OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Mon Oct 26, 2015 4:10 pm

I love the idea. i wish I liked Pandemic. In all facets, I prefer Flash Point... but I want some Legacy to go with it!

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Mon Oct 26, 2015 4:12 pm

Zaxxon wrote:Early Christmas-presenting Pandemic Legacy to a friend. For him, you see, not for me. Looking forward to helping him deface it.

Looks like I was off on the poster. baelthazar posted this about Pandemic Legacy:

Not so sure about that. Without spoiling, the game gets much more serious within the first few plays. It isn't exactly complicated (yet, in the future I do not know), but there are more options and special rules to think about that are not in stock Pandemic. That being said, I am sure he would highly enjoy opening new packages, new "files" (like a neat little advent calendar of new stuff) and applying stickers to both the board and the cards.

On the other hand, my wife actually REQUESTED we play it today. So... that is saying something about the game.

Seems like a pretty strong endorsement.

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Mon Oct 26, 2015 4:14 pm

Yep, everything I've read has been positive. I'm looking forward to it. The toughest part will be picking a group that can meet up regularly to play it out.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Mon Oct 26, 2015 4:17 pm

Come north a bit and I'll give it a go. My wife was actually suggesting that we break out Pandemic (which I still haven't ever played) this past weekend. So she might be in as well.

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Mon Oct 26, 2015 4:27 pm

Tempting.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 5:17 am

The guys at work and I just played the first game of P:L the other day. Even after one game, it's real good. We're all very sad that we won't get to play the second game until next Monday.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 9:06 am

Fury of Dracula has a new edition... can I resist? Should I even try?

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 9:48 am

coopasonic wrote:Fury of Dracula has a new edition... can I resist? Should I even try?

FoD is one of my all time favorite games. The thing that I have never liked about the game is that never figured out a way to scale it so that if you only have say 3 people playing the investigators don't have to run 2 characters each. I was hoping that the first FFG edition might fix that, but alas. If this new edition fixed it it would be a no brainer for me.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 10:09 am

Letters has the same thing, but it never really caused us a problem. I ordered because Legendary Predator was on sale and they only had 1 left in stock so I couldn't wait and mull it over.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 10:11 am

Letters has the lead detective role. I just give them control for that night. Of course, I find 3 investigators to be the sweet spot on that game. If you get 5 people opposed, at least two tend to get marginalized.

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 10:36 am

Was going to set up a short game of Omen Sunday, and I discover that I am missing one of the metal coins from the Olympus Edition I have 19 coins, supposed to be 20. I sent a contact message to them, asking if I could somehow purchase one coin. That was Sunday evening. Still haven't heard anything. Does anyone know on average how log it takes them to return a customer support message?

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 11:10 am

MythicalMino wrote:Was going to set up a short game of Omen Sunday, and I discover that I am missing one of the metal coins from the Olympus Edition I have 19 coins, supposed to be 20. I sent a contact message to them, asking if I could somehow purchase one coin. That was Sunday evening. Still haven't heard anything. Does anyone know on average how log it takes them to return a customer support message?

It's a one man shop, don't forget. Plus, he just finished up a kickstarter and is at the tail end of shipping too. If he has any left, I'm sure he'll take care of you. John is aces when it comes to customer support.

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 11:51 am

Ah....I didn't realize it was just a one man show. I knew they were small, just not that small.

This one isn't from the kickstarter, it is from the last release. I have no idea where the coin went. Hopefully, he has an extra one he will be ok with selling to me.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 1:17 pm

coopasonic wrote:Letters has the same thing, but it never really caused us a problem. I ordered because Legendary Predator was on sale and they only had 1 left in stock so I couldn't wait and mull it over.

Fury is supposed to be out this week. I'll have it at BGGCON. along with the other 3 "hide and seek" games I own (ok, I probably won't bring Scotland Yard, but Specter Ops will be there).

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 1:24 pm

MythicalMino wrote:Ah....I didn't realize it was just a one man show. I knew they were small, just not that small.

This one isn't from the kickstarter, it is from the last release. I have no idea where the coin went. Hopefully, he has an extra one he will be ok with selling to me.

