OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Wed Jul 15, 2015 5:14 pm

hepcat wrote:
coopasonic wrote:Right after I watch the dozens of movies and TV shows I actually want to see that I haven't gotten around to.
Miss Congeniality and Small Wonder can wait.

He's referring to the Cheaper by the Dozens franchise.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Fri Jul 17, 2015 12:04 pm

AWS260 wrote:Impressions of Cruel Necessity, having played through two of the three English Civil Wars:

The game is fun and fast-moving. Despite all the tracks to keep track of, everything is very straightforward, and once I got through a few rounds, I rarely had to refer to the rulebook.

The English Civil Wars were very, very complicated. I'm trying to follow the historical developments by reading the flavor text on the event cards, and my head is spinning. So many different and changing sides. Because of this, it's not always clear how the historical event described by the flavor text relates to the in-game action that results. "John Pym establishes the Parliamentary Committee on Safety: +1 to the Catholicism track." Okay then.

Despite my ignorance of the time period, the wars are going well enough. According to the interim victory point checks, I achieved the historical result (a modest defeat) in the first civil war, and a solid victory in the second. Now to take my forces into the third and decisive war. Will the Rump Parliament overcome the Covenanters? Will the Levellers continue to stand in the way of the Grandees? What do any of those words even mean? I guess I'll find out.

I finished up my campaign with the third and final English Civil War a couple of nights ago. A run of rotten die rolls saw me end the game with a "marginal defeat," allowing Charles II to take the throne while the Puritans fled to the New World. New England, here we come!

Mechanically, Cruel Necessity is tight and fun. There's a lot of tension and tough decision-making, with constant pressure on multiple fronts requiring your attention.

However, I don't think that the mechanics are a good fit for the theme. Because the English Civil Wars were so complex, with so many shifting alliances and powers, it's hard to keep track of how a particular game element relates to the history it's trying to tell. (For example, in the final turn of the game you are instructed that the Loyalist Army of the West suddenly is supposed to represent the Dutch, who have never appeared in the game until that moment.)

Also, the event cards describe very specific historical events, but because the cards are randomized, the events sometimes occur in an order that makes no sense. You're not weaving a new story out of historical events, you're assembling a patchwork quilt.

I enjoyed the five or so hours I spent learning the game and getting through the campaign, but I'm not sure that I'll feel compelled to bring it to the table again.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Fri Jul 17, 2015 12:20 pm

The English Civil War ended in 1651. The First Anglo-Dutch War started in 1652.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Jul 17, 2015 1:26 pm

Also, don't forget that Rip Taylor was born in 1935.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:54 pm

A couple games of Rise of Augustus, one of which I was actually competitive in, a couple games of Splendor, one of which I won, and a game of Firefly where I got screwed early and never recovered.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:27 am

Played a game of suburbia for the first time, which I enjoyed. I don't like it as much as castles of king Ludwig but still good. Then a 4 player game of five tribes which I can't win for the life of me but still really enjoy.

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:00 am

Got in a game of Smash-up with the newest expansion, Pretty Pretty Smash up. Adds, Magic Horses, Cats, Princesses, and Fairies.

I played Vampire Princesses against Elder Thing Fairies and Shapeshifting Cats. Elder Thing Fairies won, but it was a close fought battle. A lot of cool new combo's, and as always the game is a great ice breaker and quick to play and clean up. One of the many games I now own thanks to Hepcat's influence.

Then my friend broke out Firefly. There were only 3 of us, but we played the base game plus the blue sun expansion. Blue Sun adds a new board and some more reaver models and mechanics.

It took a long time to play, but we all had a blast! There was some slow times, but we played at my friends house who has 3 year old twins, and they we around and interrupted some, so that slowed down play. We also had never played, so had to punch out tokens and read the rules. Again a very close game, between the other two as I never did get the right crew to even do the first part of the three goals.

But between Firefly and Spartacus, I have to say that Gale Force 9 has some very good games. I still have no interest in that motorcycle gang game they produced because the subject matter does not interest me, but the two game I have played have been fun and good enough for me to add to my collection.

So only two games, but a ton of fun was had this weekend.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:35 am

RMC wrote: I still have no interest in that motorcycle gang game they produced because the subject matter does not interest me,

I feel the same way. That makes people think I'm a prude, but it's just that I don't find playing as a motorcycle gang all that interesting. And if I wanted to play Grand Theft Auto, I'd just play the video game.

