OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

[YellowKing]

Played a 5-star difficulty scenario in Mansions of Madness last night.

We discussed a LOT of strategy beforehand, as we knew this was going to be a challenge. So we spent a great deal of time on investigators.

Ultimately we went with:

Monterey Jack - Great combat, and we have found his ability invaluable in previous games. Investigators in his space do not need to evade monsters, which frees them up for healing, trading, moving out of melee range, etc.

Carolyn Fern - Pure horror healer. Boring to play, but a total necessity. We would not have won without her, period.

Rita Young - Rita is super powerful, as long as you can keep her sane. She can move one extra space, and has really good combat stats.

Wilson Richards - Another strong combat guy, and becomes Focused after resolving a Horror Check.

So our crew was three really strong combat people and one horror healer. I won't give anything away about the scenario, but our general strategy was to keep the group together with Carolyn trailing just enough behind to stay out of danger but within healing range.

Long story short, our strategizing paid off. However, it was still close. We *just* managed to keep from losing via objective failure, and Rita went insane. However, her insanity only prevented winning if she was Wounded, which she was not. So outright victory fair and square. The focus on strong combat characters is ultimately what won us the game, even though our collective Will was low and led to a ton of horror damage.

I believe our next scenario is going to be the big 6 hour one, so it will probably be one we have to spread out over two weeks. Can't wait. We will probably stick with this same party, though Wilson Richards is on the bubble. He's got a 2 Lore which bit us a few times, so we may wind up swapping him out for someone with similar combat skill.

[Skinypupy]

Picked up Batman Fluxx, seems to be a big hit so far. The Fluxx game is chaotic fun by itself, and the Batman theme just adds to it for Little B 8.4. All the Keepers are Batman universe heroes, locations (Batcave, Wayne Manor), or equipment (i.e. Batcuffs, Batmobile). It's pretty cool.

One question though, for anyone who has played Fluxx. Do Keeper card abilities stack? I.E. If I have one that has the "Draw 2 cards" ability, can I use it every turn (assuming there's no rule against it)? Also, do the abilities, stack or do you choose only one to activate per turn?

[Defiant]

I've finally gotten to play Food Chain Magnate. It's a very solid game, but I do feel that it's not as... balanced as I would like it. For example, some of the milestones give powers that are way too powerful (the one that gives you a freezer, the one that gives you infinite advertising for free, the one that gives you a free CFO, etc).

Also the CFO is simply not a good mechanic, IMO, as it gives the leader a major advantage that makes it hard for others to catch up to (though I *did* manage to finish a good second place (well, about 15% behind the first place) without it, which I gather is pretty good for a first time player (the winner was the only one who played the game before).

Still, the game was lots of fun, and it's fun to screw with everyone by making a desire for some food/beverage that no one else has easy access to.

I also played Dice Forge, which is a dice rolling game (that gives you resources you can use to buy stuff), but where you can alter the face of the die (similar to deck building but for dice). It's a simple game, but enjoyable and quick enough for what it is.

[Defiant]

Picked up Batman Fluxx, seems to be a big hit so far. The Fluxx game is chaotic fun by itself, and the Batman theme just adds to it for Little B 8.4. All the Keepers are Batman universe heroes, locations (Batcave, Wayne Manor), or equipment (i.e. Batcuffs, Batmobile). It's pretty cool.

One question though, for anyone who has played Fluxx. Do Keeper card abilities stack? I.E. If I have one that has the "Draw 2 cards" ability, can I use it every turn (assuming there's no rule against it)? Also, do the abilities, stack or do you choose only one to activate per turn?

It's been a while since I've played any of the fluxx games, and I actually don't actually remember keeper cards having actions on them, but my guess would be that they activate only once, when you play the card. (did you guys check the rule book?)

[Smoove_B]

Hit my local convention over the last few days and managed to get some good gaming time in. Played through the entire Dunwich Horror Core and Miskatonic Museum mythos pack and I'm still really impressed with how much it feels like playing through an old Cthulhu adventure.