I pulled my copy out the other night, hoping to play. I do loves me some Omen.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Wed Oct 28, 2015 4:24 pm

Has anyone played The Captain Is Dead? Looks like it's right up my alley, so I'm looking for some opinions on it.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Wed Oct 28, 2015 11:35 pm

Played our first game of Pandemic Legacy tonight. I figured that given the multi-game format, the first session would be a cakewalk. Happily, I was wrong. We lost by the barest whisker, following some agonizing ups and downs.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 6:31 pm

It is the end of March, and Pandemic Legacy marches on. The world is stalked by four diseases: the Black Itch, Yellow Nose, Red Underpants and Blue Fart (all named by my 5-year-old). Despite some hard times, the world survives, thanks to our hard-nosed team of bug-hunters, including researcher Fitz Simmons, scientist Henrietta Lacks, and the medic (originally named Butterfingers McFly, MD, but re-named "Steve" by the 5-year-old).

The situation has changed significantly since January 1. If only we knew then what we know now... but there's no time to dwell on the past. If the CDC's epidemiology projections are correct, we still have nine months of virus-fighting ahead of us. Nine months of boxes to open, surprises to uncover, stickers to apply, cards to rip in half.

Nine months...

Moat_Man · Post by **Moat_Man** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 8:10 pm

After the trick or treating was over Saturday we had a game of Alien Frontiers. I've been itching to play it again as it hasn't seen the table in a while. I also recently ordered the Orion Belt expansion which has yet to arrive, so I thought it would be good to play it again before adding some more rules.

It was my son's friend's first play but he caught on pretty quick and had fun. My son and I duked it out and I eventually won by getting a bit lucky and putting my last two colonies down on the same turn.

We didn't play with the Factions expansion because I didn't want to overcomplicate it for my son's friend but I found we ended up missing the secret objectives a lot. They add a significant amount of uncertainty to the end game and make it so the person to put down their last colony doesn't always win.

It's still a fun game and one of our favourites. As a matter of fact, it was the first game I bought after a many year gaming hiatus. It got my kids into designer board gaming and I spend a lot of "quality" time gaming with them now so it has a special place for me.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 10:16 am

Saturday was our FLGS's 7th year Anniversary board game even, so 3 of us made it out there for the day of (mostly) Halloween themed games.

We started off with a game of Kingsport Festival. If you like Kingsburg and Lovecraft, this is the game for you. It uses the same dice placement mechanic as Kingsburg, but moves the theme over to Cthulhu. You play cultists trying to bring about the rise of the elder gods. Played over 12 hours (turns), you have to accrue resources in the form of evil, death, destruction and magic power. Then use those abilities to expand into the city (the game board), while fighting off investigators that raid your cult periodically. I've played it twice now. The first time, I wasn't horribly impressed. But this second game I really enjoyed. I think it's a keeper now. But if you own Kingsburg, I wouldn't recommend it. There's not enough difference between the two to justify owning both, imho.

Then we played a quick game of Epic Spell Wars. I hadn't played it before and I found it to be fantastically fun. It's a bit heavier than I expected, but that's a compliment. Basically, you build a spell out of three cards and then use that spell to try to knock out all the other players. This usually happens within two to three rounds, but you play until someone has won twice. I really like this one. I may have to grab a copy for myself.

Back to horror themed games, I whipped out A Study in Emerald, a game I rarely get to play. It's a Martin Wallace game, so it's a bit fiddly. But I think the theme really shines through. The game is set in a Victorian era world wherein Lovecraft's elder gods are rulers. Some folks support this rule and they're called the Loyalists. Some fight to restore humans to their place in the world and they're called Restorationists. Loyalists try to hide royalty (the elder gods) and assassinate restorationists. Restorationists try to assassinate royalty and agents both. You build your hand of cards by buying them from cities using influence.

The first game went a little quick because someone assassinated a main agent, which caused a game end condition to be met. But folks liked it enough to ask for another game. Unfortunately, about halfway through that one, I got into a bit of an argument with another player over what a card did and that kind of soured the experience. I verified I was right later, but I still should have kept my cool. Of course, me annoyed is still pretty tame, so I'm sure no hard feelings still remain.

After that game ended, we were down to two players. So we played Hoplomachus: Origins, a kickstarter I just received. It's a gladiatorial combat game that's quite like Heroscape in many ways. All the gladiators have keyword abilities and you deploy -> move -> attack each turn. You really colored dice that different numbers of H on their faces to represent hits. The nice twist is the campaign system which sees your school gaining reputation points, gradually building up to using more powerful gladiators over time, as well creating a catch up mechanic for those with lower reputation.

We ended the evening with yet another kickstarter, Hordes of Grimoor. It's another game from John Clowdus' Small Box Games out of Atlanta. His game Omen is still one of my favorite games of all time, so I've been a fan of his games for years. Plus, they're all under 30 bucks, which doesn't hurt.

