoils or deals mirrors the location perfectly, thematically speaking. Just a very well thought out game in that aspect. Hopefully i don't hit a wall with it, but so far I'm very enamored of it.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Thu May 05, 2011 9:25 am

I re-discovered the joys of punching out and assembling game pieces last night, while putting together the Starcraft: Brood War expansion. Always takes longer than I think. Plus, the flying units in that game are almost comically difficult to get onto the bases that they provided.

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Thu May 05, 2011 12:43 pm

You can't keep a flying unit down, man.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Thu May 05, 2011 1:00 pm

NickAragua wrote:You can't keep a flying unit down, man.

That's precisely the effect of the bases, though. A couple flying units are on the ground because their bases broke in the process of installation.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Thu May 05, 2011 1:32 pm

El Guapo wrote:I re-discovered the joys of punching out and assembling game pieces last night, while putting together the Starcraft: Brood War expansion. Always takes longer than I think. Plus, the flying units in that game are almost comically difficult to get onto the bases that they provided.

I'll admit that I giggled when I read "flying... unit..." And it was appropriate that Beavis was in the picture after this post... huhuhuhuhuh... hey Beavis... he said "unit." huhuhuhu... "unit."

So I finally broke to years of temptation and for my birthday decided to a. rebuy Runewars (despite what Hep told me) and b. buy Descent. I know, I know... but now that I have my group hooked on Mansions of Madness, I think Descent will be a nice deviation from that. And since my wife has been bitten by the D&D bug, but our D&D group vaporized, I think Descent can fill the gap.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Thu May 05, 2011 1:45 pm

I so wanted to like Descent. I really, really did. Unfortunately, the massively long play time meant it almost never got to the table.

Boudreaux · Post by **Boudreaux** » Thu May 05, 2011 1:54 pm

We've found that Descent works really well as a 3-player game, with one Overlord and two heroes. The downtime is not too long, and both hero players are typically engaged in tactical discussions with each other. Any more than that and it gets far too long. Even with only two heroes, games can last 2-3 hours or more, so it still doesn't get played as much as it could.

We had one session with four heroes that prompted the Overlord player (who owned the game) to foreverafter swear off playing Descent with that many people unless he used a timer.

On a side note, has anyone else tried the new Lord of the Rings Living Card Game (LCG)?

Jow · Post by **Jow** » Thu May 05, 2011 2:14 pm

boud: no, but I'm signed up for a "how to play" event at gencon. I'm dumb doing this - I already own various quantities of the other three LCGs and never play them. EVerything I've read said it's fantastic, and that's precisely what I'm afraid of.

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Thu May 05, 2011 2:14 pm

The really weird thing about Descent is that the rules aren't even that complicated. Unfortunately, they also leave a fair bit of ambiguity here and there. When you have four people playing coop, you either wind up with a "strong leadership personality" among the players, which means that things go smoothly (this didn't happen for us as I recall), or you wind up with everyone having an asshole / opinion so you spend half an hour "civilly conversing" about what you're planning to do, then another half an hour "discussing" retarded rules minutia. Per turn. So, in that sense, it's just like D&D.

Of course, when the wife and I played this, we just spent the time arguing about retarded rules minutia, and it literally took us a week (~1-2 hours a day, not every day) to finish the first scenario.

Despite all that, I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. It's just so much fun.

The other thing to note is that this game (from my time playing it) is horribly skewed against a two-hero team (the poor suckers don't usually even make it out of the starting room), is all right for a three-hero team, and is horribly skewed in favor of a four-hero team (they blaze effortlessly through whatever the DM throws at them). Also, requires a huge playing space. And yes, the timer is an excellent idea. I will make sure to use it next time I have four players (I give 50% odds that this won't happen within the next five years, though).

Boudreaux · Post by **Boudreaux** » Thu May 05, 2011 3:13 pm

Jow wrote:boud: no, but I'm signed up for a "how to play" event at gencon. I'm dumb doing this - I already own various quantities of the other three LCGs and never play them. EVerything I've read said it's fantastic, and that's precisely what I'm afraid of.

I have a good friend who bought it and has been playing a lot of solo games. He's convinced that of the three quests included as part of the base game, quests 2 and 3 are so difficult as to be basically unwinnable with the cards in the base game, and will require additional chapter packs and new cards in a pre-built deck to complete.