I've heard great things about GF9's latest game, Homeland, by the way. It's supposed to be a fantastic hidden traitor game. I don't really like the show it's based on, but all the great reviews have me thinking I want to try it at least.

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:42 am

hepcat wrote:
RMC wrote: I still have no interest in that motorcycle gang game they produced because the subject matter does not interest me,

I feel the same way. That makes people think I'm a prude, but it's just that I don't find playing as a motorcycle gang all that interesting. And if I wanted to play Grand Theft Auto, I'd just play the video game.

I've heard great things about GF9's latest game, Homeland, by the way. It's supposed to be a fantastic hidden traitor game. I don't really like the show it's based on, but all the great reviews have me thinking I want to try it at least.

Yeah... I love the hidden traitor games. BSG is awesome and gets a lot of play when I have a good group of people, but if you only have 4 it falls flat, you really need 6 to have a great game. You planning on playing Homeland at GenCon and giving us all a review?

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:45 am

I didn't see it when I was looking for events to schedule, but that's probably because I wasn't actively searching for it. I'll try to get in a demo at the GF9 booth though. Getting into demos at the developer/publisher booths is half the fun of gaming at Gencon.

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:48 am

hepcat wrote:I didn't see it when I was looking for events to schedule, but that's probably because I wasn't actively searching for it. I'll try to get in a demo at the GF9 booth though. Getting into demos at the developer/publisher booths is half the fun of gaming at Gencon.

Yes, yes it is.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:51 am

I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but if you're heading to GenCon look for Dark Moon if you like that hidden traitor element. It was originally a BSG "lite" game, but then re-themed when they couldn't obtain the license. We played with 7 strangers at our local convention and it was a blast -- finished in under 2 hours. Very tense, right from the start.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:53 am

Dark Moon was pretty big at Origins even.

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:55 am

I will have to look at that, 3 - 7 players out of the box is nice.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:05 pm

Actually got in a few games. Probably should have been more, but apparently I am not who they are talking about when they set the time estimates.

Tao came by with Sentinels. As he'd picked up the Vengeance expansion, we decided to dig into the Vengeance villains. First game went poorly. gilraen joined us. We tackled Ermine, Friction, and Proletariat. And never got any traction. Poor cards for us combined with good cards for the villains prevent us from mounting any kind of assault.

The second game went better. But was the longest Sentinels I've ever played.

This time it was just Tao and I. We added a fourth hero (which made a big difference). We also added Baron Blade to the mix. This time we got lucky with some healing right off the bat (Tempest and The Sentinels). We managed to keep the incoming damage largely neutralized. But it took a long time to whittle down the villains. We did finally end up losing some of The Sentinels, but eventually got everyone neutralized. Good game. Very long fight.

Then Tao and I took a run at Galaxy Defenders. My second time playing and his first. Again, the game took a LONG time. But I discovered that I wasn't even remotely playing correctly the first time through. This time it was much harder. But we managed to win. We did fudge one or two things near the end to try and wrap the game up before dawn.

gilraen and I tried another run at GD on Sunday. This time I hit the web to answer a few questions. And discovered that there were a couple more things we weren't doing correctly. We... well "I" ... threw in the towel around 11:30 pm. Partially because I needed to head to bed. But mostly because I think we were going to get crushed. The Aliens had just hit my biotech for 5 damage. With his other 2, he was about to go down; and because of the setup it was very likely that he was going to get shot at least once more before anything else could happen. Additionally, we were on turn 4 and hadn't even gotten to the first teleport point. We were suffering a -1 to move due to weather. So even if we managed to avoid losing agents, we still were unlikely to cover the distance in the remaining 7 rounds.

GD really punishes you for any mistake in strategy.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:06 pm

I don't think it would play as well with 3 or even 4 people and the conversations with the guy from Stronghold games that ran the session seemed to confirm it. IIRC he thought five people was a good number. The issue is that when you start the game the number of infected crew to start is based on the total number of people playing. So for our 7 person game, three people started as infected. For 5 and 6 players, only two are infected. With 3 and 4 people playing, it's just one. Depending on how the turns unfold, it might be pretty easy to figure out who is infected rather early and deal with them if the group is too small. The mitigating factor here is that your die rolls are secret so it's not a simple matter of deduction all the time. We incorrectly quarantined someone that consistently contributed bad die rolls to our challenges because we thought he was doing it intentionally.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:26 pm

TheMix wrote:This time I hit the web to answer a few questions. And discovered that there were a couple more things we weren't doing correctly.