Grimoor is a head to head combat with some nice changes. You place out cards from your hand to your tableau. When you have enough cards in your tableau, you initiate combat. After that happens three times, the game is over and the person with the most victory points wins. It's simple, but the cards have neat interactions that make it more than the sum of its parts. I also dig that John has been experimenting with how you draw cards from decks in his last couple of games. The draw deck is face up in this one, as is the discard pile. You can choose draw as an action on your turn, and you can take the exposed one from the top of the face up draw deck, or you can take two blindly from the bottom of that same deck. I like that mechanic. Overall, two thumbs on this one.

Sunday, I was unable to avoid my neighbor and he asked if he could come over for a game that afternoon after missing out on Saturday's get together (which I shouldn't have mentioned). Once again, he made a beeline for my fridge and started destroying my beer stock. Thankfully, I was able to keep the session short though. We played for about 3 hours. One full game of Hoplomachus and one of Small Box Games' Omen. Since I got to play Omen, I wasn't that upset by the invasion.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 10:46 am

My Kickstarted Burgle Bros. arrived on Saturday and I've played the intro heist twice so far. Really really liking it so far. They nailed the heist movie feeling perfectly.

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 11:01 am

Still all about Blood Rage. We played 2 games Friday (3 player with me vs my two boys) and a 4 player game (me, my wife and another couple new to the game). I won the 3 player game in a close game. And I won the 4 player game. The two new players really liked it. So far, every person I have introduced the game to has really enjoyed it and wants to immediately play again.

We then played a 4 player game Sunday afternoon (me, my wife, and my two boys). Jacob won that one, beating me by 4 points.

This has become my favorite game. Haven't tried the 2 player game yet, but really love the 3-5 player games. I just cannot find anything I dislike with this game

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 11:26 am

MythicalMino wrote:Still all about Blood Rage. We played 2 games Friday (3 player with me vs my two boys) and a 4 player game (me, my wife and another couple new to the game). I won the 3 player game in a close game. And I won the 4 player game. The two new players really liked it. So far, every person I have introduced the game to has really enjoyed it and wants to immediately play again.

We then played a 4 player game Sunday afternoon (me, my wife, and my two boys). Jacob won that one, beating me by 4 points.

This has become my favorite game. Haven't tried the 2 player game yet, but really love the 3-5 player games. I just cannot find anything I dislike with this game

Has there been a dominant winning strategy in your group? We've just played twice so far in the Albuquerque OO contingent, but both times the winner got the most points from sacrificial point generators, like the fireboat cards or getting points from troops released from Valhalla.

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 11:55 am

In games I’ve played it seems to be either sacrificial point generators or Odin’s Throne. Odin’s Throne generates so many points each game that I’m tempted to remove it from play.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 12:43 pm

Lordnine wrote:In games I’ve played it seems to be either sacrificial point generators or Odin’s Throne. Odin’s Throne generates so many points each game that I’m tempted to remove it from play.

Is that the quest point doubler?

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 12:56 pm

wonderpug wrote:
Lordnine wrote:In games I’ve played it seems to be either sacrificial point generators or Odin’s Throne. Odin’s Throne generates so many points each game that I’m tempted to remove it from play.
Is that the quest point doubler?

It is.

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 6:24 pm

We have not found the One Strategy to Rule Them All. There are strong cards that will dominate for a few games. But then, they are countered somehow.

Odin's Throne is a very powerful card. BUT! We have found that a lot of times now, the 3rd Age is over before the player who has that card is able to take full advantage of it. Remember, once every province has been successfully pillaged, the Age ends immediately. In the 3rd Age, the board can get pretty crowded (in a 3 player game 4 provinces are destroyed, and in a 4 player game 3 provinces are destroyed). While the Odin's Throne player is spending 3-4 or 5 actions to set the card up, others would be pillaging. The last several games where Odin's Throne was in the game, the card really did not make a difference. The player either lost the game (could not get the quests finished) or the card really made no difference in the scoring (the player would have won even without the card).

The Mystics and the Gods of Asgard add so much more to the game, too. There are so many strategies (and counter-strategies), you have to be able to adapt to what the other players are doing. There was really isn't any downtime, as you really need to watch what every other player is doing. Multiplayer Solitaire, this game is not.

If you look on BGG, there are several threads about several cards that ppl think are "over-powered". But there's one (of the many) things that I love about this game. Every card/combo can feel overpowered at different times. It just depends on how the player doing the strategy is able to pull it off.

