OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sat Dec 20, 2014 2:17 pm

Icebear suggested something I wasn't aware of. It's not for me, but maybe it's something that could work for you?

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Sat Dec 20, 2014 3:15 pm

I'm familiar with Roll20, and have considered it. I do have options, though. I could run my own games with other people. I'm already running one for my kids and a couple of friends.

I just enjoyed getting to be a player - for once.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sat Dec 20, 2014 3:23 pm

I played D&D....once.

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Mon Dec 22, 2014 6:59 pm

Getting ready to make my annual pilgrimage to New Philadelphia (It's in Ohio, not PA Don't ask) to game with Hepcat when he comes into Ohio. It's about a 1.5 hour drive from my house, and my wife let's me go and spend all day gaming, so it's my Christmas present to myself.

Here are the games I know will be there:

Eldritch Horror with all expansions
Shadows of Brimstone
Lords of Waterdeep with expansions
Smash Up with expansions
Spartacus with expansions
Firefly with expansions

And a bunch more usually. I will give an update on all games played later this week.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Mon Dec 22, 2014 9:04 pm

Archipagelo and Robinson Crusoe should also be there.

I am hoping to play a game or two of the Dice Hate Me Rabbit food series: Diner, Pie Factory and Brew Crafter. Also Pairs.

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Mon Dec 22, 2014 9:18 pm

Zarathud wrote:Archipagelo and Robinson Crusoe should also be there.

I am hoping to play a game or two of the Dice Hate Me Rabbit food series: Diner, Pie Factory and Brew Crafter. Also Pairs.

I am hoping that Spartacus get's on the table.. Hep's friends usually don't pick on me.. They are too nice.

Boudreaux · Post by **Boudreaux** » Tue Dec 23, 2014 12:58 am

Got to play a full 4-player game of Xia tonight, and while the game overall is pretty nice WOW that is some downtime between turns. I could see playing this again with only 2 or 3, but with 4 players I could have read a good chunk of a book between my turns. The complaints about Firefly's length seem petty after that.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Tue Dec 23, 2014 1:04 am

Boudreaux wrote:Got to play a full 4-player game of Xia tonight, and while the game overall is pretty nice WOW that is some downtime between turns. I could see playing this again with only 2 or 3, but with 4 players I could have read a good chunk of a book between my turns. The complaints about Firefly's length seem petty after that.

Hmm. I don't remember downtime being an issue with the 3 player game we did. Seemed like the most time was choosing missions.

Boudreaux · Post by **Boudreaux** » Tue Dec 23, 2014 10:53 am

We had a LOT of combat, so that might have slowed things down. I didn't notice as much at first, because I was new to the game and other players' turns were interesting. Toward the end it really dragged.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Tue Dec 23, 2014 3:26 pm

Boudreaux wrote:We had a LOT of combat, so that might have slowed things down. I didn't notice as much at first, because I was new to the game and other players' turns were interesting. Toward the end it really dragged.

And we had no combat in our game at all. Hmm. Might be the difference. I'll have to make a point to be more aggressive in my next game and see what the results are.

ChaoZ · Post by **ChaoZ** » Fri Dec 26, 2014 12:03 am

Binge bought a few games recently:

King of New York (pretty much based on gameplay videos of King of Tokyo I saw on YouTube)
Sushi Go! (A light card game, maybe a little too much so)
Robo Rally (Always seemed like an interesting concept to me, can't wait to try it)

The group I usually play with is pretty casual though. I got them started with Ticket to Ride and Catan. Would eventually like to add stuff like Power Grid.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Fri Dec 26, 2014 2:11 am

Christmas was kind to the kids this year, and the kids just happen to love the same things I do.

Battlelore
Dominion: Intrigue
Settlers of Catan
Smash Up
Super Munchkin

Zenn7 · Post by **Zenn7** » Sat Dec 27, 2014 10:30 pm

Last Saturday of the month - GAME DAY!!!

Tried Pandemic the Cure. It cured me of never losing a co-operative game - 3 tries, 3 losses. And we even set it on intro (2 players had never played Pandemic and none of us had played this version). Definitely gives a good feel for the board game though. Actually liked that slightly more than board game I think.

