OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

[Zarathud]

Richard Scary Busytown Airport! Give your 3 year old a dice tower and airplanes.

Go Away Monsters! Nice way for the 3 year old to handle being afraid in a safe way.

[Smoove_B]

Richard Scary Busytown Airport! Give your 3 year old a dice tower and airplanes.

We also have enjoyed the Busytown Eye Found It boardgame, but I heard great things about the Airport game too.

[Chrisoc13]

Got my DnDeeples today! Seems like such a silly expense but they look so much better than those cubes, and the quality it top notch. Makes me wish I had whatever setup he's got to make my own game accessories.

Mine too! I agree they impact the game in a positive manner. They really do look great, I'm quite impressed.

[hentzau]

Got in another fun game of Sergeants Miniatures Game on Monday (which I, of course, lost again.) I don't think I've come out the winner in this game yet. However, it is still a very fun game.

We were playing with three players, so the Americans were divided into two squads of five soldiers each. I was one of the American squads, and I had an explosive pack as a piece of equipment for one of my soldiers. My goal was to enter the board on Turn 2, proceed across the board to a landmark, hold it for 3 turns, and detonate the explosives. If I do this, I gain 22 VPs. The Germans were already on the board, or about half of their number were, holding a fortified position that was nowhere near my goals. Great, a walk across the fields and a big boom and I'm home free.

So I wait out the first turn while my american ally moves most of his forces onto the board right away. Germans hold fast. Second turn...not a single move action was pulled. So I'm stuck off the board while the other American squad moves into position and opens fire on the Germans. First guy shooting, hits with a submachine gun at close range. Two hit + results, of which one shot kills the German sergeant. He then walks the Hit + to another group of soldiers, killing another and and wounding a third. All on the first shoot action. All told, he pulled 6 Hit + results. Unbelievable. Machine guns at close range = dead soldiers.

Things went kind of quiet after that, with a bunch of ineffectual firing from both sides. I got my troops on the board finally, and sent my corporal and explosive expert over to the landmark without any incident. Briefly thought about avoiding the firefight altogether, but I needed the VPs from a few casualties if I wanted any chance to win, so I sent the rest of my troops up to open fire on the Germans. Ended up taking one of the Germans as my allies pretty much abandoned me and continued to move across the field.

I set off my explosives (and almost killed one of my allied troops who wandered into the blast area (idiot)), and at that point it was time for a hasty retreat. Although it was not so hasty, because it one turn one of my soliders was wounded and pinned in a rough terrain square, leaving him with a movement of zero. I rallied him once, but he was soon pinned again and picked off. Everyone achieved their victory condition (the other American unit had to enter at point A and leave from point B, the Germans had to hold the landmark they were on) so the other Americans (who got a ton of VPs from German casualties) came in first, with the Germans second and me a close third.

I really do enjoy this game. It is unfortunate that it has such a high entry cost to get into, but it's a hell of a lot of fun.

[Lorini]

That only works until they can play videogames My now 21 year old son was teaching my friends to play Magic the Gathering at 5 years old, but now it's like pulling teeth to get him to play board games

[SpaceLord]

I plan to make a review video, but I just want to say that Clash of Cultures is a magnificent game!

Joel Eddy, eeekamouse, has just uploaded a well-done video review here.

Everything about Clash is just well-honed, design-wise:

1.A fortress is complete protection against a single barbarian's attack.
2.You can buy almost anything with gold, but it won't do any good during a famine, just like IRL
3.Barbarians never really become irrelevant, because late in the game, a "barb spawn" can drop two of the bastards into a single barb city, making fortresses potentially less effective
4.I've won games with no Storage tech
5.If you have enough food, you shouldn't be too scared to trigger an event
6.It *usually* makes sense to hold onto completed Objective cards until game end, but there's always the possibility of Spies that can deny you the chance to play them
7.Clash has the best tech-tree of any game I've ever played, by a long shot. It makes sense, and every single advance is useful, and often synergises with other techs.

I played it again last night, and crushed the brothers that I was playing against, since they got into a multi-era war, and just flipped cities back and forth.

[Lorini]

I'm getting and hopefully playing Clash of Cultures tomorrow. I'll look at his video, thanks for the link.

[Chrisoc13]

Now I really want that game. That video review totally sold me on it. How long do games typically take? I have a hard time finding people who are willing to play multiple hours with me. BGG says 4 hours... that would take multiple sitting with the people I play with.