Managed to get in on a game of Legend of Andor: Journey to the North. We were doing great but had some bad die rolling and the sea creatures marched en masse on cities and we lost. There was actually a Kosmos representative at the convention and he had a box of the upcoming expansion there (The Last Hope)...but it was all in German. I believe he said it should be out in English early next year, but he did tell us a bit about it and provide basic details. It was still kind of cool to see all the heroes on the front cover, all old and grizzled. I think that's a great idea for a series of board games - it's actually more like a campaign where things change, not just different settings.

Did a 5 player game of Space Cadet which was a blast. Lots of stress each turn and 5 players trying to do their own thing (but cooperatively) to win. It's a bit more complex than a casual game but if you had someone that knew what they were doing they could easily explain it to non-gamers.

Played a few games of Spearpoint 1943 and older war card game I just discovered a few months ago. It reminds me a bit of Up Front, but it plays much quicker. Card playing and die rolling and what feels like the right amount of randomness with cards to make it fun. You can just do themed deck battles or download free scenarios from the game designer for more thematic play.

Finally, as mentioned in another thread I managed to get in on a game of Maximum Apocalypse with the game designer running the event. It was another 5-player co-op round and I enjoyed it tremendously - left me feeling really excited for the upcoming KS delivery (Q4 2017 if I remember what he said correctly). He's already working on some expansions and it was an interesting experience to play the game with the guy that designed it was he scribbled down notes while we were playing.

I did get to see Conan in all of its glory (with painted miniatures) and it looked like a blast. Not sure it would ever hit my table but it looked like fun. There was a vendor there unloading Doomtown expansions so I managed to grab 4 of them for 50% off (which was nice). I'm still on overload; I have no idea how people do GenCon. This was only about 2000 people and I am exhausted.

[Chrisoc13]

I've finally gotten to play Food Chain Magnate. It's a very solid game, but I do feel that it's not as... balanced as I would like it. For example, some of the milestones give powers that are way too powerful (the one that gives you a freezer, the one that gives you infinite advertising for free, the one that gives you a free CFO, etc).

Also the CFO is simply not a good mechanic, IMO, as it gives the leader a major advantage that makes it hard for others to catch up to (though I *did* manage to finish a good second place (well, about 15% behind the first place) without it, which I gather is pretty good for a first time player (the winner was the only one who played the game before).

I disagree. The milestones only seem unbalanced the first time around. The second time you realzie you want to block other people from getting them and try to grab as many as you can at the same time. I wouldn't judge the milestones on the first play. For instance...

The freezer- I rarely get this, and it never hurts me. It just isn't that powerful once you get your engine going, 10 items is nothing when the money really starts pouring in. Last game several of us were easily clearing well over twenty items each a turn, especially since there were so many gardens on the board and so much advertising. If you pick your staff accordingly while other people go for the freezer I make sure and grab a milestone they cant because of their focus. I've seen people win getting it and people lose getting it, certainly not overwhelmingly powerful, especially once you consider that grabbing any milestone means an opportunity for someone else to grab a different one that you then won't be able to get. It helps int he early to mid game, but loses steam when making money really matters.

Infinite advertising- A blessing and a curse. If your advertising is infinite it is predictable, and cannot be shifted in order to put your competitors into a bind. When I first started playing the game I tried to always grab it, but after realizing how predictable it made me I now try to NOT get it. I want to be able to adjust and change things rapidly in game. Yes the lower income is nice, but the infinite advertising in many player's opinion is not a strength but rather a weakness.

CFO- Powerful yes, but easily correctable by just training your own CFO. Sure it's nice to not have to use an employee space to use it, but it isn't like once someone gets that milestone it isn't available. It still is, for anyone who trains a CFO. I won't argue that it isn't powerful, because it is, but I still lost last game even though I had the CFO. In fact many times in our game the person who gets the free CFO ends up losing.

I wouldn't judge the milestones by the first play, they certainly are balanced in my experience (not that all are created equal but that you don't need any certain one to win the game). Some are better than others, but there are many paths to victory. More experienced players will do less parroting of each other's turns and instead will focus on denying other players milestones as well as claiming their own. That's why turn order in the early game is so incredibly vital to success. The only ones IMO that everyone should at least try and have one of is the food bonuses. It is hard to win without any of the +5 bonuses for burgers/pizza/drinks. I try to always have at least 1, but really shoot for 2. If you are playing with an experienced group you will have trouble nabbing more than 1 because other players will deny you the opportunity.