Then we played a couple games of Age of War - lost both. Not a bad game, but not something I'd be in a rush to play again.

After supper we were fortunate enough to get in on a game of Marvel Legendary - been wanting to try that, it was fun. Got my butt severely kicked (last place of 5 players!). But it was fun and I'd definitely play that again!

That's my fish to finish off the limited remaining time. Not that exciting to me personally, but I can see where it's easy to teach the basic rules to, so you'd be able to get people in easier, especially for younger players.

People always bring some old games they want to sell, and someone marked down several late in the day, some down to free. I picked up "The Struggle for Catan - the card game" and "ZOMBIES!!!". Can play those 2 player with my daughter. If we do not enjoy them, I'll take them back, one guy is a school counselor and started a board game club at a local middle school. Played Legendary with him and one of his kids, which was kind of cool, because I found out about ROBA (this board game group) back in April on International Board Game day - he ran an event for it at the local High School - confirmed they will be doing that again, so a bonus day to look forward to in April!

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 12:54 am

I sat down with the kids last night and tried Settlers of Catan. We played two games and had a blast - this one is fantastic. I will have to get my hands on the 5-6 player expansion, though.

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 2:33 am

Blackhawk wrote:I sat down with the kids last night and tried Settlers of Catan. We played two games and had a blast - this one is fantastic. I will have to get my hands on the 5-6 player expansion, though.

I’m actually going to advise against the expansion. One of the reasons Cataan works well as a casual game is that game rounds go pretty fast and mishaps are random and equal enough that everyone can just laugh them off. The problem with the expansion is that turns really start to drag on and in every game I’ve played with more than four players, one person always gets screwed right out of the gate by the quickly overcrowding board.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 10:56 am

The problem is that I've now got five people every two weeks, and all but a couple of games in my collection are for four or fewer players.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 12:17 pm

My traditional holiday D&D game got postponed because of sickness, so we got in a couple of other games with some of the folks that could make it. We only had a limited time, so we only played a couple.

First up was Dice Town, a christmas present from my folks. I've been looking at that one for a while, and I wasn't disappointed. With DT, you have five "poker" dice, where you try through multiple rolls to make the best poker hand. You roll the dice in secret, and secretly keep one die that everyone reveals at the same time. You see what everyone kept, then repeat through 5 dice. You can pay money from your bank to keep more than one die though. Once the hands are revealed, you go to town and see the results. Whoever has the most 9's gets to take gold nuggets from the mine. Most 10s robs the stagecoach. Most Js goes to the General Store and gets a card. Cards from the store can either be used to change die results, get more gold from the stage, etc. Most Qs gets to steal a card from another player. Most K's gets to be the sheriff (determines who wins in ties). And the best poker hand gets to claim territory cards (which give VPs for the end game.) Game was a lot of fun, will definitely be playing this one more.

Next we played a learning game of Sails of Glory. Lots of fun with this one too. A lot more complicated than straight up Wings of War/Glory. Played a 2 v 2 ship game with only the basic rules. Basic rules are really too basic, but after we were done I read through the standard rules and they were really where I'll enjoy playing. The advanced rules seem like they may be overly cumbersome.

This morning I'm going to try a learning game of Imperial Assault, and we're going to give our D&D game another try this afternoon.

Zenn7 · Post by **Zenn7** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 6:10 pm

Left off Rise of Augustus. That was enjoyable, except none of us knew how to play so I misinterpreted the rules on the first round - for the red objectives to remove 1/2 legions, I thought that was remove from play. Someone else concluded probably not or you'd be where I was, which was screwed since I was down to 4 and couldn't complete any objectives. Second time we played it correctly. Lost one game, won one game (last play got the wheat or gold (or both?) to just clinch victory!).