We played a 2-player game on the first quest and managed to win, but just barely. I had to sacrifice two of my heroes on a single turn, and if we hadn't managed to win then we would have lost horribly on the next turn.

It's interesting, but so far I like the Game of Thrones LCG far more.

Boudreaux · Post by **Boudreaux** » Thu May 05, 2011 3:14 pm

NickAragua wrote:The other thing to note is that this game (from my time playing it) is horribly skewed against a two-hero team (the poor suckers don't usually even make it out of the starting room), is all right for a three-hero team, and is horribly skewed in favor of a four-hero team (they blaze effortlessly through whatever the DM throws at them).

We lost pretty bad in our last two-hero game, but I think that was due to our brash overconfidence. We handled the first room easily, and then split up and opened doors into two more rooms at the same time.

That was pretty dumb.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Thu May 05, 2011 4:37 pm

Doing the Campaign Descent is awesome. My houseguest keeps bugging me to start the Sea of Blood campaign

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Thu May 05, 2011 9:33 pm

I think the wife will enjoy it as she really got into D&D lately and like Wrath of Ashardalon. What I'll probably do is have her play 2 heroes and I'll be the overlord. She's not an overly tactical person (she more likes to do cool stuff and find neat treasure) so I'll probably softball her a bit. When I play with my gaming group, I'll be a bit more harsh.

I am a little irritated, I ordered from Amazon and they sent it with Runewars in a box that was poorly packed. And the UPS must have mistreated it, because one side was completely caved in and the bottom flap was OPEN! So my boxes got some slight crumple damage, which is fine, but the Descent box got a split corner. So I approached Amazon about it and, without asking me, they were going to send me two new boxes and asked me to send back the other ones. It was a nice sentiment, but I had no box to send them and those boxes cost like $10-15. Further, I intend to play the games on Saturday, so I didn't want to wait for my new order. A nice idea, but they should have ASKED me how I wanted to resolve this.

I'll probably see if FFG will sent me replacement boxes. I know their customer support is pretty good, so I suspect they will work with me here.

Now I need a Plano box to store the Descent pieces!

I might invest in the timer cube I saw. It looks really cool and keeps track of each person with a different "face" of the timer (looks like a 6-sided die).

The Rocketman · Post by **The Rocketman** » Fri May 06, 2011 2:48 am

Boudreaux wrote:On a side note, has anyone else tried the new Lord of the Rings Living Card Game (LCG)?

Yeah, I've played a couple of solo, 2-player, and 3-player games now.
The game doesn't scale that well. For 1 player even the easy quest is very difficult and becomes very luck dependent, whereas with 3 players the second quest (medium difficulty) went very smoothly with noone coming close to death.

But so far it's a lot of fun to play. It does give a nice cooperative vibe, with cards interacting with other people's heroes, and helping each other out. So I'm definitely going to buy the next couple of quest decks, and see how it evolves.

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Fri May 06, 2011 6:29 pm

this weekend, I am planning on playing Defenders of the Realm (a game with my kids, already set up and a game monday morning with some friends from work), possibly a game of A Touch of Evil, and maybe I will even pull out Descent to try again with my kids. I hate that I have that game, and how awesome it looks, yet it simply sits there on the shelf....

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Fri May 06, 2011 8:51 pm

Alien Frontiers is awesome. Resource gathering/management, screw your neighbor manipulation, with a set game 'time' once the last colony is placed.

Daveman · Post by **Daveman** » Sun May 08, 2011 9:03 pm

I enjoy Alien Frontiers a lot too. I think the only thing about the game that is a little off is that it can be a generally peaceful game throughout, then turn absolutely brutal once people are on their last or next-to-last colony to place. Then the gloves come off and it's all about screwing the other players, swapping colonies around to alter the scoring and hoping you can get yourself in a winning position and place your last colony to end the game all at the same time.