[Punisher]

Smoove_b...
What convention was it and where?
Just curious since I am somewhat loval to you.

[hepcat]

You either live near Smoove, or have sworn your allegiance to him. Don't let him take advantage of you in either case.

[Skinypupy]

Picked up Batman Fluxx, seems to be a big hit so far. The Fluxx game is chaotic fun by itself, and the Batman theme just adds to it for Little B 8.4. All the Keepers are Batman universe heroes, locations (Batcave, Wayne Manor), or equipment (i.e. Batcuffs, Batmobile). It's pretty cool.

One question though, for anyone who has played Fluxx. Do Keeper card abilities stack? I.E. If I have one that has the "Draw 2 cards" ability, can I use it every turn (assuming there's no rule against it)? Also, do the abilities, stack or do you choose only one to activate per turn?

It's been a while since I've played any of the fluxx games, and I actually don't actually remember keeper cards having actions on them, but my guess would be that they activate only once, when you play the card. (did you guys check the rule book?)

Maybe the Keeper abilities are specific to this Batman version? I dunno. The rulebook was unspecific and simply says "the player can use the ability that is shown on the Keeper card", but doesn't say if you can use it once (when the card is played) or if it's at will, or whether more than one can be played.

In addition to Fluxx, Little B and I played quite a few Dragonwood games, a few Pokémon TCG rounds (my tolerance for that game is really low, but she loves it), and we busted out Dungeon for a couple rounds this afternoon. We graduated from "baby rules" to actually playing the diffent classes, spells, etc. I know it's overly simple, but B thinks it's a blast, and it hits a big nostalgia note for me.

[Smoove_B]

Smoove_b...
What convention was it and where?
Just curious since I am somewhat loval to you.

It's Dexcon - Morristown. They do another one in Parsippany in February and I think another one in Morristown in October or November. It's primarily a LARP and RPG convention, but they do have board and war gaming that takes place. When I first went I thought it was going to be much more board and war gaming but I don't think that's really the focus. There are plenty of games being played, but anything really good you need to sign up online when the schedule is published to stand half a chance of being able to play. It's fun and we end up playing a few sessions a day but mainly go now for the vendors and the ability to show up and just find a table to play our own games uninterrupted for a few hours. All that being said, the war gaming room is rather impressive and they do play quite the variety of titles. This year was the first time I saw Zombicide there and they were using a 3D terrain board (I think it was for Black Plague?). But there's tons of Warhammer and Star Wars stuff going on too. It's a good time but we leave on overload every year.

[Defiant]

Maybe the Keeper abilities are specific to this Batman version? I dunno. The rulebook was unspecific and simply says "the player can use the ability that is shown on the Keeper card", but doesn't say if you can use it once (when the card is played) or if it's at will, or whether more than one can be played.

I did find this

Many New Rule cards allow for the opportunity to optionally do something “once per turn”. Many Keepers also have special abilities which can be invoked “once per turn”. Is there an official start and end to one’s turn? How do we know when a person’s turn is over unless they specifically state it?

[Punisher]

Smoove_b...
What convention was it and where?
Just curious since I am somewhat loval to you.

It's Dexcon - Morristown. They do another one in Parsippany in February and I think another one in Morristown in October or November. It's primarily a LARP and RPG convention, but they do have board and war gaming that takes place. When I first went I thought it was going to be much more board and war gaming but I don't think that's really the focus. There are plenty of games being played, but anything really good you need to sign up online when the schedule is published to stand half a chance of being able to play. It's fun and we end up playing a few sessions a day but mainly go now for the vendors and the ability to show up and just find a table to play our own games uninterrupted for a few hours. All that being said, the war gaming room is rather impressive and they do play quite the variety of titles. This year was the first time I saw Zombicide there and they were using a 3D terrain board (I think it was for Black Plague?). But there's tons of Warhammer and Star Wars stuff going on too. It's a good time but we leave on overload every year.

Thanks. I didn't see a mailing list option, so if you go again (or to any other local gaming cons) send me a PM and I'll see if I can make it.

[Defiant]

I disagree. The milestones only seem unbalanced the first time around. The second time you realzie you want to block other people from getting them and try to grab as many as you can at the same time. I wouldn't judge the milestones on the first play. For instance...