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 11:38 pm

Had a good week of game playing at the in-laws plus some gaming with my family now. We bought small world and trains for my in-laws and managed to play those a lot during the week leading up to Christmas. Trains was a big hit, although since most of them are very new to board games beyond your typical old American games and none of them had ever played a deck builder so the first game was a little rough but after everyone ironed out the rules and understood them it became pretty fun. Probably played a good 5 games of Trains and 3 games of small world. Only problem was small world was they don't own any expansions so with 5 players we rotated through all of the races 1.5 times a game. We also played a couple of games of Wits and Wagers and a few games of Love Letter, always a hit.

We gave my youngest brother Zombicide for Christmas, just the base game. He's been looking to get it for a while but never pulled the trigger on it. So we played a couple of scenarios of Zombicide and had some really cool moments. At one point Wanda had only a pan near the end of the game, had one wound, and had to take care of three zombies in 3 actions or we would lose the scenario. We figured we had lost but I took a swing with the pan and actually managed to roll 3 6's in a roll, it was what Zarathud would call a "movie moment." Zombicide has been a big hit with the whole family, and I am looking forward even more to trying out Rue Morgue.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 12:30 am

Spent the better part of Saturday at Tao's house. Brought over Shadows of Brimstone and Zombicide (Rue Morgue). He had Sentinels of the Multiverse as well.

There were just three of us playing, myself, gilraen, and Tao.

We started off with a couple games of SotM. First fight went smooth. No worries. Had a bit more difficulty with Omnitron. We discovered that Atlantis is not a very good combination for that fight. Additionally, Tao ran with Wraith. We pulled both of Omnitron's "destroy equipment" cards. The second one almost took Tao out of the fight entirely. Wraith was also not a good idea for that fight. And we pulled one of the pulse bombs. Miraculously we managed to "stun" it and then destroy it before it could go off. We also managed to avoid the second pulse bomb. Fight wrapped up when gilraen's Tachyon was able to hit for somewhere around 19 damage with one hit. Still, was a bit shaky a couple times during that fight.

Fun game. I suspect that I'll also grab a copy so that gilraen and I can play together when Tao is not available.

Then the real fun started. We decided to start a campaign in SoB. Tao and I had played a couple of times. gilraen was new to the game. We went with a basic mission and got the one to close the portal. I ran a priest and managed to score Shockwave to start. Tao opted to stand for law and order. gilraen went native with the scout.

Started bad... Then got worse. That mission starts the Darkness with a jump. After a failure to hold back the darkness, we found ourselves with two Darkness cards for the first fight. One that made it an ambush, and one that gave the Undead bonuses (and that one was nice enough to stick around the entire time). So naturally the first room was the first clue. We got lucky on the large creature and only had to face one Slasher. However, my rolls gave us 12 Hungry Dead to go with the 3 corpse piles.

We immediately tried to whittle down the Hungry Dead to prevent them turning elite. That took our dynamite out of the picture early. We lost our scout part way through. Then I got taken out as well. Tao used the one Revive token to get me back up. We managed to finish off the fight. But that left us now without a revive token or any dynamite. Not to mention lots of wounds.

We had a couple of smaller skirmishes before getting a stroke of "luck" and popping the last clue. The good news is that we got really lucky on the threat cards. We spawned only one Slasher. But then got 6 Tentacles. Which would have been fine except that we had to spawn some more. So those went elite. Which might not have been too bad... until they got +2 damage for their ability. We also had two Darkness cards that gave them +1 Defense and +1 Combat. So they were rolling 4 dice and doing 5 damage per hit. With 4 health and 3 Defense. Didn't take too long to lose our Lawman. He was at the front and the only one that the Tentacles could reach. Then we lost the scout. Luckily by that time we'd dwindled the number of foes down. I was able to survive. Coupled with some suddenly sensational rolling to Hold Back the Darkness (seriously, I think gilraen rolled successfully 5-6 times in a row), which meant no adds, I was able to revive the KO'd players, get the book, and shut down the gate.

Still have no idea how we survived. We were ready to throw in the towel after the first fight, but decided to ride it out for the experience. So glad that we did. Hell of a game. And very satisfying. Everyone picked up a level. Next we just have to make it back to town and survive until the next mission...

