OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

[Jow]

just a heads up: coolstuffinc currently has Horned Rat for preorder for 16.49. uhhh yeah, that's a no-brainer for me.

[El Guapo]

The 4-player limitation pushes me away from Horned Rat, but I know I will want it eventually.

Horned Rat makes it a 5-player game (the four main Gods + the skaven god). That's one of the things that appeals to me about the expansion - making it playable with four OR five people will mean that it should hit the table more often.

Horned Rat's also available at Amazon for $25. While that's ~ $8 more than CoolStuffInc., it's Prime-eligible. Since CoolStuffInc. would've wanted ~ $10 for shipping, I went with Amazon - cheaper when shipping is factored in, and since I get free Prime due to participation with Amazon Mom, I went with them.

[baelthazar]

No no, El Guapo, I meant 4-player limit in the sense that it requires 4-players to be the most fun. I guess I should have made that more clear. I tend to have 3-player groups, so we skip CitOW unless we have that 4th player. But I'll probably nab it anyway, it sounds too cool to pass up at that low price.

[El Guapo]

ah gotcha. I tend to think of that more as a "minimum" than a "limit", but I suppose it is just a different type of limitation.

What do you guys wind up playing? There really aren't a lot of games that I know of that play optimally with three players.

[baelthazar]

ah gotcha. I tend to think of that more as a "minimum" than a "limit", but I suppose it is just a different type of limitation.

What do you guys wind up playing? There really aren't a lot of games that I know of that play optimally with three players.

There are plenty of great three player games. Wrath of Ashardalon, most about any Eurogame (Agricola, Le Havre), most about any co-op game (Defenders of the Realm), Mansions of Madness is fine 3-player and I imagine Descent will also be great (given the time of player turns, it might even be more manageable). Even Twilight Imperium 3rd is fine with 3 players (better than CitOW anyway) although it is undeniably best with 4+. Then you have all the regular roll-a-thons - Talisman, DungeonQuest, Arkham Horror, stuff like that.

I actually think there are a lot of great three player games. It isn't so much that 3 players is an awkward number than CitOW is pretty much dependent upon 4-players to be completely balanced. Don't get me wrong, I love CitOW, but the need for all gods to be together to counter-balance one another is a bit annoying.

[freelunch]

Could Galaxy trucker reasonably be dumbed down for a 5 year old? I like the concept but it looks like it could be pretty fiddly.

Anyone?

my seven-year-old likes the idea of the game but in practice he's frustrated by it's real-time shipbuilding as he can't keep up with other players. I can't see any way to avoid this issue while keeping the fun in the game and as a result we haven't played it very often.

[El Guapo]

Say, is this game predicated on a Cleopatra anal sex joke?

[hentzau]

Say, is this game predicated on a Cleopatra anal sex joke?

I wondered the same thing...

[freelunch]

Say, is this game predicated on a Cleopatra anal sex joke?

I wondered the same thing...

not sure, but I wish I could get it at that price. in *.au the best I can do is AU$67.50

[baelthazar]

I played Descent for the first time. We didn't have the time to finish it... but it was glorious! I think THIS is the dungeon crawler I was looking for all my life (well, since Hero Quest, anyway).

[LordMortis]

I played Descent for the first time. We didn't have the time to finish it... but it was glorious! I think THIS is the dungeon crawler I was looking for all my life (well, since Hero Quest, anyway).

I'm fond of saying it's an awesome RPG Lite, you know without all the roleplaying. I dig on it. We just started another campaign. The only bummer is that I am the overlord and when you commit to being the overlord in a campaign, you do it for a very long time. But it's fun. I figure I've spent over $400 on the game and I'm pretty close to getting my money's worth.

[Daveman]

I wish I could enjoy DoTR as much as some of you guys do but we played our 4th game last night and it was another disappointing game. I think it's the dice. In similar games it's all about trying to keep the various losing conditions in check and figuring out how best to use your precious actions each turn to accomplish that. DoTR throws in dice on top of that to screw with you. Decided to spend an action and a card to cleanse the land? Better make the roll. Gathered everyone for an attack on a general with plenty of cards to throw at him? Oops, look at all those 1s and 2s.

Just winds up frustrating my group. When we lose a game of Pandemic we can generally see where we screwed up and say "we should done XYZ". Can't do the same when it's just a matter of dice. Throw in the expense (although the game components are terrific), the large table space you need for the board, general/player boards, and a manual w/26 page FAQ... I think it's going up on Ebay.

On a related note we pulled out Forbidden Island and gave one of the island setup variants a try and had a blast. I feel silly for not thinking of a different island setup before. I wouldn't compare FI to DoTR as much as I would Pandemic, but it delivers a great co-op gameplay experience with a neat theme and in about 30 minutes. All in a little $19 game with great components that comes in a nice tin.