I thought it was more try to get the milestone at the same time than block others from a milestone. (And if you want to block others from the milestones, it would still seem like they're powerful if you're devoting your energy to that)

The freezer- I rarely get this, and it never hurts me. It just isn't that powerful once you get your engine going, 10 items is nothing when the money really starts pouring in. Last game several of us were easily clearing well over twenty items each a turn, especially since there were so many gardens on the board and so much advertising. If you pick your staff accordingly while other people go for the freezer I make sure and grab a milestone they cant because of their focus. I've seen people win getting it and people lose getting it, certainly not overwhelmingly powerful, especially once you consider that grabbing any milestone means an opportunity for someone else to grab a different one that you then won't be able to get. It helps int he early to mid game, but loses steam when making money really matters.

I think the most food desire we ever had on the board, total, was like 20 food total for a four player game, and most of the time it was much less. (but, of course, most of us were first time players. I think I contributed about half of that with my advertisements. And, of course, being able to not cook for a turn means you can upgrade a cook/cart operator.

Infinite advertising- A blessing and a curse. If your advertising is infinite it is predictable, and cannot be shifted in order to put your competitors into a bind. When I first started playing the game I tried to always grab it, but after realizing how predictable it made me I now try to NOT get it. I want to be able to adjust and change things rapidly in game. Yes the lower income is nice, but the infinite advertising in many player's opinion is not a strength but rather a weakness.

Eh. It allowed me to bombard most of the houses with the item I got a bonus for. (I did shift for my last advertisement, to block others, though)

CFO- Powerful yes, but easily correctable by just training your own CFO. Sure it's nice to not have to use an employee space to use it, but it isn't like once someone gets that milestone it isn't available. It still is, for anyone who trains a CFO. I won't argue that it isn't powerful, because it is, but I still lost last game even though I had the CFO. In fact many times in our game the person who gets the free CFO ends up losing.

I think I'd rather it not be in the game. But I think there's also a difference between getting it through upgrading vs through a milestone. If you're getting it through a milestone, you're probably already doing well and you've probably already built a money making engine. Getting it through hiring might mean you had to devote time to training your person rather than building that engine.

I wouldn't judge the milestones by the first play, they certainly are balanced in my experience (not that all are created equal but that you don't need any certain one to win the game). Some are better than others, but there are many paths to victory. More experienced players will do less parroting of each other's turns and instead will focus on denying other players milestones as well as claiming their own. That's why turn order in the early game is so incredibly vital to success. The only ones IMO that everyone should at least try and have one of is the food bonuses. It is hard to win without any of the +5 bonuses for burgers/pizza/drinks. I try to always have at least 1, but really shoot for 2. If you are playing with an experienced group you will have trouble nabbing more than 1 because other players will deny you the opportunity.

I do agree that the +5 bonus is another strong one, although we all ended up with one of them, so it kind of evened out.

[Chrisoc13]

You can try and get the same milestones. That works to some degree. But sometimes it is better if you see someone going for a certain strategy to shift and go another direction.

Not having twenty items on the board at the end of a 4 player game is low. By the end many of our places have max items (5 with a garden) and people are competing for low numbered advertising techniques to make sure their items are advertised.

The CFO is more of a catch up mechanism than a the rich get richer mechanism. It seems counter intuitive but generally in our games the person who gets it is the person who optimizes for early gaines. They hit the money but they are not optimized as a structure for end game gaines. The guru route struggles to get the CFO milestone but can very easily train for the CFO. So the early gaines person needs to have a mechanism to stay in it. In our last game I jumped out ahead and grabbed the CFO. But my competitor flooded the game with advertising and I couldn't keep up to the point where he used a luxury manager and brought in hundreds in a single round. My CFO barely kept me in the game. If I am going for the CFO I make sure to pick a low cap because I want that game to end earlier because everyone will catch up with me as they optimize for end game money.

[Defiant]

You can try and get the same milestones. That works to some degree. But sometimes it is better if you see someone going for a certain strategy to shift and go another direction.

Not having twenty items on the board at the end of a 4 player game is low. By the end many of our places have max items (5 with a garden) and people are competing for low numbered advertising techniques to make sure their items are advertised.