I'm not saying I don't enjoy the game as-is, but when introducing new players to it it comes across as another "collect resources and build stuff" sort of game... then it's all about stealing resources, discarding alien tech cards to flip things around, etc.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Mon May 09, 2011 12:38 am

I like how Alien Frontiers starts off with just jockeying for position at the mines/shipyard, then turns increasingly more competitive as the colonies get placed (especially with terraforming), and then can turn nasty after the first person uses the Raiders' Outpost or challenges planetary control. I also like how the game ends before things get too out of hand.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon May 09, 2011 8:42 am

Enjoyed AF but more importantly, I found the stand alone adventures of Descent to not take that long. What is long in your book? I'd say the biggest pain for the stand alone adventures is set up. 15 minutes from box to ready to go. Longer if the the players want to discuss characters, making a single adventure probably around 2 hours, kicking out 2 in a night in 3 and a half. I don't think that's bad for a night a gaming.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Mon May 09, 2011 10:44 am

We played a 5-player game of Starcraft (with the Brood War expansion) on Friday evening. It was a blast - it's a very fun game. I like that there's luck, but it seemed like it didn't play too huge a role in the game. A good amount of action going on, and a few very close calls in battles between players.

The main drawback is that the game is really f'ing long. We started playing probably about 8:15, I think, and didn't finish until about 3:30 am. We were a little baffled about what exactly took so long, but there we were. We hadn't played a five player game before, so maybe that's it, but it's hard to think that it added much more than an hour. We had a couple new players, and the rest hadn't played in a year or so, so I guess that could've added an hour. Maybe a regular playtime would be closer to 5 hours, then. Still long enough to prevent it from seeing regular play, in any event.

The other drawback is that it takes a large amount of space to play. My table is big enough for most games, but this was really pushing it, and made it difficult to keep track of various game pieces.

Glad we got a play, though, and notwithstanding the time it was a lot of fun.

The Rocketman · Post by **The Rocketman** » Mon May 09, 2011 2:00 pm

El Guapo wrote:We played a 5-player game of Starcraft (with the Brood War expansion) on Friday evening. It was a blast - it's a very fun game. I like that there's luck, but it seemed like it didn't play too huge a role in the game. A good amount of action going on, and a few very close calls in battles between players.

The main drawback is that the game is really f'ing long. We started playing probably about 8:15, I think, and didn't finish until about 3:30 am. We were a little baffled about what exactly took so long, but there we were. We hadn't played a five player game before, so maybe that's it, but it's hard to think that it added much more than an hour. We had a couple new players, and the rest hadn't played in a year or so, so I guess that could've added an hour. Maybe a regular playtime would be closer to 5 hours, then. Still long enough to prevent it from seeing regular play, in any event.

The other drawback is that it takes a large amount of space to play. My table is big enough for most games, but this was really pushing it, and made it difficult to keep track of various game pieces.

Glad we got a play, though, and notwithstanding the time it was a lot of fun.

I like the idea of that game, and think I would like it, but I'm afraid my gaming group wouldn't. Length, complexity and knowledge of units/cards/etc wouldn't fit the casual game atmosphere they enjoy.

I'm hoping FFG will publish a game based on Starcraft II, simplify things and shorten playtime.

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Mon May 09, 2011 2:20 pm

I have the starcraft game and the expansion. Never been able to play it, though. I also have Age of Mythology...but again, have yet to play it.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Mon May 09, 2011 2:25 pm

It's definitely worth it, just make sure you have the time. Also, I see now that BGG recommends it for 4-people, so maybe try to have that many for your first game.

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Mon May 09, 2011 3:28 pm

RE: Starcraft

In my delirium while driving home at 4 in the morning, I came to the conclusion that adding more players is much more than a linear increase in complexity. Not only do you have the extra guy with 4+ actions to take (and he's got to consider 4 other players instead of just three), but you have two extra planets. Now, add to it that we were kind of struggling with the mechanics at first and then not exactly in tip-top form near the end, an extra 2 hours over 1 hour / player isn't actually too bad.

Meanwhile, free strategy advice for those who will be playing this game in the future:

If you are going to invade a planet, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A SHUTTLE THAT CAN GET YOU THERE.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Mon May 09, 2011 3:41 pm

Yeah, twice we wound up realizing after an attack that the invader couldn't have reached the target area due to lack of transports.

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Mon May 09, 2011 5:28 pm

The kids and I played Small World yesterday. Been awhile since I cracked that one open, but very glad we did. Fun little game, that one.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Mon May 09, 2011 5:58 pm

NickAragua wrote:RE: Starcraft

In my delirium while driving home at 4 in the morning, I came to the conclusion that adding more players is much more than a linear increase in complexity. Not only do you have the extra guy with 4+ actions to take (and he's got to consider 4 other players instead of just three), but you have two extra planets. Now, add to it that we were kind of struggling with the mechanics at first and then not exactly in tip-top form near the end, an extra 2 hours over 1 hour / player isn't actually too bad.