What were you guys playing wrong, if you don't mind me asking? I'm just curious if it's something I'm overlooking too.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:55 pm

hepcat wrote:
TheMix wrote:This time I hit the web to answer a few questions. And discovered that there were a couple more things we weren't doing correctly.
What were you guys playing wrong, if you don't mind me asking? I'm just curious if it's something I'm overlooking too.

The biggest one was jams. We had been using Action or Combat or Movement to unjam. When it's actually Action AND Combat, or Action AND Movement.

We also didn't keep Weather effects active. In the beginning scenario one of the first "set" of Event cards sets the Weather to Movement -1. That is supposed to stay in effect until you get a later Event card that changes it to No Effect. We only kept it out for the one turn (i.e. until it was replaced by the next Event card).

Those two were definitely in our favor.

We also didn't play the Hulk's Charge ability correctly. Though I only used it one time. But I used it to bump an alien that was adjacent. It doesn't work that way.

Oh... and I'm not sure we were doing the Alien A.I. correctly. From additional reading, my understanding is 1) Aliens will never target the biotech's drones (though I probably need to check this some more - not sure what happens if the drone is the only thing in L.o.S.), and 2) Aliens will always target the most wounded agent (though I think that is still within the rules on the card - so it's the most wounded if there are multiple choices; but will target the first agent that fits the A.I. rules).

We used the drones to soak up a few attacks. We may have also had an alien attack a less wounded agent once or twice. Not sure about that.

Thought of one more mistake. We weren't being careful about Alpha Agent assignment. We were assigning it to the player and not the character. Same with the Alien cards. That could work against you. The Alpha Agent token and Alien cards need to be assigned to the character, not the player. That way when the "Activate all aliens assigned to the Alpha Agent" Close Encounter pops, you could get lucky and have no aliens activated.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 1:34 pm

Yeah, that first one got us a few times in our first game. But thankfully the rulebook is nicely laid out (heck, it's even color coded so you can quickly glance at the edge of the pages and find the general area for your question), so we just referred to it frequently. After a few games, the rules became pretty intuitive.

As for the sentry gun question, I've never played with one yet. But I'm assuming because it has hit points that it would be attacked by the AI. They do say in the rules to treat it like an agent in all regards except for pulling events/performing the alien turn.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 1:52 pm

My almost 6 and 8 year olds really like Munchkin Treasure Hunt. The kids love hoarding their treasures and the youngest has been quite competitive by risking everything...and you can easily and sneakily slow your parental progress by moving to the "take 1 treasure" spot. Getting more treasure draws is generally better, as it gives more chances to draw a permanent bonus.

The Kovalic art is excellent as always, and resolving the encounters by a "roll of the dice" is a good exercise -- most times you can get to a treasure, reroll or monster on 4 rolls out of 6.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 2:14 pm

hepcat wrote:As for the sentry gun question, I've never played with one yet. But I'm assuming because it has hit points that it would be attacked by the AI. They do say in the rules to treat it like an agent in all regards except for pulling events/performing the alien turn.

I'll have to do some more research then. I think the impression that I had was from reading the f.a.q. or from a thread on BBG.

...

Might have been this from the f.a.q.:
Q: CAN ALIENS ENGAGE A DRONE IN COMBAT?
A: NO, DRONES, LIKE ALIENS, CANNOT BE ENGAGED AND MAY DISENGAGE FROM MELEE WITHOUT AN EVADE TEST.

I was skimming the f.a.q. at the time and not looking for a specific answer. In re-reading, this is clearly specific to Engage/Disengage rules. So not "engage" as in "attack" but as in "the defined action of "Engage". That's definitely better then. It would still be possible by positioning the drone to intentionally force the alien A.I. to target it over an agent.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 2:56 pm

I was disappointed to discover that the rules for critical damage aren't really something you can retrofit into the base game. At least not without unbalancing things a bit.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:57 pm

In reading through stuff, I got confused by my lack of "stuff". I'd assumed I got in on the Kickstarter. So I kept thinking "hey, I don't have that". Then I checked... no KS. Just bought the base game. So I'll pretend I don't know about anything else.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 4:12 pm

Whoops, sorry. I thought you were in on the expansions kickstarter that just shipped.