[Lorini]

My understanding is that it takes an hour per player. Naturally your mileage may vary .

[Chrisoc13]

My understanding is that it takes an hour per player. Naturally your mileage may vary .

Hmm that is more doable. I don't mind long games but I don't have a real dedicated gaming group. I have to be careful what I introduce to them. Honestly I probably need a better gaming group instead

Sent using tapa

[Daveman]

So it looks like Days of Wonder will be cancelling the current Small World 2 Kickstarter project and starting a new one in the near future, apparently dedicated to a Steam/Android version since they're going to go ahead and release the iPad version anyway. Not quite clear what they'll do with the Deluxe version of the board game at this point... maybe they'll do a separate project for it.

[Chrisoc13]

So it looks like Days of Wonder will be cancelling the current Small World 2 Kickstarter project and starting a new one in the near future, apparently dedicated to a Steam/Android version since they're going to go ahead and release the iPad version anyway. Not quite clear what they'll do with the Deluxe version of the board game at this point... maybe they'll do a separate project for it.

It look like here they said they will find a more simple way to make it available.

Don’t worry, the Designer Edition won’t disappear. We are thinking of a new way to offer it to people more simply.

Not sure what that means. I agree it was a poorly done kickstarter since they were going to make it no matter what.

[Jow]

few games of netrunner last night - still new enough that we're still putzing with starter decks, but I switched over to the HB starter. Pretty interesting how differently the decks feel, with Jinteki massively dependent on neutral assets for income and sporting weaker ice while HB is much more of a "come at me bro" faction. Split a 2-game series with HB vs. the starter Jinteki, then won with starter Shaper vs. starter Jinteki in a game that wasn't close scorewise (8-2) but felt much closer as he drew most of his barriers, which I couldn't touch due to losing one of the two Battering Rams early in an ill-advised blind run. I only had 5 or 6 cards left in my stack at the end of the game.

Still wrapping my head around the luck factor in this game. I've seen games won by fortunate R&D and HQ runs where it felt solely like luck and less the product of statistics catching up after numerous successful runs... e.g, the last game we played, where a single Wall of Thorns kept me out of R&D for nearly half the game, until I finally pulled my second Battering Ram. My first successful run there pulled an agenda after my buddy had been drawing extra cards trying desperately to pull one. It felt kinda cheap.

[baelthazar]

My understanding is that it takes an hour per player. Naturally your mileage may vary .

IMHO, you would have to be a speed demon to play in only an hour. It is certainly possible, but our games took 2-3 hours. How long does it take your group to play Civilization? Clash does play significantly faster than Civ.

[Lorini]

My understanding is that it takes an hour per player. Naturally your mileage may vary .

IMHO, you would have to be a speed demon to play in only an hour. It is certainly possible, but our games took 2-3 hours. How long does it take your group to play Civilization? Clash does play significantly faster than Civ.

Now read it again

[baelthazar]

Ah! Yeah... my eyes are tired! Absolutely, it took us an hour per player (3 player and 3 hours). The first time we played, it was 2 hours per player, but that was just learning and such.

[MythicalMino]

My oldest boy and I played a game of Suburbia. Fun game, that one.

And, I finally got the expansion for Mage Knight all set up and parts separated/organized. Got a solo game set up on the kitchen table that I will play either later tonight or tomorrow.

Can someone explain more in detail how the blocking now works?

[Lorini]

Crossposted to the board game forum at somethingawful.com, Octopus Overlords and the GCL:Eclipse on boardgamegeek.

Here is my assessment of the games that I owned and played that considered Essen 2012 their debut. I usually make up my mind about a game within three plays although as you will see there are exceptions. I’m a Euro and strategy (not as in abstract strategy though) gamer.

Keepers
Terra Mystica
This game brings some much needed theme to Eurogames while keeping the mechanics us Euro players know and love. They did a great job in balancing most of the races and still keeping them very different from each other. What I particularly like is that you get to see the random set up before choosing a race (from two that you start with) so that you can mold your strategy to what’s available.

The Great Zimbabwe
Really enjoy this game. An interactive, high strategy game that can be played in an hour. None of the meat of the game is inherently obvious on the first play, but play this with four experienced players and you’ll see some real skullduggery. Pro tip-always charge maximum for crafters in the middle of the board. Trust me, charging the least is a very quick way to lose the game.