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 2:01 am

Played Super Munchkin for the first time tonight. Munchkin games are always hit-and-miss, but tonight's game was just awful and seemed to drag on forever. There ended up being so many cards on the table - powers, equipment, and so on that most of us were sitting there with combat modifiers of 30+, while there were very, very few monsters to fight to actually gain levels and end the game.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 3:57 pm

Today, I am going to set up a game of Terra Mystica (got it for X-mas) with my wife. It looks easy enough to learn, since we are long time Caverna and Agricola players. Tomorrow, we will probably try to learn Imperial Assault (so cool looking). Since I have played Descent 2nd Ed and she is a huge fan of Arcadia Quest, Imperial Assault should be a cakewalk to get down. The system is nicely streamlined for such a complex genre, something that Shadows of Brimstone could have emulated a bit better. Before X-mas, my friends and I got a game of SoB in, and we very much enjoyed it, but we lucked out that it ended up being a bit shorter than it could have been and even then it weighed in at 3 hours. I think we spent an hour alone doing the "between mission" town visit.

Having not even played it yet, I think Imperial Assault will be the game that I wanted as a kid - a way to play with Star Wars toys in a rule-based environment. At the moment, I am giddy at the prospect of painting the iconic figures, but the Imperial palette of black and white might make that something of a challenge. I get the picture that my drybrushing skills are about to get some practice.

In other news, I was weak and backed Rum & Bones. If CMON had not knocked it out of the park with Arcadia Quest, I would have been able to pass, but we love AQ so much that I know Rum a& Bones will be awesome.

In other other news, Sandy Peterson sent out a message that Cthulhu Wars was no longer being held up by customs and was now on its way to the warehouse for shipping. I can't wait! Now, if only the dockworkers would let Fief 1423 out of the gate, then my outstanding KS will be on their way!

Lastly, I have an unopened copy of Zombicide Rue Morgue sitting here, regretting the fact that I backed it. I'm kicking around selling my pledge, but I have no idea how I would do that. Any ideas (or anyone interested)?

Zenn7 · Post by **Zenn7** » Thu Jan 01, 2015 11:51 pm

Got together w/ friends, we got a few games in with the socializing.

Tried Cthula (sp?) Fluxx. Never played a FLUX game, that was goofy good fun (watched one game that was started when I got there, played 2). Got to play Love Letters (stocking stuffer of mine), some 4 in a row game where you could cover each other pieces with bigger (hollow) pieces (meh, it was a time killer). And then I got a free copy of Zombies and Struggle for Catan at monthly board game day last Saturday (someone was selling some games and marked them down, some to free). We tried Zombies!!!

We had no idea how to play or how long it would really take, it was 6:30 PM when we started after 9 when we finished (later than we really wanted to play). It was kinda fun but everyone was getting tired and ready to be done. So of course as one person is close to winning when we finally get the Helipad out... she dies. Fine, another person needs 2 more zombies to win... she dies. Couple turns later and one guy had a chain saw, 4 life and 5 bullets and managed to wrack up the rest of the zombies he needed to win. By this point we'd run out of map cards and zombies (those were the only 2 deaths in the game to finally put some zombies back in the pool).

Might pick up a Fluxx game of some sort for home. Didn't think wife would like the craziness but she said she might be interested in trying it.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Fri Jan 02, 2015 10:00 pm

Coming in here an misspelling Cthulhu is tantamount to heresy in these here parts...

I am not a huge fan of Fluxx, as I find it either goes too quickly or last HOURS. That has to do with the extremely random nature of the game. Funny, however, my parents and their friends like playing it, so I end up having to play along. Cthulhu Fluxx is obviously a favorite, but Zombie Fluxx and regular Fluxx are also decent. Martian Fluxx seems to go on too long and not be as dynamic. I think my most loved Fluxx is Monty Python Fluxx, because it forces you to do fun things like speak in an outrageous accent or quote Python lines.

I've heard Zombies!! is a bit of a bear, and a lot of people prefer the slightly more complicated by faster playing Zombiecide. Catan, of course, is a staple "gateway game," but you must have three players to play it. It is the game that many hardcore gamer started out playing, I must have played at least 200+ games of Catan in my life. If you want to get your wife into gaming more, try out Carcassonne - that was the game that really introduce my wife to the hobby.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 10:22 am

New Year's Eve saw Seppe, Zarathud and I getting together for about 8 hours of quality gaming.