Does anyone here play Memoir 44 Online? I gave it a try last weekend and have become hooked. It's pay-to-play, but signing up now (it's still in beta stage) is free and gives you 100 credits to play with (a single battle costs 2-3 credits, solo against the AI or against another player). That alone is several hours of game time right there. It plays great and there's a small, but very active player community. I love Memoir 44 but rarely get to play more than a game or two when someone is in the mood to play. Memoir 44 Online is always ready and plays quicker too.

[Chaosraven]

Well I have officially addicted a friend of mine to Alien Frontier. And sadly I have taught it too well to a couple others, as husband and wife split the three wins while the addict and myself went 0 for 3. So I gave them a sound thrashing in edh magic to round the night out.

[Smoove_B]

I played Descent for the first time. We didn't have the time to finish it... but it was glorious! I think THIS is the dungeon crawler I was looking for all my life (well, since Hero Quest, anyway).

We are so backed-up with games right now, but my buddy and I are looking at Descent and drooling. I think it's official - I've spent more money on board games this year than PC or Console gaming. It's only a matter of time until this joins our library...

[baelthazar]

I played Descent for the first time. We didn't have the time to finish it... but it was glorious! I think THIS is the dungeon crawler I was looking for all my life (well, since Hero Quest, anyway).

We are so backed-up with games right now, but my buddy and I are looking at Descent and drooling. I think it's official - I've spent more money on board games this year than PC or Console gaming. It's only a matter of time until this joins our library...

Oh, I easily overspent on boardgames than other avenues.

Looks like we are going to play Descent again today. This time we will finish the game (I hope)! I'm considering RtL or one of the expansions, given how much fun we had. Any thoughts on what would be the first one to get?

[Isgrimnur]

Spent a few hours learning Check Your 6 Jet Ge with a F-86/Mig-15 scenario. I lost two of my four green pilots to his +1 and +2 pilots in 12 turns.

The scenario had him jumping my planes right after takeoff. He had a 1 height/3 speed advantage on my craft, and maintained his advantage throughout the engagement.

I had two 2-ship elements. The trail element was forced defensive as they were jumped behind. I miscalculated and had the lead element break in the opposite direction and immediately start turning to engage rather than using the 2v2 battle behind them as a distraction to gain speed/altitude to even the playing field.

The dice helped me manage to avoid a few bursts from his craft, and he was actually a bit frustrated that it took him 8 turns to down my first craft. I felt good about that, as I may not have been familiar with the system, but I've been playing fighter flight sims since the C-64. If there's anything I do know, it's fighter combat.

I started low and slow with enemies to the rear with an energy advantage. By all rights, I should have lost at least one craft quickly with the second soon to follow and been crushed. Which is what he normally does when we're playing miniature armor games.

[Chaosraven]

I played Descent for the first time. We didn't have the time to finish it... but it was glorious! I think THIS is the dungeon crawler I was looking for all my life (well, since Hero Quest, anyway).

We are so backed-up with games right now, but my buddy and I are looking at Descent and drooling. I think it's official - I've spent more money on board games this year than PC or Console gaming. It's only a matter of time until this joins our library...

Oh, I easily overspent on boardgames than other avenues.

Looks like we are going to play Descent again today. This time we will finish the game (I hope)! I'm considering RtL or one of the expansions, given how much fun we had. Any thoughts on what would be the first one to get?

do *not* get Road to Legend or Sea of Blood first. They are campaign settings. Pick up the other expansions one by one and play out the dungeons single sitting first, that way you will have all of them when the time comes to play a campaign (which will fill up your entire year), and everyone will be more familiar with the game. Or go buy them all and start a campaign, but once you start a campaign, you are unlikely to go back and play single dungeons.

[MythicalMino]

Smoove, where do you live (any way close to Coldwater, MI)? I have a copy of the base game of Descent that I think I may be willing to part with. I know the game gets lots of love, but I just have a difficult time getting into it. Good game from what I can see...but...nothing I can get my group or my family to play.

[hentzau]

We've given Descent several tries. I tired of it pretty damn quickly. It just didn't strike the right note with me and my players. Well, they may actually like it, but since it's mine, I never suggest it.

[Chaosraven]

Well that's too bad. Kenetickid keeps bugging me to start a campaign, but I wanted to wait to see what his work schedule will be (yes! He has a job starting next week! Woo hoo!) as I am back on afternoons again so my gaming is limited to midnights. We just started one with LM, and I can play the first couple hours before heading off to work. Hentzau: just the basic game or with expansions or campaign?