Ginkopolis
Although the shine is starting to come off a little. Ginkopolis is a nice medium weight strategy game. The game gives each player just enough control without making it a brain burner or a totally random game. I don’t know if I like the late game massive VP switches; however I’m willing to give the game some more chances while I work harder on layouts that aren’t so dependent on a single tile.

Dominion: Dark Ages
Love it. Not for newbies to Dominion but for us veterans it really brings a lot of challenging cards to the table. I’ve taken to just playing this and the basic card set, yet to get my fill of it.

Mage Wars
Sold my other tactical board games once I played this. So awesome. Think of being able to play Magic the Gathering with your entire deck available to you at once. Does suffer from AP but it’s worth it!!!

Clash of Cultures
Just what I’ve been looking for. A game where players attack each other but that is Euro style. CoC is awesome because it’s so intuitive and accessible. FFG’s Civ was way too fiddly with way too many rules. Through the Ages suffers from having to remember the cards that are coming without being able to see them. CoC has everything on the table at all times. The Tech Tree is there, there are no cards that are likely to come out that you need to plan for and play flows nicely.

Surprise Keepers
Palaces of Carrara
A new Kramer!! He’s one of my favorite designers from back in the day and he doesn’t disappoint with this one. I love the rondel and risk management in this one. You have to keep an eye on your opponents without being able to directly damage them. Pro tip-Ignore the ‘do not play the first game with the expansion’ advice unless you are under 10 years old.

Guildhall
Awesome card game!! I don’t usually like AEG games for various reasons, but this one is a gem. Very interactive and creative as well, you’re looking for different card combos that work for the situation the game is in.

Games that I’ll play a few times and then sell
Suburbia
Suburbia is more of what I call an ‘experience’ game. You take what you can get and experience what happens with what you took. It’s not a real good game to expect to win every time because you don’t know what’s coming and if you guess wrong, you could lose. It’ll be worth four or five plays and then I’ll dump it.

Snowdonia
Snowdonia is a mechanics game like Walnut Grove was to me. You throw in a bunch of mechanics, mix a little, and then there’s your game. It’s interesting to see what happens with the mix, but I’m fairly sure after again four or five plays I’ll be done with this.

Games I sold
Keyflower
To do well at Keyflower you will need to memorize what other players took from boats. And I hate memorization as a requirement to do well basically because I’m terrible at it. It’s very well regarded and received positive feedback when I played with people, but I could see that I wouldn’t want to play it much after the first few times.

Express 01
This is what happens when you come up with a game using your friends as playtesters (I don’t actually know if that’s what happened but I’ve seen it too many times before). The concept of the game was somewhat interesting but the execution was horrible.

Tzolk’in
I’ve written a lot about this game on somethingawful. Suffice to say that the strategic breadth of this game is too narrow and too many of the choices are either unimportant, overcosted or undercosted.

Games that I haven’t decided on yet
CO2
This seems to me like a fairly simplistic build power plant game but I keep seeing reviews/comments that say it’s not. I’ll be playing it this weekend with people who really like it and say they get it, so hopefully I can come to a decision then.

A Fool’s Fortune
Somewhere within the horrible rules there may be a pretty decent card game in the box. However my friend whom I was going to play this with played Guildhall and won’t come back to this one so it may have to stay in the box for a while longer.

[NickAragua]

Played a round of Red November with a few people. For those who don't know, you're controlling a bunch of russian gnomes on a sinking nuclear submarine, and you need to keep the poor thing together long enough for rescue to get there. In addition to the standard damage tracks (pressure, heat, oxygen), you also have a bunch of instant-death events, such as the nuclear missiles blowing up, or a kraken outside beating your sub to a pulp. You also have to put out fires, unblock doors and pump water out of rooms that spring leaks. Of course, each time you do something, it takes some time to do it, and one or more bad things pop up while you're doing the one good thing.

We were doing pretty well, keeping our sub together and the drunkedness level to a minimum. Pressure track was past the half-way point, but otherwise, fires were under control. Then, the kraken event hits at the same time as an asphyxiation event. So now, we have to kill the kraken and fix the oxygen supply, and then we're home free. The kraken threat is up first, so our main man goes out the airlock with an aqualung and a pair of harpoons and pops the kraken. Perfect, only takes two minutes so he doesn't even hit a bad event. Then comes the drunkedness check.