Meanwhile, free strategy advice for those who will be playing this game in the future:

If you are going to invade a planet, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A SHUTTLE THAT CAN GET YOU THERE.

We played Twilight Imperium: 3rd on Saturday to celebrate my b-day (which was yesterday). It was my first six player game. I concur that, like your Starcraft experience, the more players you add, the more complex the game gets but more in a multiple than an linear amount. Three players tends to be skewed, four players is decently complex, six is screw-with-your-mind hard. You don't know who to look out for and taking and holding Mecatol Rex because a Herculean task. PDS and ground units suddenly become golden with more players, and you find yourself shuttling them around far more than you did before. You never have enough resources or command points.

It was an epic game too, we started at 3:00pm and "called it" at 11:30pm, and we basically ate pizza while playing the game for dinner. Now we did have three people playing who had never played (and one had to leave, so it we were forces to "explode" his system which caused some imbalances in the game board).

I also got to play a 2-player game of Troyes with my wife this morning. It was great! A bit like Agricola meets Alien Frontiers! Not sure if I prefer Troyes to AF, but both are excellent in their own right (and both 100% better than Kingsburg).

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Mon May 09, 2011 10:50 pm

I like Kingsburg once you add the expansion. The ability to choose a turn where you can ignore Military opens up some additional building strategies. While the dice play a larger role in Kingsburg than Alien Frontiers in setting up strategic options, there are more options. Kingsburg is also very friendly for casual gamers.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Mon May 09, 2011 10:50 pm

El Guapo wrote:

Yeah, twice we wound up realizing after an attack that the invader couldn't have reached the target area due to lack of transports.

Alternately, you could just blow up all the transports like I did at the end. I got effectively knocked out of contention, and this was definitely going to be the last turn. We got to pick our last leadership card, and I had the option of doing something that wasn't going have any real effect, or I could blow up one enemy transport on every space lane. I checked that doing so wouldn't cost us another turn, then let loose. Was generally pretty hilarious.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Tue May 10, 2011 9:52 am

Zarathud wrote:I like Kingsburg once you add the expansion. The ability to choose a turn where you can ignore Military opens up some additional building strategies. While the dice play a larger role in Kingsburg than Alien Frontiers in setting up strategic options, there are more options. Kingsburg is also very friendly for casual gamers.

The expansion to Kingsburgh made the game changes from a game that is half about rolling high dice and half about advancing your cause while placing dice on something the other guys want into a game where you have real goals and can pursue a game toward a win even without rolling high dice. I'm really happy with the changes.

Alien Frontier is even more casual of a game IMO and that lends itself well to just roll the dice and go with it, like Yahtzee is space. I can't see being hypercompetitive to win in AF or caring about people taking kingmakerish actions. It's just hang out and hope for good dice while watching the special powers. The only thing AF needs is beer.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Tue May 10, 2011 10:58 am

MythicalMino wrote:The kids and I played Small World yesterday. Been awhile since I cracked that one open, but very glad we did. Fun little game, that one.

if you don't have the Necromancer scenario, get it! I was very sad I didn't play Small World this weekend, may have to arrange a time to play this week.

Daveman · Post by **Daveman** » Thu May 12, 2011 9:39 am

Troyes arrived yesterday. I played a few 3 player game against myself to try and learn the game and it while I can appreciate the design of the game, I think it's too complicated and will be a nightmare to try and teach to medium-core gamers like my extended family. Maybe if I had more serious gamers this could be a hit but I can't see this one coming to the table much.

I tried Kingsburg with them once before and while they seemed to get it and enjoyed the dice rolling/placement aspect, they thought there were too many decisions to be made in terms of what to build, what's best to do, how best to win, etc. They also didn't like that outside of placing your dice to block others there was nothing you could do to affect the other players.

Alien Frontiers seems to work better for us. There's not as many choices in terms of where to put your dice and what to build but that's a good thing for our group... but there's still enough there to be interesting. There's also a lot more back and forth and "got ya" moments that my group enjoys.