[hentzau]

I had the first two expansions and Road to Legend. We tried them all, the overall experience just didn't grab us. I had hoped that RtL would work it's magic with allowing us to kind of string the adventures into a campaign, plus the idea of shorter games appealed, but we played RtL twice and never went back. So yeah, I've dropped about $250 on this game to try and make it fun, and it sits on the shelf. Unless my gaming crew speaks up about it, it's going to be heading to the RockCon auction this fall.

[baelthazar]

Chaosraven,

It isn't too hard to pass on RtL, it looks to be OOP at the moment and rare to find (unless I want to hit the ebay market). Any suggestion on Altar of Despair or Well of Darkness (or even the Tomb of Ice-thing or whatever) for the first expansion? I like the idea of a campaign, but with all the other games I have, I don't really want to specialize in only Descent. But it would be nice to have an expansion that gives the Overlord some more abilities to customize his powers.

[Chaosraven]

http://www.descentinthedark.com/index.php" target="_blank has lots of info

And rpg.net has some good reviews:

New Heroes

WoD includes six new heroes to add to the 20 from Descent. These six are featured on the covers of WoD and Descent. For those keeping score, there are four males and two females, with three melee specialized, one magic, and two ranged (the females). We also see the first dwarf in the game (previously there had been orcs, elves, minotaurs, and even a lizardman).

Of the new heroes, Nanok of the Blade has the strongest special ability: he can't wear armor, but his Armor rating is equal to 2 plus his Melee trait (starting at 2). Gold spent training up that trait gives him more armor than anyone except those lucky enough to get a gold or silver armor. Laurel of Bloodwood is also pretty good, as she can convert excess range on an attack into damage.

New Monsters

Three new monsters are added in WoD: kobolds, ferrox, and golems. Oddly, while Descent had an equal number of monsters using each attack, all of these new monsters use melee.

Kobolds are small and weak, but they have the Swarm ability, giving each one additional power dice for every monster adjacent to their target. The master kobolds also lower the threat costs of traps.

Ferrox are savage bloodsuckers. They inflict bleeding wounds, and the masters drain fatigue.

Golems are large, powerful creatures with high armor (5/6, putting them on par with the Descent's giants, and ahead of anything else). They're immune to many effects and special abilities.

New Cards

There are 110 cards in WoD. The cards are just slightly taller than the original Descent cards- not a huge deal, but it's noticeable. That's the only bad side of the cards. On the good, all the new cards have a little well symbol in the corner so you can separate them from the original cards. Also, the backgrounds of the cards have changed; instead of the tan of the originals, all melee skills and spawn cards are red, magic skills and traps are purple, and subterfuge and events are green. It helps differentiate cards at a glance.

Twelve of the cards replace cards from Descent, clarifying or changing the cards. Most of these changes are called out in the FAQ posted on Fantasy Flight Games' site, but replacements are nicer than pasting the new text onto the card. Everything else is a new addition to the game.

There are four new skills for each category. Generally these are pretty good, although the magic skills can be pretty worthless. Each magic skill is a pact with an element, allowing the hero to ignore some type of obstacle; the water pact lets the hero cross water, while the earth pact allows the hero to ignore rubble. These can be handy, but if there's no water on the map, or no lava (since that wasn't added until this expansion, that means all the original quests), the skill isn't much use. There are secondary effects, but gaining knockback or burn with a staff is going to be disappointing since the runes are almost always better than staffs.

Seven new items are in the shop. The one new melee weapon is a walking stick, weak compared to a sword or axe, but it gives the wielder the reach ability. The new ranged weapons don't offer anything of advantage over the originals. The new runes are intriguing, offering the powerful Blast or Stun abilities, previously only available through treasures. However, these require three and two surges to activate, so it can hard for a hero to use the power. The one new armor is the tunic. It has zero armor, but the wearer gets to roll a power die for each wound suffered, stopping a point of damage for each blank rolled. This applies against traps as well as attacks, but it's only a 1 in 6 chance of stopping each point.

A variety of treasures are added, with ranged weapons getting the most additions. The best item is not a weapon, but the Superior Healing rune. A gold treasure, it allows the user to spend one movement point to heal two wounds on himself or an adjacent character.

The largest portion of the cards go to the Overlord. Three cards, spawns for the ferrox and kobolds, are added straight to the Overlord deck. Everything else is a treachery card, allowing the Overlord to customize the deck (the treachery rules are explained below). These cards tend to be more powerful than the base cards. The spawns are either larger versions of base spawns (the Elite Beastman Warparty adds a second master beastman to the standard spawn group) or are powerful monsters that previously only appeared as part of the quest set up, such as manticores and naga. New event cards include Ambush, allowing the Overlord to activate monsters on the heroes' turn, Crushing Blow, which can destroy a hero's items, and Danger, which is discarded for a quick ten threat.