You see, if a gnome at any point has consumed "grog" (the picture is of a soviet style vodka bottle), every turn, they have 20% or greater odds if passing out for a while, depending on how much booze they had. This fellow had consumed two drinks before, so, of course, as soon as he pops the kraken, he passes out. This takes his time counter past the asphyxiation event, which means we all choke to death.

The end.

P.S. And then I discovered that it's actually possible to fail at fixing something so we were basically playing the game all wrong and it would have been much harder.

[coopasonic]

Mage Wars
Sold my other tactical board games once I played this. So awesome. Think of being able to play Magic the Gathering with your entire deck available to you at once. Does suffer from AP but it’s worth it!!!

I'm glad I am not the only fan. Now if only I could play a game with a full spellbook! I have only done the two demos at BGGcon.

I've built Beastmaster and Warlock decks and looking through all the cards made me giddy... and a teensy bit apprehensive. The Warlock looks rough.

[Isgrimnur]

Bring it to the next DGM and I'll play a full game with you.

[Boudreaux]

Mage Wars was one of the two games I played this weekend as well. Buddy of mine called it "one of his top 3 games", so naturally he had to bring it over to show it off. I played the Wizard and got my ass handed to me by his Beastmaster, but I'll chalk that up to newcomer woes. In retrospect, there were a lot of things I should have done differently that would have made it more competitive. It is a pretty interesting game, and I could see how getting into the intricacies of each spellbook (and especially "deck-building" them) would make for a pretty satisfying game. I'm actually finding myself able to hold out and not buy this, though - still a bit over my kids' heads, and the only other person I'd play it with is the one who already has it.

Second game of the weekend was Stronghold, which I acquired recently in a fantastic ~$30 Amazon sale. Although it supports 2-4 I view this as a strictly 2-player game. One side is the Invader, preparing their force of goblins, orcs, and trolls for a castle siege. You can deploy armies, build siege engines, train your troops, conduct rituals for magic advantages, and eventually conduct an assault on the castle. The other player is the Defender, and every action the Invader takes grants the Defender "hourglasses" of time, which is the Defender's resource currency. The Defender works with a limited resource of troops, but is able to build a variety of defenses, strengthen walls and gates, thwart the activities of the Invader, and generally make the siege a big pain in the ass. The game is victory point based, and for every turn the Defender holds off the horde, the Invader must give up a point. It basically becomes a race to not only get into the castle, but get into the castle soon enough to win.

There are a variety of cards that randomly determine the actions available to the Invader for the game, and your strategy is largely based on the tactical options you get at the start. This provides a ton of replayability, and I'm looking forward to more opportunities to dig into this in the future.

[Jow]

Mage Wars: Bought it a month or two ago but finally broke it out last weekend. SEems pretty cool, though we played very little of an actual game after building the recommended spellbooks for priestess and warlock. This one may not come out for a while as I'm really enjoying Netrunner and am a little burned out on heavy long games with thick rulebooks. I'll get back to it.

[MythicalMino]

played a solo conquest game of Mage Knight with the expansion...and lost horrendously.

Then I went out and finally laid down the cash for Eclipse and the expansion for that. Why didn't I get that game sooner than now?

[hentzau]

Well, last night we were going to try and get in a learning game of Railways of the World. I do love me a good train game, and this one looks like big amounts of fun, but unfortunately Tommy got out of work late and didn't have time to go home to get the game. Plus, he was pretty brain dead by that time, so we just went with a simple game and broke out Legendary. Unfortunately, he had to leave around 9:30 to go take care of a work emergency, so Stuart and I finished up the game ourselves, then dragged my wife into a game of Love Letters.

First time playing Love Letters, and I was pleasantly surprised by it. Simple game play, fast, quite a bit of strategy. Completely worthless for two players (IMO), fun for three. Need to try it with four now. Great filler game that I could see getting played a lot.

[coopasonic]

Mage Wars: Bought it a month or two ago but finally broke it out last weekend. SEems pretty cool, though we played very little of an actual game after building the recommended spellbooks for priestess and warlock. This one may not come out for a while as I'm really enjoying Netrunner and am a little burned out on heavy long games with thick rulebooks. I'll get back to it.