First up was a copy of Zarathud's recently backed kickstarter pledge, Brewcrafters: The Travel Card Game. I've never played the boardgame that this is supposedly based on, but I did enjoy this trimmed down tableau builder. It's a nice, light game that gave me a reason to start drinking earlier than I had planned.

Second was Seppe's copy of another Kickstarter, Among the Stars. I do love this game. It's a fascinating game based on a day in the life of a Hollywood paparazzi.

...wait...no...that's not right. It's a tile placement/tableau building/combo making card game set in space. What I like about it is that the disparate mechanics are all integrated nicely into the whole. None of them feel like an afterthought. I love the art, too. Fun game that only gets better each time I play.

Then we dove into my copy of Imperial Settlers. I'm an Ignacy fan boy so this was a no brainer when I saw it advertised. What I found most interesting about it though is that it serves perfectly as a tutorial for his much meatier New Era. It has the same mechanics, but strips away many of the fiddly'er rules that bother new players and make it such a hard game to understand. But when you want a great story to go with your game, New Era shines brighter than Imperial Settlers. Still, I liked it a great deal. I especially enjoyed the asymmetric starting factions. It gives the game a bit more diversity right off the bat; whereas in New Era, that only becomes apparent during the player's evolving play style throughout the game.

Finally, after the champagne was popped and downed (and after I forced everyone to sit through the incredibly unsettling but nonetheless genius Too Many Cooks from the makers behind the great Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law), we ended the evening with a game of Trieste. A great little 3 player game that is both quick and ruthless.

I do believe Zarathud won every game we played on New Year's Eve, by the way.

Let us not talk of that again.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 10:35 am

Really wish I could have made it over. As it is, we did nothing other than eat Chinese food, and watch Raiders and Empire Strikes Back until Midnight.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 11:58 am

I was on a roll that night.

It helped that the Japanese in Imperial Settlers really have an explosive VP combo in their red buildings that I stumbled across early. I also picked up the common building giving +1 VP when you build and that led to a runaway game. The only way to counter would have been to focus on razing my stuff much earlier.

Among the Stars is a cross of 7 Wonders and Alhambra...in space. After drafting a tile, you add it to your space station for points. Lots of depth with the tile variability and ambassadors. I liked how the game ended up competitive once the end game points were added. I definitely want to play again.

BrewMaster Card Game did pretty well at keeping the flavor of a harder Euro while playing quickly. You need to pick a brew style, add a piece of equipment with an employee over a few turns then start crafting beer.

Next time, I'll make sure to bring the rules for Diner and Pie Factory.

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 5:05 pm

I got to play quite a few games in the last couple days.

Boss Monster – A friends brother brought this with him and I was skeptical at first, but found it pretty fun. It’s a card game where each player builds a dungeon by drawing cards placing them in order on the table. Based on the treasure on each dungeon room card, heroes will attempt to attack your dungeon. First person to kill 10 heroes wins.

It should be stated that I HATE Munchkin with a passion, so when this game was brought out I expected the worse. Thankfully, Boss Monster is less about screwing over other players than it is about perfecting a dungeon layout. Also, unlike Munchkin which can drag on endlessly, this seemed to have a pretty fast playtime (~30 minutes).

Space Cadets – A co-op spaceship bridge simulator. The concept for this one is very cool but implementation seems like it could use a little refinement. Every player takes on the role of one position in a Star Trek style space ship. Each person gets their own “mini game” that they must complete each round in order to complete the overall mission. Likewise, each person job interacts with the other players. Engineering provides power to departments, which gives them extra actions to perform their task. Sensors determines how hard Weapons task is to score a hit, etc.

My biggest problem is that I couldn’t shake the feeling that the whole thing would be better served as a computer/ipad game. Every mini game took up a ton of table space, and since every task was different and used varied components, the tutorial section of the game was really drawn out and messy. Also, some departments just seemed a lot more interesting and useful than others.