New Rules

The biggest addition to the game is Treachery. For each quest, the Overlord gains a certain amount of Event, Trap, and Monster threat. Each of the new Overlord cards has a treachery cost on it. The Overlord purchases cards with the treachery, adding these to the deck while removing a number of base cards equal to the number of treachery cards purchased. If the Overlord doesn't spend all of the treachery on cards, then he starts with an additional card in his hand for ever two unspent points. Treachery values for the quests out of Descent are included, and each new quest has the treachery in the description.

Treachery costs range from one to three, giving an idea of the card's power. However, I don't agree with some of the assessments of worth. The Lone Golem card cost 3 treachery and summons a golem (and not even a master). A powerful figure, yes, but for 1 treachery you can add Lone Manticore to your deck, allowing you to spawn a master manticore, a that attacks twice each round with pierce and poison.

WoD contains the FAQ and rule changes/clarifications from the FFG site. Pretty useful for a group that doesn't want to keep looking at the website to find out a rule works. There's even a diagram showing how the breath effect works around corners.

New Quests

There are nine new quests in WoD, doubling the total quests for Descent. On the whole, these look more difficult and more innovative than the Descent quests. Larger too, as each quest has at least five areas, some as much as eight.

The first quest is Buried Alive, which takes place in a collapsing mine. Each turn, the Overlord removes a section of the map, forcing the heroes to keep moving or die. This is the only quest I've run from WoD so far, and if felt harder than any of the ones from Descent. Treasures were harder to come by and the heroes constantly running out of fatigue, having no opportunities to rest. Other quests are spider or kobold themed, and one is an homage to the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark, complete with boulder and gold idol. The final quest is the eponymous Well of Darkness, a quest so difficult the heroes receive four artifacts before it starts.

New Heroes

AoD adds another six heroes to Descent. The portraits of the six have a desert theme, reminiscent of Arabian Nights. The newest Runebound expansion is The Sands of Al-Kalim, a name that suggests these heroes were first developed there.

Two characters are specialized in melee and magic, with one specialized in ranged weapons, and a jack of all trades. Only one character, Tahlia, is female, but she is both the first female specialized in melee (all three dice) and the first female worth four conquest tokens (the other melee character is Corbin, the second dwarf of the game).

The best ability goes to Kirga (a goblin from the look as he looks too different from the orcs of Descent). This ranged specialist prevents monsters from being spawned within five spaces, even if he doesn't have line of sight. With Kirga around, there's no more need to worry about a beastman warparty appearing around the corner.

The weakest of the six is Aurim, the jack of all trades. With only eight health and one die in each attack form, he's not very great in combat. His ability to change his potions into other potions is interesting, but only rarely useful.

New Monsters

Five new monsters join the Overlord's horde. Three are melee, one uses magic, and the last is "other."

The savage blood ape's ancestors wrestled with Conan. The current incarnations are powerful melee fighters that can leap over foes, attacking everyone in a line. The masters go berserk when wounded, using all five power dice in an attack.

Trolls are brutes almost on par with giants for strength and toughness. They have the new bash ability, which allows them to roll up to five power dice on an attack. A blank on any die means a miss, but on a hit they can spend surges to cause devastating damage.

The Deep Elves are swift assassins who will no doubt conjure images of drow. Their shadowcloak ability allows them to avoid any attack from a nonadjacent target. The masters have frost attacks which can make items brittle and break.

The Dark Priests are the new magic creature. Their special is the dark prayer, which generates threat for the Overlord at a rate of one per surge, instead of the usual one for two. They also add range and damage for each surge. Masters bear the black curse, making heroes less effective and giving a curse token to their killer.

Chaos Beasts are primordial tentacled creatures. Their morph ability lets them pick any three dice to roll for an attack- one has to be red, white, or blue, setting the type of attack, but it could use those three dice and make the attack melee, magic, or ranged as the Overlord wishes.

Spawn cards for the Dark Priests and the Blood Apes are added to the deck. Trolls and Deep Elves are on spawn cards that can be added by treachery. There are no spawn cards for the Chaos Beasts, so they'll only appear if the quest calls for them.

New Cards

This time around, there is only one replacement card. Leadership is rewritten to accommodate the new prolonged actions rule. At the same time, a fatigue cost is added, a step at balancing this powerful skill.