But in all honestly, the base game has a TON Of gameplay in it. You'll be playing that for a while if you do the campaign. Then just pick up the expansions one at a time if you want to continue on. No need to get everything at once.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 4:14 pm

hepcat wrote:Whoops, sorry. I thought you were in on the expansions kickstarter that just shipped.

But in all honestly, the base game has a TON Of gameplay in it. You'll be playing that for a while if you do the campaign. Then just pick up the expansions one at a time if you want to continue on. No need to get everything at once.

Yeah. I read along with that. And then decided it was better to stay out of it. I have enough games that I've either barely played, or not played at all, that I really need to clamp down on Kickstarters. So while it was tempting, having only played the beginning mission once (at the time), joining the KS seemed ill-advised.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 4:49 pm

To be honest, I wish I'd held off. But my natural instinct when I like something is to immediately want everything.

And don't get me started on kickstarters. I just checked and I've blown about 400 bucks on them so far this year.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 3:42 pm

Galaxy Defenders certainly is a game with a bit of rules overload. I really love the game, and every time I play it I feel very strongly about how much I love it. But yeah... so many little rules to remember. Overall the game is pretty simple but there's just a lot to keep track of. And yes it can be extremely challenging. It takes some real strategy to play well, and even then... requires a dose of luck.

In terms of the alien activations, I believe the first thing to look at is range. Working down the range card. If there is a tie for range, then I think it goes to the most wounded. Of note this does not mean the one with the least health, which is important for building up strategy. Next if there is a tie there then they go to the one with the least health left. I always play the aliens in a manner that whenever there is a question of what they should do I do what is best for them. It just seems better that way. They can however attack drones if that is indeed what is closest. I use a lot of drones with my biotech (I have a couple out at a time often).

I like the rule about the most wounded agent, because it gives me a reason to put my Hulk right into the heat of battle. I try and ensure that he takes the very first wound so that he soaks up the hits the whole game. I've made the mistake of my sniper being in a position where he takes the first hit and that was a disaster. In that he died very rapidly. So my first order of business is usually to try and set up the Hulk as my human shield.

I think the number of rules and things to keep in mind is the reason I have decided to keep GD as my preferred solo game (along with Robinson Crusoe). Cooperative games already have the issue of alpha players and when not everyone knows the rules and strategies as well it can lead to being less fun in groups of people less acquainted to the rules. So it's my solo game. When I want to play cooperative games with others I try to bust out games more like Zombicide or Pandemic.

And yeah, I have too much Galaxy Defenders now even though I do love it. I recently restarted my solo campaign and just played mission 6. I'll probably post about it in the GD thread eventually.

Ralph-Wiggum · Post by **Ralph-Wiggum** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 4:49 pm

My board game collection keeps growing; just ordered Roll for the Galaxy (never played Race for the Galaxy) and, on a complete impulse because it was cheap and had good reviews at Boardgamegeeks, Resistance: Avalon. Hopefully will get to try them out on Thursday.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 5:08 pm

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:My board game collection keeps growing; just ordered Roll for the Galaxy (never played Race for the Galaxy) and, on a complete impulse because it was cheap and had good reviews at Boardgamegeeks, Resistance: Avalon. Hopefully will get to try them out on Thursday.

I got to play Roll a few weeks ago and I really really liked it. It suffers a bit from the solitaire syndrome -- it would be nice if there more ways to directly interact with each other -- but I still thought the whole thing had elegant rules and was a lot of fun.

I always enjoy Resistance: Avalon when it comes up even though I am horrible at it.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 5:29 pm

Roll for the galaxy is a great game. I've really enjoyed it. I also have never played race for the galaxy.

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 5:23 pm

Just finished playing a solo game of Baseball Highlights 2045, and one of the best "mini-games" took place.

Was Game 4, I was up in the series 2-1. The game goes into extra innings, since after the 6th (all 6 cards were played), we were tied up, 3 to 3. In extra innings, you draw 3 cards, then play a card (per inning), doing the immediate actions, then any hits on each card. So...the 7th inning ends in a tie, 5 to 5. 8th inning ends in a tie, 6 to 6.

9th inning....the AI picks off my runner, and I change all his hits to walks. He had 2 hits threatening, with a man on 1st and 3rd. Yep...I lose the game, 7-6, because of a walk.