Merchants and Marauders – This seemed like a really fun pirate/merchant themed game that was not appropriate for the particular group. It basically plays like Sid Meier's Pirates. Everything was going fine until we got into the meat of the combat, which is surprisingly complex. Every round of combat involves multiple sets of dice rolls, during which both attackers and defenders can take massive amounts of damage. Making matter worse, I was the only player who went pirate and ended up taking one player completely out of the game. It was the most logical action I had, but I still felt like a jerk afterwards.

Mansions of Madness: Call of the Wild – Mansions of Madness is a semi-co-operative game that pits up to four investigators against the game master in story based scenarios connected with the Cthulhu mythos. Call of the Wild is the largest expansion for the game and makes a ton of improvements over the base game. MoM is one of the most popular games among my group of friends so I have been slowly adding in all the expansions. This expansion in particular adds in a ton of new map tiles, monsters, investigators and completely changes the mechanics of missions by adding NPC characters. If you already have the base game I would highly recommend picking this up.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 5:08 pm

Lordnine wrote: Mansions of Madness: Call of the Wild – Mansions of Madness is a semi-co-operative game that pits up to four investigators against the game master in story based scenarios connected with the Cthulhu mythos. Call of the Wild is the largest expansion for the game and makes a ton of improvements over the base game. MoM is one of the most popular games among my group of friends so I have been slowly adding in all the expansions. This expansion in particular adds in a ton of new map tiles, monsters, investigators and completely changes the mechanics of missions by adding NPC characters. If you already have the base game I would highly recommend picking this up.

I have repeatedly read that the Call of the Wild expansion changes the game so much as to make it different (in a good way) - better than the original release and for people (like me) that were so-so over the base set, this fixes/addresses/modifies things in a way that makes it an enjoyable experience for everyone playing. Would you agree with that?

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 5:28 pm

Smoove_B wrote:
Lordnine wrote: Mansions of Madness: Call of the Wild – Mansions of Madness is a semi-co-operative game that pits up to four investigators against the game master in story based scenarios connected with the Cthulhu mythos. Call of the Wild is the largest expansion for the game and makes a ton of improvements over the base game. MoM is one of the most popular games among my group of friends so I have been slowly adding in all the expansions. This expansion in particular adds in a ton of new map tiles, monsters, investigators and completely changes the mechanics of missions by adding NPC characters. If you already have the base game I would highly recommend picking this up.
I have repeatedly read that the Call of the Wild expansion changes the game so much as to make it different (in a good way) - better than the original release and for people (like me) that were so-so over the base set, this fixes/addresses/modifies things in a way that makes it an enjoyable experience for everyone playing. Would you agree with that?

I’m going to have to ask, how many mission from the base game did you play? The problem with MoM is the quality of scenarios varies widely and I could completely understand if you played a bad scenario and then were turned off from the game. I would say that, so far, every scenario in CoW has been better than the “good” scenarios in the base game.

Call of the Wild introduces a lot more random elements into the mix. Where the base game was a completely linear path of follow the directions, CoW allows you to discover clues in almost any order.

Most scenarios are seeded somewhat randomly, so setup time is greatly reduced. The scenario we played this weekend started with only 4 game tiles in play. When an investigator explored off the map a new tile was put into place and “seeded” with cards based on the direction he went in. The game still specified to “seed” common, objective and lock cards, but since they could explore in any direction, the actual location of the objects would be different in each play through.

A different scenario we played also had a ton of NPCs on the board. The objective was to discover which NPC was the cult leader and so they had to go around to different areas of the board talking to, and completing objectives for, each character. Each NPC had its own story deck based on what scenario I had chosen and gave hints and rewards to the players each time they drew a new card.

Ultimately, if you hated the original game, I don’t think this would change your mind. But if you liked the overall concept, but found it a little stiff or unrefined, CoW may push you over the edge into loving it.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 11:30 pm

Lordnine wrote:Ultimately, if you hated the original game, I don’t think this would change your mind. But if you liked the overall concept, but found it a little stiff or unrefined, CoW may push you over the edge into loving it.