Of the new cards, only a handful are available in the shop. Only one is affordable by starting heroes; the Wizard's Robe, armor that provides no protection against melee attacks, but allows the wearer to equip an additional Other Item. The Curse Doll is an Other that can be discarded to remove effect tokens; a pretty useful item, as the week before we bought AoD, one hero spent several turns trapped in a web before the Overlord finished him off. Lastly, a Ring of Protection can be purchased for 250 gold. The +1 armor it provides isn't great compared to the copper treasures you could buy at that price, but at least you know what you're getting.

New treasures include the Mace of Kellos, mentioned in the Descent rules but cut from the game before release. I think heroes will be more interested in the Pack of Holding, which allows the hero to carry an unlimited number of items, and not lose gold on death. Or the Ring of Wishing, with possible wishes earning gold, a choice of silver treasures, or three conquest tokens. A new type of items are cursed treasures, items that are more powerful than normal, but cause the wielder to gain a curse token.

The dark side of treasures are the Dark Relics. A new trap card allows the Overlord to give a hero a Dark Relic instead of a treasure, and the relic must be equipped. The hero might be slowed, or be forced to wear glass armor and take extra damage from attacks, or another effect.

Another four skills are added to each category. Subterfuge takes another step toward the traditional D&D thief with the inclusion of pickpocket, earning the hero gold for every kill. One card in each category is devoted to helping with prolonged actions. Since there are no prolonged actions in pre-AoD quests, these might look worthless (like the elemental Pacts in Well of Darkness if their obstacle isn't in the quest), but the secondary abilities still make these cards useful. Ranger, the subterfuge skill, grants a damage bonus. The magic skill, Bardic Lore, gives all treasure drawn to the hero with the skill, who then distributes them equally; no more does the magic sword end up in the wizard's hands by random draw. Brawny, the melee skill, seems the weakest, but it allows the hero to break down doors, spending no movement and removing the door from the board. The best skill in the box looks to be Sharr the Brightwing, a familiar. Each turn, Sharr can heal a hero of two points of damage, or repair a dark glyph.

The Overlord gets 49 new cards in this expansion. Six of these are added to the base deck, which means it takes longer to cycle through the deck. The others are treachery cards (described below). Some are brand new, others duplicate cards from Descent or Well of Darkness- if you enjoy making heroes attack each other with Dark Charm, why not add a second one to the deck? I'm fond of Time Slips Away, which when played allows the Overlord to draw two more cards. Others might prefer Dance of the Monkey God- just like Curse of the Monkey God, but it affects all heroes.

New Rules

AoD has the same rules changes and FAQ as found in Well of Darkness, so even if you skipped that expansion, you can still make use of the errata. Of course, this information is also available online, but it's useful to have it in the book.

As with Well of Darkness, AoD uses the treachery system to allow the Overlord to customize the deck. The rules (and treachery values for the original Descent quests) are reprinted from Well of Darkness, so let me quote what I said in that review:

The biggest addition to the game is Treachery. For each quest, the Overlord gains a certain amount of Event, Trap, and Monster threat. Each of the new Overlord cards has a treachery cost on it. The Overlord purchases cards with the treachery, adding these to the deck while removing a number of base cards equal to the number of treachery cards purchased. If the Overlord doesn't spend all of the treachery on cards, then he starts with an additional card in his hand for ever two unspent points. Treachery values for the quests out of Descent are included, and each new quest has the treachery in the description.

Additionally, the Overlord can spend treachery points for dark glyphs, at a cost of 2 treachery per glyph. On one side these look like a regular transport glyph, but the reverse is colored depending on the type of treachery used to purchase it. A dark glyph may be laid down in place of a regular glyph. Red glyphs spawn monsters when used, purple allow free draws for the Overlord, and green are sundered, unusable and only worth one conquest token to the heroes.

Altars, for good and evil, are a new quest feature. When activated by heroes or monsters, these have some effect depending on the quest. For example, one quest features good altars as part of a temple's defenses; a hero can activate the altar and cause two points of damage to all monsters within five spaces, as well as giving burn tokens to those monsters.

Two new status effects have been added. Curse tokens, gained from using cursed items or through certain other effects, increase a character's conquest value. Frost tokens make a hero's items brittle and prone to breaking.

The most important new rule is prolonged actions. These cover situations where a hero is searching for a secret door or trying to solve a puzzle. Each prolonged action tests one of the traits. Successes can be accumulated over multiple turns. This addition allows an extra level of interaction in quests; before, a hero activated an event marker or didn't. Now there's a mechanic beyond combat.

New Quests

There are only six quests included in AoD, as opposed to the nine included in the original game and WoD. However, all these quests break out of the mold of "explore the dungeon and kill the boss monster." The first quest, "The Thing in the Pit", is a race to free prisoners before they can be sacrificed to the Thing. Even if the heroes defeat the Thing, if too many prisoners are sacrificed, they still lose.