Yeah, I can see that. Like I said, we were mostly new players. I think we only put 2 new houses by the endgame, and a couple of the houses were in awkward positions for advertising so we largely ignored them. Although I remembered the bonuses of the garden, I forgot they raise the limit on number of items.

The CFO is more of a catch up mechanism than a the rich get richer mechanism. It seems counter intuitive but generally in our games the person who gets it is the person who optimizes for early gaines. They hit the money but they are not optimized as a structure for end game gaines. The guru route struggles to get the CFO milestone but can very easily train for the CFO. So the early gaines person needs to have a mechanism to stay in it. In our last game I jumped out ahead and grabbed the CFO. But my competitor flooded the game with advertising and I couldn't keep up to the point where he used a luxury manager and brought in hundreds in a single round. My CFO barely kept me in the game. If I am going for the CFO I make sure to pick a low cap because I want that game to end earlier because everyone will catch up with me as they optimize for end game money.

Yeah, I'll have to try a few more games and see whether I'll want to request a house rule of no $100 milestone.

[coopasonic]

You should play with Isgrimnur. He's willing to play without milestones.

[Isgrimnur]

Yup yup

[coopasonic]

I just got notification that First Martians:Adventures on the Red Planet is arriving tomorrow! That was a nice surprise.

[Bad Demographic]

We played Ticket To Ride - Europe this weekend with nephew & his girlfriend. I'd never played before. It was the only game they brought to the family get-together (they're college students and can't afford a lot of games).
I/we also played Sushi-Go, Dastardly Dirigible, 7 Wonders and Roll for the Galaxy with them. It made the weekend a lot more enjoyable.

[AWS260]

It's not the weekend, but I just played my third game of Nemo's War and came oh-so-close to winning. In the final scoring, 250 points is the threshold for success -- I came in at 247, merely an "inconsequential" result. One more treasure, one more adventure, and I would have pulled it off. Maybe I played it too safe at the end -- spent too much time sinking ships in order to avert an imperialist victory, instead of pushing for more scientific discoveries and undersea wonders.

I really like this game.

[Defiant]

I got to play PI. It's a deductive game, sort of like clue, but where everyone has their own mystery ((normally, everyone plays for three mysteries, but we were fine playing just one). You need to figure out the crimal, the crime and the location. Everyone has the solution to the mystery for the person to their left.

The board has different locations, each of which has randomly placed tiles for criminals and type of crime (since there are fewer crime types and criminals than locations, a few of these have "No Crime" or "No Suspect" on the tile). You also deal a bunch of cards from a deck of all the crimes, criminals and locations to a pile next to the board. During a players turn, they can pick up one of those cards. The person with the solution to that players mystery looks at the card corresponding to the same type as that card chosen (eg, crime or location or criminal) and then looks for where that tile/location is on the board and gives information based on that. For example, if I chose a card for Mo, and the criminal was indeed Mo, the person with the solution to my mystery puts down a disc in my color for that location. On the other hand, if it was Bubbles, who is in one of the several neighboring locations, they would put a cube in my color to signify it's in a neighboring location. If, on the other hand, my criminal was on the other side of the map, they wouldn't put anything down.

Instead of picking a card, you can also play one of your five pis on a location. When you do that, that location gets tested in the same way as the above, but in all three possibilities (location, criminal, crime), but if you do get discs and/or cubes, you don't know which it refers to.

It's an ok game. I enjoyed playing it, and I wouldn't mind playing it again (well, for a singe mystery or maybe two), and it was quick enough. I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to play it, though, unless you really like deductive games (though I think there are some better/deeper ones out there).

[hepcat]

It's not the weekend, but I just played my third game of Nemo's War and came oh-so-close to winning. In the final scoring, 250 points is the threshold for success -- I came in at 247, merely an "inconsequential" result. One more treasure, one more adventure, and I would have pulled it off. Maybe I played it too safe at the end -- spent too much time sinking ships in order to avert an imperialist victory, instead of pushing for more scientific discoveries and undersea wonders.

I really like this game.

Think I'll grab a six of anchor steam and play this again tomorrow. I still have not won.