I'd have to pull open the box, but I think we played through three different scenarios...maybe a few more than once. I really wanted to like it but as the guy running the show I felt more obligated to play the "nice" game master instead of the malevolent puppet master. I think I just had an issue with me (as a single entity) trying to play against two or more other people. If this changes that fundamental aspect some how (by adding more randomness), that's not a bad thing, IMHO. But if it's just more tools for me to plot and punish players...not really sure there's any hope.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:53 am

Anything that improves Mansions of Madness is interesting. It's a game that I want to like, but it faces pretty stiff competition from Shadows of Brimstone, Imperial Assault, and Descent. None are horror games, but Shadows of Brimstone comes pretty close.

Does the expansion give any reason to search other than finding the objectives? From the adventures I played, most of the cards resulted in bad consequences. There was little chance of benefiting from searching any room other than discovering objectives.

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Tue Jan 06, 2015 1:34 am

Smoove_B wrote: I'd have to pull open the box, but I think we played through three different scenarios...maybe a few more than once. I really wanted to like it but as the guy running the show I felt more obligated to play the "nice" game master instead of the malevolent puppet master. I think I just had an issue with me (as a single entity) trying to play against two or more other people. If this changes that fundamental aspect some how (by adding more randomness), that's not a bad thing, IMHO. But if it's just more tools for me to plot and punish players...not really sure there's any hope.

The 4 on 1 nature of the game is actually our favorite part of it all. It makes it unique among most co-op or story based games that are either 1v1 or 4vGame. Some of the most memorable moments from the game come from the adversarial nature. Like the time I killed off one of the characters and he re-entered the game as the old man with the warding statue, walked straight past all my abominations, picked up the wounded character (objective) and walked right back out again as I desperately threw everything I had at him.

There is one scenario that does NOT use a game master at all, and instead is full on co-operative. Probably not worth it just for one though.

What may interest you is there are a couple scenarios where the table is turned and the investigators have to hide/protect objects from the game master. The GM has to send his minions out to dig up puzzle pieces and solve the sort of puzzle that is usually reserved for the investigators.

Zarathud wrote: Does the expansion give any reason to search other than finding the objectives? From the adventures I played, most of the cards resulted in bad consequences. There was little chance of benefiting from searching any room other than discovering objectives.

I think you may have done something wrong. When you search rooms you should find a pretty even mix of useful items, weapons, clues and nothing of interest cards. Outside of a few scenarios with traps, there are very few exploration cards with negative effects. I can think of one off the top of my head that kills you instantly from the "Green Eyed Boy", but that is widely regarded as the worst scenario.

On the subject of nothing of interest cards; I have yet to see a single CoW scenario that has a Nothing of Intrest card in it. Everything you pick up is useful in some way or part of the plot.

Two new additions to the expansion that makes life particularly devastating for the GM are the inclusion of the Flamethrower and Sniper Rifle.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Tue Jan 06, 2015 2:07 am

Some interesting gaming in the last few days. I was given a few card based games published by AEG much in the same format as Love Letter. All of them are quick little card games much the same as Love Letter, 2-4 player games that last 15 minutes or less. Great filler games, and great games for travel since they take up no space and can be played just about anywhere, they are:

Cypher- quick card game with lots of card passing etch, the end goal is to end up with the most influence played in front of you (much like love letter except you have 3 cards in front of you which add up influence). You attempt to manipulate each others cards played in front of them and you try to keep your numbers the highest all while trying to trigger the end game at just the right time. It's a little complicated to remember the order of play but it plays really fast but is still a lot of fun.

Lost Legacy- I now have both "The Starship" and "The Flying Garden"which can either be played separately or joined together for a more complex game. It plays much like Love Letter where you have 1 card hand and draw 1 card on your turn and play one card. The difference between in and Love Letter is it scales a little better for 2 players, and has a bit more variety you can add. The point of the game is to find the lost legacy which is a card which you can have in your hand but not play. You use various cards to move around the lost legacy and try to hide it from other players while keeping track of where it is. You can attack and eliminate other players much the same as you can in Love Letter, but if the game ends by running out of cards there is an "investigation" where you go in order by who has the most powerful card in their hand to determine where the lost legacy is. Whoever finds it first wins essentially. Fun game, can be between 2 minutes and 15 minutes, and can be played like love letter where you need to win 4 times or so to win. Nice addition as a filler game, fits must the same place as Love letter.