Incredible, awesome game. I did end up winning the series 4 games to 2 games. But, wow...that was awesome.

Defiant · Post by **Defiant** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 5:49 pm

Games I've played recently:

Concordia - It's (yet another) resource collecting/trading game around the Mediterranean. It's also deck building game where the cards in your hand allows you to choose what options you can take on a turn. Overall, it's a solid, enjoyable game, but it feels like it is or can be unbalanced. In particular, the cards you acquire affect the multiplier of the (many) various ways you can get victory points, and so acquiring lots of cards can help you a lot in the victory point part even if you don't do as well in the building/resource portion of the game (It gave me a big push that propelled me to victory cause I had a good 4 or 5 more cards than anyone else). Additionally, the resource growth part of the game can be unbalanced - while it does have some mechanisms designed to get people to take an action that causes a region to produce resources (and to do it in differing regions), in practice, people were to eager to reset the various regions (for a coin bonus) so they could be activated rather than activate a new region. Maybe reducing the coin benefit a little might have helped in this regard.

Spyfall - Lots of fun. Although I think it will work better once people know the locations better.

Among the Stars - A game in which you're building a space station, it's a cross between 7 wonders and Carcassone - You get the rooms you can build out of hand that then gets moved to the next player, and you place that room on your space station. Some rooms need to be placed close or far from other locations (to have access to a resource or prerequisites, or to increase your victory points). And there are various modifiers for the victory points a room can get you based on the station and it's construction. Overall, if you like 7 Wonders, you'll probably enjoy this. That said, the theme feels tacked on.

Hostage Negotiator - Is a fairly good solo game, if fairly tough. The mechanics work well with the theme, with the exception of the conversation points.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 9:11 am

Last night was the first time I was able to break out Legendary Encounters: Alien with another player. My primary gaming buddy has been out for surgery so he was anxious to get some game time in and this was his first time playing.

We chose random roles and the first game I was a Scout and he was a Medic. We held our own through the first two objectives, but then got some bad draws. First was Ash, who made it to the Combat Zone and proceeded to make our life a living hell, and then we just kept getting hit with big alien after big alien. We didn't have the firepower to stop them and got overrun.

The second game I pulled a Commander and he pulled a Gunner. This time our Barracks deck was a little kinder as well, and we drew some of the rare characters. Objective 1 was dealt with quickly. Objective 2 dragged on quite a bit, and I made a statement like, "We need to get this objective knocked out, it's taking WAY too long." My very next turn I used every card in my hand to pull off this crazy combo that allowed us to reveal the Ventilation Shaft seal, kill the alien in the shafts, and seal it, thus completing the objective. We were now sitting pretty - only one strike each, two objectives down, and some healthy decks with a good mix of firepower and recruit.

We start the third objective by pulling a Hazard which is a Self-Destruct. We could not get it deactivated in time and it exploded, earning us each three strikes. We're still hanging on, however, and desperately killing xenomorphs trying to hang on just a little longer. That's when I pull yet ANOTHER hazard. It too self destructs.

At the end of the carnage I have 1 hit point left. My buddy has 1 hit point left. We have not revealed the Perfect Organism nor the Airlock Controls. He says, "Well, that's it, we're fucked." I said, "Yeah but let's just play it out to see how bad we get beaten."

He pulls an Electric Prod which allows him to move an alien out of the combat zone that would have killed him on the next strike. My turn. I scan to reveal none other than the Perfect Organism! He has enough firepower to kill it, but we don't have the damn airlock controls. Play proceeds for a couple more turns, with us barely keeping aliens out of the combat zone which would mean certain death.

The Perfect Organism is now in the Airlock, but we still have no controls. There is an alien in the combat zone that is going to kill me in the Strike phase. I scan, and reveal THE AIRLOCK CONTROLS! I attach them to the Airlock and don't have to spend any recruit to move the Perfect Organism because he's already in the airlock. I then play a heal to heal one of my strikes so that I now have three hit points.

Strike Phase - I pull a strike and - FLESH WOUND! Only 1 HP. Turn passes to my buddy who draws his rare navigator card that allows drawing three cards. 1-2-3 - he tallies up his attack and he's got enough to kill the Perfect Organism! He spends recruit to move it back into the airlock, and delivers the killing blow. We stand there for a second dumbfounded. Somehow we had survived three rounds with 1 hit point each and won the game!