[Defiant]

Played a first game of Tokaido. The game involves travelling from one city to another, stopping at various places where you can do various things (buy souvenirs, donate money, paint, get cards, get money, etc). Most of the stops will give you points (in different ways, of course). And since there's a number of different ways to get points, it offers up a variety of strategies to go for (though that will also depend on what everyone else does, as spots can only support one or two people on them, and you can't backtrack. You also catch up with each other at several inns along the track (where you want to buy yourself a dinner to get some points, and you start the next segment of the journey).

But the interesting gimmick of the game is that whoever is in last place along the map is the person who's turn it is, even if they just went (I thought I'd seen this kind of turnorder before, but playing through the game, I don't think I have. While it's not a huge difference in gameplay, it is enough of one that it does take time to adjust to understand the implication. Moves become a choice between moving to a spot you want to be on (and potentially giving a player in the back "free turns"), or taking more moves (maybe even some free moves) but not always getting access to a spot you want to be on.

The incentive to push forward quickly is to get some important spots for you (depending on your strategy/player's power) and getting to the inn early (to get your choice of cheaper meals.). But there's a lot of incentive to take your time.

It's a relatively quick game (under an hour). I managed to win by a very slight margin, and while I did focus in a couple of areas, I did do at least something in every type of point-getting mechanism.

[Bad Demographic]

Tokaido's a fun game and very pretty. We were introduced to it in Chicago and liked it enough to buy it. It's one of the games we always take to boardgaming down here.

[Defiant]

Played Imhotep. Easy to learn game where you play architects in ancient Egypt. There are only three different actions you can perform on your turn- Grab three stones of your color (provided you haven't reached your max of five), place one of your stones onto a free spot of the four available boats or move one of those boats (if they're full enough) to one of five ports if they don't have a ship already docked - you can even move a boat even if you don't have any bricks in the boat. The round ends after all ships are at a port, and the game is played for six rounds.

The ports can give you points in different ways. When you land at the port, you take out the stones from front to back and place them as the port requires. One port has you building a six brick wall - when you complete a level of the wall, you place the following bricks on the second level, and so on. Each brick visible from above the wall gets a point each turn at the end of the round. Another port had you building a pyramid, with different locations on the pyramid earning different values, and earning them immediately. A third has you building pillars, and whoever has the highest at the end of the game gets a lot of points, followed by whoever gets the next highest and so on. The fourth has you putting bricks in order into a rectangle of three bricks by unlimited bricks starting from the left to the right, and for each set of orthogonally connected bricks you get points (the more bricks that are connected, the more points you get) and gets scored at the end of the game.

The final location gives everyone who delivers a brick a choice of four cards, that might give you the ability to put a cube on a different location, or give you a one time use action (like choose the order the bricks come off the boat, or do some combination of two actions like get three bricks and place a brick in one action or place a brick on two boats, etc) or might be a statue, which gives you increasing points depending on how many statues you have.

Really easy to learn, quick to play and given that the scores were fairly close at the end, it also suggests that it's fairly competitive. Also, each of the ports have a side B which score points somewhat differently, which offers some amount of replayability if you get tired of the first side.

Also played another game of Great Western Trail. Didn't do too great in this game, although given the locations of other peoples buildings, I was pretty much forced to at least partly do a build strategy, which I wasn't wild about.

[ezmacncheese]

Played Colonial Twilight the new two player COIN game for the first time yesterday and it was pretty awesome. The two player initiative track is brilliant imo. I can see this one getting to the table a lot.

[Skinypupy]

Tokaido's a fun game and very pretty. We were introduced to it in Chicago and liked it enough to buy it. It's one of the games we always take to boardgaming down here.

I keep meaning to try this on iOS. I've heard the port is very well done.

[hepcat]

Played Colonial Twilight the new two player COIN game for the first time yesterday and it was pretty awesome. The two player initiative track is brilliant imo. I can see this one getting to the table a lot.

Wait...what? How did I miss this one?

Looks like I need to check this out.

[YellowKing]

Terry and I finally got back to Arkham Horror: LCG after an extended absence. We both had the day off, so we decided to sneak in a little gaming time and try to make some progress on the Dunwich Legacy campaign before the new campaign comes out.