The attraction to me for Mage Wars, which was reinforced last time I played Netrunner, was the minimization of the random element of drawing cards. There are dice rolls for damage and effects, but I always get my damn mana and as long as I decided to put it in my deck, I have the spell I need.

[baelthazar]

I keep checking the Victory Point Games website, because they say that the Gold (or 2nd Edition) treatment of Dawn of the Zeds should be coming any day now! I just can't justify a poly-bag edition buy with crappy components, but - if the components for Darkest Night are an indication - the 2nd/Gold edition should be quite acceptable. I'm always on the lookout for solo games, and this one looks like it has the complexity to be quite fun!

[MythicalMino]

wow...I really, and I mean, REALLY, suck at Mage Knight, at least with the solo game. I just lost (again...the story of my life with this game) a solo conquest game. Heh, didn't even conquer the first city this time.

What is the secret to success in this game? Perhaps I am not playing aggressively enough...

[hepcat]

When you find out, let me know.

[Chaosraven]

Tried 3 of the 6 MiniExpansions released for Carcassonne, my son won both games. Followed by 2 games of FFG Talisman with all the expansions... and the little bugger won both of those. EDH and guess what? Little brat is grounded.

[Zarathud]

Ha. Going out today to buy the FFG City expansion for Talisman. It's my favorite expansion in the original.

[MythicalMino]

Just finished playing another game of Mage Knight...and yes, I did lose once again. BUT!! I scored 95 points. I think that is good...unless I screwed up scoring the points at the end. Also, I am not sure I did the combat in the city correctly. I think I did...but just not sure. I am still a little bit confused on fighting multiple enemies and retreating.

[Boudreaux]

I just discovered that a new version of Serenissima has been released. It might be one of 839 "let's trade commodities amongst Renaissance Mediterranean empires" games, but it's a game I always thought looked cool and wanted to try. Now there's a new version which appears to have corrected many of the issues with the original. So now I have the eternal dilemma of "want to buy this game" vs. "I will (in all probability) rarely play this game".

[coopasonic]

I just discovered that a new version of Serenissima has been released. It might be one of 839 "let's trade commodities amongst Renaissance Mediterranean empires" games, but it's a game I always thought looked cool and wanted to try. Now there's a new version which appears to have corrected many of the issues with the original. So now I have the eternal dilemma of "want to buy this game" vs. "I will (in all probability) rarely play this game".

Did you discover it when you saw it was today's CSI deal of the day? Obviously you must buy it today.

[Boudreaux]

I would actually get it cheaper from Miniature Market. They are here in St. Louis, which means I can pick it up and pay $0 shipping. With CSI I'd have to pay $12 more (I don't have $100 of stuff to buy).

Which makes it MORE tempting, because I could order it now and swing by and pick it up on my way home.

[coopasonic]

I don't have $100 of stuff to buy

This statement makes no sense to me.

[Boudreaux]

I don't have $100 of stuff to buy

This statement makes no sense to me.

Let me clarify - I'm not going to spend $100 right now.

Although (bollocks!) I see that now Amazon has the Descent 2e expansion on sale for $25 with Prime shipping. So maybe what I mean to say is "I don't have $100 of stuff to buy all in one place.

[baelthazar]

Oddly enough Boudreaux, I am grappling with the same question. The problem is that I actually study 1400s Mediterranean for a living, so that game looks like catnip (I even taught about Galleys tonight!). But, the rules make the game seem like a fairly simply carry and sell mechanic game, so I wonder if I really NEED a game like that? I just got my Kickstarter copy of Ground Floor, so that is far more advanced and has a similar "flavor."

But I would like the Descent expansion and that price is good. I hear the expansion is worthy, as well. And I am having a blast painting the Descent minis! I thought that them being to small would be awful, but it actually makes it faster and easier!

[Boudreaux]

Yeah I'm tempted by the Descent expansion too. I've been playing the campaign with a couple of friends (using another's copy), and he has the expansion and has thrown a few of those elements in. One of the new heroes (the Geomancer) is pretty interesting, although the Overlord player hates it (stupid rocks!). Again, it's desire vs. logic: do I buy an expansion for a game I haven't even played my own copy of yet (despite owning it for at least 2 months)?

[RMC]

Darn you all. I had no reason to buy the expansion, but I just did because you all mentioned the price on Amazon.


Ah well.. I'll find time to play it...Maybe..