It was an awesome feeling, and we both felt like Ripley at the end of the movie - bruised, battered, half-dead, but victorious.

He really loved the game and is looking forward to hitting scenario 2: Aliens. Game over, man! Game over!

Ralph-Wiggum · Post by **Ralph-Wiggum** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 9:47 am

Roll for the Galaxy was waiting for me when I got home ~6:00 last night. Some friends were coming over at 7:00 to game so I figured I would take the hour to read through the rules so we could give it a shot. But after taking about 20 minutes to read the first 3 pages of the 10 (?) page rule book, I knew that wasn't going to happen. Is it just me or is that rulebook completely unintuitive and confusing? I guess I should just watch a video on how to play before taking a crack at the rule book again.

So instead, we ended up playing a game of Kingdom Builder (my first time). It wasn't my favorite game, but it was fun enough and fairly quick.

We then played two games of The Resistance: Avalon (all of our first times). I ended up on the side of evil both times and both times we lost.

We finished the night by playing a game of Dead of Winter (note: this isn't a game to start after 9:00 if you want to go to bed at any reasonable hour). There were 5 of us so to make it more likely there was a traitor I shuffled in 1 betrayer card for 5 non-betrayer card. Our objective was to place 10 food cards under the main objective card. I went first and on my first move I rolled a bite; not the best start in the world.

By the 3rd round, our moral was down to 2 and we had put about 5 food cards under the main objective, but the the crises card also required food. On the 2nd to last turn of the round we came upon a crossroads card that could make us lose 1 moral in exchange for not having to fulfill the crises but we would gain 3 food in the colony supply. We still needed 2 food cards to pass the crisis with only the last player of the turn in a position to add food to the crises. So we asked him if he had the food available and he refused to tell us. So the rest of the group decided to take the 1 moral loss (since we would lose one if we failed the crises anyway) to gain the stockpile and our moral dropped to 1. Then it turned out the last player did have the food he could have contributed. He had also spent much of the game searching in places that didn't help the main goals. Clearly he was the traitor. So the next round we voted to exile him. Then, promptly, on the first turn of the next round a character took their 3rd wound and died, dropping moral to 0 and losing the game. Turns out, there wasn't a betrayer in the group.

So now I've played 4 games of Dead of Winter and in those 4 games only one person has ever won, and that was in the first game where we misplayed a whole bunch of rules (making it a lot easier to win). I think this game is impossible to win.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 10:08 am

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:moral

*morale

Unless the zombies are punishment for your sinful ways.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 10:23 am

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:Roll for the Galaxy was waiting for me when I got home ~6:00 last night. Some friends were coming over at 7:00 to game so I figured I would take the hour to read through the rules so we could give it a shot. But after taking about 20 minutes to read the first 3 pages of the 10 (?) page rule book, I knew that wasn't going to happen. Is it just me or is that rulebook completely unintuitive and confusing? I guess I should just watch a video on how to play before taking a crack at the rule book again.

It's written and formatted like the Race rules....which were rather confusing themselves. T suggest watching a video, and referring to the play examples in the manual.

Ralph-Wiggum · Post by **Ralph-Wiggum** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 10:32 am

Isgrimnur wrote:
Ralph-Wiggum wrote:moral
*morale

Unless the zombies are punishment for your sinful ways.

They were.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 10:32 am

Hep, some key things to remember. First, the die you use to pick a role can be any die and it IS used in the role (our first play through we "sacrificed" the die and did not use it). So if you roll two eyes and choose a ship to activate the scout role, you get three scouts. The second thing is, if you are playing with 2 you roll a white die for the table to add extra roles. One of the more unintuitive parts is shipping. You can ship for money (which is easy) but shipping for VPs is complicated. You get 1 vp for the action, 1 vp if the good matches the planet, and 1 vp if the ship die matches the good (I think). Purple matches with any good die. Yes, it takes some time to get all the minutiae.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 10:50 am

I've actually played it over a dozen times or more. I was just agreeing with Ralph that the rules were kind of confusing for someone just learning it.

I personally find it easier to play than Race because the tiles explain all that they do without relying on having to look up the icon meaning. Something later expansions for Race moved away from, thankfully.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 11:47 am

Bill Harris at DQ got an e-mail report that Risk Legacy has been reprinted. I can't find news to support it, but CSI has 20+ in stock for $42. Even Amazon prices are more reasonable than when I was checking earlier in the week.