Odin's Throne is one of many very powerful cards....IF you are able to get those quests played and your figures in the right place before the Age ends. That's a lot of actions. Especially when you are playing against other players who know what is going on.

This is a game that rewards repeated plays. The players start to know what is in the decks, what could be in the other players' hands....and that is when things really get fun.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Sun Nov 08, 2015 1:17 am

More Pandemic Legacy today, playing through the month of April.

T.S. Eliot wrote that "April is the cruelest month," and it's possible that he was referring to Pandemic Legacy. We knew that it would be tough, since the game has a balancing mechanism that makes it difficult to string together victories, and we had won the previous two sessions. But we did not expect... that. That thing which I will not spoil for you. My goodness.

This game is so fun.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Sun Nov 08, 2015 10:57 pm

T.S. Eliot was wrong. May is the cruelest month.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Sun Nov 08, 2015 11:32 pm

Between you guys and my ex-pastor, I picked up Pandemic Legacy today. I guess we'll play a couple of regular games tomorrow night to get our feet wet.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 11:34 am

Man, I wish there was a "If you've never played Pandemic before, here's how you do it" set of rules. I'm trying to pick out the things we aren't supposed to use and are supposed to use if you're only playing a couple of test games.

Hmm. I wonder if I would download the basic rules if that would work?

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 12:00 pm

hentzau wrote:Man, I wish there was a "If you've never played Pandemic before, here's how you do it" set of rules. I'm trying to pick out the things we aren't supposed to use and are supposed to use if you're only playing a couple of test games.

See Page 3 of the Legacy rules, specifically the 'if you've never played Pandemic' section.

Hmm. I wonder if I would download the basic rules if that would work?

That will work as well; it's exactly the same.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 12:03 pm

Zaxxon wrote:
hentzau wrote:Man, I wish there was a "If you've never played Pandemic before, here's how you do it" set of rules. I'm trying to pick out the things we aren't supposed to use and are supposed to use if you're only playing a couple of test games.
See Page 3 of the Legacy rules, specifically the 'if you've never played Pandemic' section.

Hmm. I wonder if I would download the basic rules if that would work?
That will work as well; it's exactly the same.

Yeah, after posting that and finishing reading the rules I was able to get my brain wrapped around it. Although it doesn't state what the winning condition is if you don't use the objective cards as they tell you not to do. I'll just go grab the original rules for the first couple of games.

EDIT: Ah. Cure all 4 diseases. Easy peasy!

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 12:18 pm

No board games, but I did log another 11-hour DMing session on 5E D&D on Saturday. We were all a little off. It is a monthly game, and the last one was cancelled due to one player having 'more important' things to do, and another needing to help him. They said some nonsense about 'wedding' and 'best man', but I question their priorities.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 8:34 pm

AWS260 wrote:T.S. Eliot was wrong. May is the cruelest month.

I am in October now (or maybe November). You just wait. Although April does take a decidedly interesting turn. Once everyone here has finished December, we should have a spoiler filled thread to discuss the game. The story the game builds is horrifying, to say the least. I would even go so far as to say this one is not for kids.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 9:46 pm

What's the difference between the blue and red pandemic legacy?

Ralph-Wiggum · Post by **Ralph-Wiggum** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 10:14 pm

Just cosmetic differences I think. It's just to help people that want to play two games keep them separated.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 10:15 pm

The Glass Meeple

Z-Man Games is releasing Pandemic Legacy – Season 1 in two different box designs, one red, one blue, so people wanting to play Pandemic Legacy with two different groups can tell their games apart. The contents of both boxes are identical – until you begin writing your own legacy, that is. According to Matt Leacock: “There’s no difference other than the cover design. Pick up the one you like more or if you’re playing with multiple groups, use the covers to help differentiate the sets.”

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 10:20 pm

Cool, thanks. I'm more interested than ever in this game.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Tue Nov 10, 2015 10:07 am

Alright, I'm fully on board the Pandemic Legacy bandwagon now.

We started off by playing a basic game at the easiest level, and being veterans of both Defenders of the Realm and Forbidden Island we grasped the rules and strategy pretty quickly. Polished off the basic game in like 45 minutes, with a fairly decisive victory. No big deal. We still had another hour, so, let's dive right into the first month. Should be a breeze, right?

Yep. A breeze. A breeze of disease and pestilence. We got our asses kicked. Completely and thoroughly. Never even cured a single disease before we lost to ourbreaks. I fear for the future of Eastern Europe.

Can't wait to try it again.