Another quest involves villagers transformed into monsters. If heroes rush in and kill without thinking, they'll kill the villagers and lose conquest tokens. Even cautious heroes may run afoul the trolls in "Mists of Time", which can ambush and attack during a player's turn.

My favorite of the ones I've tried is "Hold the Line." There is no exploring in this quest. Instead, the heroes must try to defend a temple against a horde of monsters.

Tomb of Ice is cool, because it adds Feats to the Heroes, as well as new abilities, dungeons, and monsters for the Overlord.

[Chaosraven]

Chaosraven,

It isn't too hard to pass on RtL, it looks to be OOP at the moment and rare to find (unless I want to hit the ebay market). Any suggestion on Altar of Despair or Well of Darkness (or even the Tomb of Ice-thing or whatever) for the first expansion? I like the idea of a campaign, but with all the other games I have, I don't really want to specialize in only Descent. But it would be nice to have an expansion that gives the Overlord some more abilities to customize his powers.

My suggestion is get either Altar or Well first. Getting your hands on Treachery is excellent for the Overlord to customize his Deck. Adding Tomb of Ice gains Feats for Heroes (one shot hidden ability cards). There's new Heroes and Monsters and Dungeons in all three.

Descent: Quest Compendium presents in one full-color 96-page hardbound volume sixteen of Descent's most cunning, deadly, and puzzling scenarios for your gaming table, brought to you by a team of acclaimed and award-winning game designers and authors.

The Compendium is something to pick up after you have exhausted the Dungeons from the 3 Expansions.

[baelthazar]

Thanks for the review CR! Very helpful!

I'm leaning toward AoD because of the Chaos monsters (and my love of all things Lovecraftian). I also heard that the Well adventures were larger and almost too gigantic for single play sessions (pushing the play time up a bit). Is this accurate? I'm sure my guys would enjoy the creative quests, with the transformed villagers and such.

I don't want to monopolize this thread about Descent, but I did have a question. I typically have only 2 heroes to play with, so we were discussing house rules for the Copper/Silver/Gold treasure buying in Town. It seemed like only letting them pick the top card was really under-powered and underwhelming, given that - with two characters - you have a good chance of getting a treasure that is completely useless. We decided to to the "draw three, pick one" rule for treasure and that worked alright, but did allow for "customization" and less gambling. Now, I did lose to the heroes, but it wasn't by much (if the hero had missed his last roll, I would have likely won). Had they been stuck with worthless treasure, they would have lost by a route.

What do other people do to mitigate the "draw something worthless" factor? I was thinking that we go back to a one-draw system, but that you redraw if you pull something that neither hero can use (based on the power die).

Any thoughts?

[Smoove_B]

Smoove, where do you live (any way close to Coldwater, MI)? I have a copy of the base game of Descent that I think I may be willing to part with. I know the game gets lots of love, but I just have a difficult time getting into it. Good game from what I can see...but...nothing I can get my group or my family to play.

Heh, no I'm out in NJ. I'm sure you can find someone local to snatch it up. We've really enjoyed the Mansions of Madness experience and I don't think we're quite ready to commit to playing an actual PnP role playing game - Descent seems like it might fit. But based on our backlog, I can't imagine we'd even be able to try it until some time in the early Fall.

[Chaosraven]

I typically have only 2 heroes to play with, so we were discussing house rules for the Copper/Silver/Gold treasure buying in Town. It seemed like only letting them pick the top card was really under-powered and underwhelming, given that - with two characters - you have a good chance of getting a treasure that is completely useless. We decided to to the "draw three, pick one" rule for treasure and that worked alright, but did allow for "customization" and less gambling. Now, I did lose to the heroes, but it wasn't by much (if the hero had missed his last roll, I would have likely won). Had they been stuck with worthless treasure, they would have lost by a route.

Town
Main game concept, Journeys in the Dark
I - Rules

(see JITD, p. 17-18; FAQ, p. 1)

The town is a place that the heroes can retreat to in order to re-supply and train.
Dead heroes are also sent back to the town to be resurrected at the temple.
A hero in the town may choose to shop by spending three movement points.
All heroes in the town are considered adjacent to each other and cannot be targeted by overlord cards.

Shopping

The hero may visit the town's market. He can purchase one or more items from the town shop deck, he may sell any of his items for half of their value (rounded down to the nearest 25 coins), and he may purchase any of the following:

Item Cost in Coins
Healing Potion 50
Vitality Potion 50
Power Potion 50
Invulnerability Potion 50
Invisibility Potion 50
Draw 1 Copper Treasure * 250
Draw 1 Silver Treasure * 500
Draw 1 Gold Treasure * 750

* When purchasing treasures, the hero player draws the card at random from the appropriate deck. As changed in the FAQ, heroes can only buy treasure cards from the shop if they have previously opened at least one chest of that color this game.