We played Blood on the Altar, which is the third of the six Mythos packs, and fifth scenario of the campaign overall.

After a quick rules refresher, we were on our way to Dunwich to figure out what had happened to some characters we had interacted with previously in the story.

We started out absolutely horribly, making very little progress towards our Act and suffering an advancement of the first Agenda before we had really accomplished anything. However, we managed to turn things around and wound up putting ourselves into a position to win in the end. While it was a little touch and go due to some absolutely horrendous token bag draws, we managed to use the strength of our decks to overcome the forces of evil and win with an impressive amount of XP.

A few thoughts on the game in general:

- It's absolutely incredible to me how they manage to use the same game mechanics to pull off such wildly varied scenarios. Nearly every scenario we've played to date has felt like a different game, due to the constantly shifting objectives and strong narrative structures.

- Spending XP on deck building is key to campaign success. I can't count the number of times a card we purchased with XP won from previous games has literally been the deciding factor between victory and defeat.

- The game is really well-balanced. Even in the scenarios we've "lost," I've never felt like the game cheated us in any way. Which is pretty amazing given how so much of the game has a luck element (card order, token draws). It's also great fun knowing that even in the worst case scenario, the campaign allows for defeat. Losing a scenario may shift the odds against you in future missions, or prevent you from including a card in your deck that would be helpful later on, but it's never so devastating that you have to start over or give up. Just like a good dungeon master, the game adapts to the party's wins and losses to tell the story, and doesn't rob you of fun just because you made a bad decision or got a little unlucky.

We do plan on purchasing the next deluxe expansion, but this time we're going to try it with four players. One of the primary reasons we've been unable to play Arkham as much as we'd like to is that the four-person group has been meeting so regularly. So one of our group has volunteered to pick up another core set so that we can start the upcoming Carcosa campaign with a full group. Should be a blast.

Also, Terry got his copy of Adventures on the Red Planet, so we should be starting that one fairly soon. I think the guys want to finish off the one or two scenarios we have left in Mansions of Madness first.

[ezmacncheese]

Played Colonial Twilight the new two player COIN game for the first time yesterday and it was pretty awesome. The two player initiative track is brilliant imo. I can see this one getting to the table a lot.

Wait...what? How did I miss this one?

Looks like I need to check this out.

I couldn't help but notice you are also going to Gencon. I'll be bringing my copy so if you're interested in a game of this let me know.

[hepcat]

Cool. We all need to figure out a meet up time for dinner and drinks for all the OO/GT folks.

[stessier]

I bought Kingdomino earlier in the week after I saw it won the Game of the Year and it arrived last night. I got to play two games with my wife and daughters (7.11 and 10.11). It's pretty fun and easy to pick up. We played a bit wrong for the first half of the first game (didn't understand exactly where we could legally place tiles and were being too restrictive), but quickly got it straightened out. It is a fast game with some strategy but enough luck that anyone can win - takes about 15-20 minutes per game. First game my wife won, second game the 7.11 year old won by a single point over my 10.11 year old. There is multiplication math to figure out who wins and so it was a good test for them too. The parts are heavy cardboard stock and it looks like it will hold up nicely. Would recommend!

[Chaosraven]

Wizards puts out premade Commander decks each year, and a few years back made monocolored decks with a planeswalker as the commander. We bought the five decks, and my two sons each adopted one (the white and the green). I pulled the blue planeswalker for another deck and modified the red to play.

But the black deck sat alone on the shelf until this morning. Unsleeved, yet with sleeves awaiting it.

So I finally played it against a friend today and crushed him three games in a row. Love this deck.

Then we played some 1v1 Talisman on the laptop after swimming. Won as the Gambler versus the Highlander, who spent four instances as a Toad

[Isgrimnur]

One game of Tribune sandwiched in between three games of Sol: Last Days of a Star.

[MonkeyFinger]

So what did you think of Sol?

[Isgrimnur]

I enjoy it. The randomness of the end game condition adds an element of randomness to it. The effects cards add some more replayability with various game impacts, including increased conflict if desired. And it doesn't seem to take as long as Letters from Whitechapel. Time will tell if it sticks, but right now, I'm digging it.

[hepcat]

I have friends visiting for the next 10 days, so we got in a bit of gaming this past weekend.