Empire engine- haven't tried it yet. Looks promising, similar short game.

All in all I like these little AEG games, they come in nice little bags, can be taught in around 2 minutes, and play in under 15 minutes with 2-4 players. Really great all around for that place in my game collection.

I also had a chance to play Rue Morgue today. Up until now I have combined all of my equipment decks together, but with 3 seasons and an expansion it is just too many cards so I separated them all out and will play only the equipment deck for that season from now on. It's just too much at one time. We tried one scenario and it was going well until the A-bomb came out and trapped us. The new A-bomb can't be killed with damage 3 weapons so you need a Molotov again to kill it. It also pulls you into it's square after it moves making it extremely hard to get away from. Anyways the abomination trapped us and we just couldn't get away. But I love the new zombies, they are hard to get rid of. I also like the new mechanisms like rolling the dice to see which spawn zones we are going to use, and the ability to use 6-12 survivors in each mission. I also like the trigger zones instead of just triggering zombies when you open a door, they also can spawn as you walk into a square. All around it is solid stuff, some good zombicide ahead. Tomorrow we are going to take another shot at beating this mission, seeing if we can get it done.

The Rocketman · Post by **The Rocketman** » Tue Jan 06, 2015 2:27 am

Lordnine wrote: Like the time I killed off one of the characters and he re-entered the game as the old man with the warding statue, walked straight past all my abominations, picked up the wounded character (objective) and walked right back out again as I desperately threw everything I had at him.

I know that man. I'm always the Keeper myself, and I remember that old man on the brink of death (with a broken leg or some such effect) shotgun-blasting, shovel-bashing and magick-melting all my foes away while all the other players failed all their attacks and checks. It was pretty hilarious how he single-handedly won the game, with all other investigators reduced to background characters.

ChaoZ · Post by **ChaoZ** » Tue Jan 06, 2015 5:31 pm

Played King of New York for the first time and although it worked for six people, holding Manhattan was difficult and it didn't give much opportunity to play superpower cards. Quite a lot of death, and nobody hit 20 points.

Also played a game called Revolution! and it was a lot of fun. It's all about guessing what your opponents are bidding on. Not a very deep game, but I managed to pull a come-from-behind victory.

Daveman · Post by **Daveman** » Wed Jan 07, 2015 7:23 pm

Heh, turns out a silly little picture I took of an Easter Egg inside the Imperial Settlers box insert was the top photo of 2014 on BGG

paulbaxter · Post by **paulbaxter** » Wed Jan 07, 2015 10:01 pm

It isn't the weekend, but I just played my first game of Android: Netrunner with my son. We had a super basic question which I didn't see in the rule book (might have just missed it):

At the end of a run, barring any specific statements from cards in play, what happens to the icebreaker card? Does it return to the runner's hand or is it trashed?

Our assumption was that it returns to the hand since it seems like within the game you need specified conditions to trash cars in general, but it seems like something that should have been stated in the flowchart about runs.

edit: I just watched the official gameplay video. Looks like icebreakers get installed as programs and then return to that state.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Wed Jan 07, 2015 10:37 pm

Icebreakers are installed programs. The base runner can have 4 units of programs installed without actually having a deck. They are permanent until something else happens.

Note the black and white chip icon to the right of the cost. The runner pays 9 to install it and it takes one memory slot.

If he needs more space for something else, he can trash/uninstall it at the time it's needed.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Wed Jan 07, 2015 10:38 pm

This is from memory so I may not use exactly the right words...

icebreakers in general are programs that are played to the table and remain on the table. it's like they are installed in your rig. You pay an action and an install cost to put them into play and then they are available to you unless some effect makes them go away. Using them generally has an additional cost as noted in the card text.

Your theoretical rig has a limited amount of memory for installed program and each program indicates the memory cost. I think you start with 3, and some hardware can give you more.