One of two options occurs to me:

Let the players have 4 heroes (2 each), and proceed as if there were 4 hero players.

Let the whiny adventurers suck it up and waste another turn in town to find something good >;)

[Chaosraven]

Ok, played Alien Frontiers with my father and my son (and Remus). Played Descent with bb2112/redrun/remus vs LordMortis (Run, BEASTMAN, Run!). One more Alien Frontiers with RevHempus (who won) and then 4 games of Dominion into the wee hours of the morning.

It's funny, it is hard for me to remember the rules and ramifications of playing single adventure Descent, it has been so long.

[baelthazar]

Ok, Chaos, I think I've got what you mean - so you are saying that they can trade the treasure chest back for money (like they say in the rules for picking up treasure in the dungeon) but that they can only buy one chest per turn in town? I see how that might work. The 4 adventurer thing might work out, but right now I am trying to train them on 1 character each.

We were going to get a game of Alien Frontier in, but Descent took up all our time. I'm trying to get my wife to play AF with me this week, she owes me some husband points for taking care of her recently!

[Chaosraven]

Ooo baby. Things to remember in AF:

(1) Plasma Cannon - only shoot the ones you need to, such as:
(2) Raiders Outpost - you only need a higher Total on the dice, so shooting the 5 off of a 3,4,5 means your 2,3,4 is a higher total that the remaining 3,4.
(3) Alien Artifact - you may flush the cards, and flush the cards, and flush the cards and AFTER, if your total is 8 or higher, take the one you want (for example, playing a 3 to flush and a 5 to flush, then taking one as your total is 8 or higher)
(4) Colony Hub - if you have extra movement that takes you past the final spot, as long as you build that Colony immediately, you may start another with the extra.
(5) you may NOT dock ships if you cannot DO whatever it is (colony constructor without the requisite Ore)

[LordMortis]

Chaosraven,

It isn't too hard to pass on RtL, it looks to be OOP at the moment and rare to find (unless I want to hit the ebay market). Any suggestion on Altar of Despair or Well of Darkness (or even the Tomb of Ice-thing or whatever) for the first expansion? I like the idea of a campaign, but with all the other games I have, I don't really want to specialize in only Descent. But it would be nice to have an expansion that gives the Overlord some more abilities to customize his powers.

My suggestion is get either Altar or Well first. Getting your hands on Treachery is excellent for the Overlord to customize his Deck. Adding Tomb of Ice gains Feats for Heroes (one shot hidden ability cards). There's new Heroes and Monsters and Dungeons in all three.

Descent: Quest Compendium presents in one full-color 96-page hardbound volume sixteen of Descent's most cunning, deadly, and puzzling scenarios for your gaming table, brought to you by a team of acclaimed and award-winning game designers and authors.

The Compendium is something to pick up after you have exhausted the Dungeons from the 3 Expansions.

I suggest going in order. Descent wasn't a game where I felt like I needed more more more just to make the game worth playing but every time it moved forward, I never wanted to move back.

I will say that I did enjoy our one off dungeon a few weeks ago though and that's what kindled the desire to play the Sea of Blood... and get me to spend another $120...

Oh and the encounters for SoB stink. Basically they are an excuse for the weaker army to run away as quickly as possible. Restreating should have more of a negative consequence or be more difficult to do for both sides. I think they really did sea stuff wrong. But then I didn't think they did the encounters for RtL all that great either.

[SpaceLord]

Played some Memoir '44. The game's getting better as we play. I already had the Terrain Pack, and picked up the Eastern Front pack. What is suggested for the next step? The Air Pack? Mediterranean Theater? I do want 'em all eventually...

[hentzau]

Played some Memoir '44. The game's getting better as we play. I already had the Terrain Pack, and picked up the Eastern Front pack. What is suggested for the next step? The Air Pack? Mediterranean Theater? I do want 'em all eventually...

Hopefully Tommy will see this thread and can chime in. He has every Memoir suppliment. I don't think we've ever played with the air pack...

[Daveman]

For Memoir 44 I have the East, Mediterranean and Pacific expansions, plus the Winter/Desert maps. I haven't delved into Breakthrough, Winter Wars, or the Air Pack as I gather they change the game considerably and I like Memoir 44 for what it is. Of the "simpler" expansions you don't have I'd say it's a toss up between Mediterranean and Pacific. I love the scenarios in the Mediterranean pack, but the Pacific pack adds a lot of subtle, new stuff... night combat, several modifications for Japanese infantry, etc.