Friday night we played Mansions of Madness. I was retrying the Sentinel Hill scenario, although I had lost quite quickly when I played it the first time. We were doing pretty well...until one of the players pulled a madness card that abruptly ended the game with him winning. While the random nature of some of those end game cards are annoying, we still had a blast.

Saturday night I whipped out my latest dungeon crawler, Sword and Sorcery: Immortal Souls. It's from the folks who did Galaxy Defenders. It uses the core mechanics of that game series, but adds a bunch of new mechanics that address some weaknesses in GD. It's fiddly, and there was quite a bit of rules referencing, but I really enjoyed it. In GD, you don't really get much in the way of loot/upgrades. In S&S, you get just enough to make you feel like you're getting stronger. Two thumbs up. Although with the caveat that the core game box is only 7 missions long. However, since the game includes 5 characters with both a light and dark version (rogue/assassin, for example), you can get a different ending for a lot of it in a replay with another faction.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I played Terraforming Mars for the first time yesterday with some randos at a board game meet-up group (just moved to a new city where I don't know anyone). The game itself seemed pretty cool and I had fun learning it, but it took us about 4 hours to finish (granted with the first hour mainly being teaching the game to three newbies). I imagine it'll get somewhat faster once everyone knows the rules, but it still seemed like a game that might regularly take 2.5 - 3 hours with four players.

[Defiant]

Games I've played lately:

Yokohama - this ones an economic game that's kind of a worker placement game? The board is made up of tiles in the shape of a triangle that can be randomized. You'll have one "worker" - the president of your company - and a number of assistants. You'll place a few assistants on locations on the board, and then you can place the president on a location that has an assistant. You can then activate the ability of that location with a certain amount of power (one for your president, one for each assistant, and one for any buildings you've built). After the location is activated, the assistants of that particular location go back to your hand. Next turn, you'll place assistants and move your president - except any place you move through/to must have one of your assistants in it (an alternative is to remove your president from the board and skip your turn and then place the president on your next turn). Also, if you place your assistant on a place with someone else's president, or you move your president through a location with another president (you can't stop there), you have to pay a gold to that person.

Different locations have differing abilities. Some give you resources. Some allow you to acquire new assistants or buildings. Some give you money, some allow you to exchange resources for money (or vice versa). Some allow you to acquire technologies (Which give you benefits) and some allow you to acquire contracts (that you fulfill with those resources). Some allow you to exchange things for victory points. Having more power may give you more of the benefit (more resources), access to better things, or more victory points or the like.

Additionally, the contract and technology cards you have also have the flags of various countries. If you get two of a certain country, you get a foreign agent if there are any left for that country (which allows you to activate a location on the board remotely). Also, you can get points at the end of the game for having sets of differing countries.

Overall, an interesting game with challenges and lots of different strategies. I'm not sure I like the moving your CEO on the board aspect of it (especially if the board ends up with some of the important locations in the corners that are harder to reach), but otherwise I found it a good economic game.

I also played a number of games of One Night Revolution. Similar to One Night Werewolf in that it's quick to play, doesn't require a lot of people, and no one gets eliminated. Everyone has a role card and a power card, and the red team gets to see who's on their team. Then, one at a time, everyone activates their power (with everyone elses eyes closed) - also, some power cards give differing power depending on what team you're on. Next, there's a discussion phase where everyone talks about what they were and what they did (or lies about it). Finally, everyone votes on who to lynch, with the Blue team winning if at least one red member gets the winning vote.

I do like the fact that the order things happen can change each round (as opposed to ONW, where role A goes before role B and so on). That said, I do wish there were more powers (and more diversity in them). I think ONW does a better job with that.

[YellowKing]

Friday night we played Mansions of Madness. I was retrying the Sentinel Hill scenario, although I had lost quite quickly when I played it the first time. We were doing pretty well...until one of the players pulled a madness card that abruptly ended the game with him winning. While the random nature of some of those end game cards are annoying, we still had a blast.

Sentinel Hill is our group's white whale. It's the only scenario we've outright lost (twice!) not due to a random sanity card. There's no way it should be a 3-star difficulty considering we've beaten 4 and 5 star scenarios with little to no problem.