One small point I'd add... if balanced scenarios are what you're looking for, go for the Mediterranean pack. The Pacific ones favor the Americans most of the time.

[NickAragua]

Played another round of Galaxy Trucker last night. That game just gets more and more fun, especially now that we've figured out how to properly handle the timer and the fact that you can use lasers to shoot down large meteors in adjacent rows (but not columns, as your ship apparently can't go left or right at all).

A few observations:
- You have a chance to look at some (or all) of the cards, depending on the rules variant you're using. If you can, you absolutely must look at the cards. At the very least, it'll tell you the minimum firepower and crew rating you need to avoid the worst of the pirates/slavers and pick up the space station goods you want.

- For interior bits, try to have as many connectors as possible. The more redundant connections you have, the better - that way, half your ship won't get sheared off by a stray pebble. For exterior bits, try to minimize your exposed pipes. Not only do you get a prize for 'prettiest ship', but you also don't have to waste power deflecting space pebbles with your shields.

- In the early rounds, you don't much care about arriving first, as the bonus is piddling compared to your cargo bonus. Just get there in one piece, stuffing as much cargo in your ship as you can. Later rounds (III and IIIa), it's worth it to try to take first place, since you get mad cash for arrival that's easily worth the contents of three or four full cargo modules.

- In the later rounds, be very hesitant about voluntarily getting rid of crew, as there are plenty of events that force you to lose crew. Apropos to that, try to keep your crew pods separate.

Also, question:
Anyone play the 'Big Expansion' for this thing? I'm probably going to pick it up anyway 'cause it expands the game to a max of 5 players on top of all the other things it adds, but I'd like to find out people's thoughts anyway.

[Boudreaux]

Played some Memoir '44. The game's getting better as we play. I already had the Terrain Pack, and picked up the Eastern Front pack. What is suggested for the next step? The Air Pack? Mediterranean Theater? I do want 'em all eventually...

The Air Pack is kind of cool because it revamps a lot of the older scenarios to include the new terrain tiles, rules, etc. in the expansions. The aircraft and air support rules are a nice addition, but I don't remember them making a huge impact.

The one thing that always disappointed me about Memoir '44 was that so many of the scenarios seemed to be "kill X units first". This is one thing that Tide of Iron does so much better - there are scenarios with actual objectives and goals that you're trying to complete. You might lose half your force, but if you manage to complete your objective, you can still win. I don't remember many of the official Memoir '44 scenarios taking this approach.

[Daveman]

Off the top of my head I know of one Memoir 44 scenario that has an unusual winning condition to it... one of the East Front ones that has the Axis player controlling ski troopers. If you control 3 of 4 town hexes on the map, you win automatically. Not that that comes up very often in my experience. I've played that several times online and the battle is usually decided elsewhere.

Beyond that, most Memoir 44 scenarios offer winning points outside of killing units in the form of terrain objectives and/or exit hexes. True, most of the time you're killing units along the way to get to those objectives and scoring points that way too, but they provide a nice incentive for players. There's a Mediterranean scenario (Escape along the Coastal Road) where I've sometimes gotten 3-4 of the 6 points needed just by getting units off the map safely.

Besides that I really like the East Front scenario Ponyri. It's a pretty big battle but there's a 5-hex town in the center of it all. The player who has the most units in the town gets 2 points. Control of the town and those 2 points has swung many a game.

[Zarathud]

Anyone play the 'Big Expansion' for this thing? I'm probably going to pick it up anyway 'cause it expands the game to a max of 5 players on top of all the other things it adds, but I'd like to find out people's thoughts anyway.

I've played with archinerd and liked it so much I picked up Galaxy Trucker. My game groups regularly have 5 players, so the expansion was a necessity. Everything fits snugly in the Big Expansion box, even after putting all the loose bit (except the money) into a Plano 3650 plastic box. Now I'm getting the itch to play Galaxy Trucker again.

I played Twilight Struggle last weekend and learned again that there's so much depth to the game we're still uncovering. It's a shame that it's only 2 players and takes most of the evening, leaving you exhausted for anything more than a light game afterwards.

[hepcat]

I galaxy trucker...even if I suck at it.

[Chaz]

Nick, you should know that the copy you have is the first edition (ie first printing) of the base game. Like several other games lately, they slightly changed the size of some components for the second printing, and then based the expansion's components on that second printing. So basically, if you want the expansion, you also have to get the compatibility pack or whatever they call it that has replacement components for the base game. I don't know how you get one of those. I seem to remember looking into it a while ago and being really annoyed because it was going to cost me like $10 in shipping for it. Seemed wrong to have to pay $10 just to be able to buy something else for $40. I'm sure BGG has info about it.