OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

[AWS260]

This weekend I learned Hansa Teutonica, which is best known for its amazing box art.



Super-dry theme aside (you're running a merchant cartel in the era of the Hanseatic League), I really enjoyed this. It has significantly more interaction than your typical eurogame, with mechanics that encourage you to get in the way of others. Lots of strategic and tactical options, with multiple, interlocking ways to score points.

I would avoid playing this with people who are prone to serious analysis paralysis. The game state can change significantly with each player's turn, so you could end waiting a while for people to evaluate their options. But we had three relatively swift players, and it moved along quickly. Well under two hours, including teaching time.

I ended up in second place, with more on-the-board presence than anyone else. The other new player won, because he managed to dominate an important score multiplier. The owner, who taught us the game, took a more diversified strategy and was a close third.

[Isgrimnur]

I will never play that game again. I played it once with a group who were unwilling to teach me any of the finer points of the game and made sure the newbie was the brunt of the casual F-U blocking mechanic.

[coopasonic]

Sounds more like a problem with the gamers rather than the game. If I don't share the finer points it is because I have no understanding of the finer points. This may be why my 13 year old keeps beating me. I don't really care about losing in Ticket to Ride, but losing in Yinsh... the boy's got game.

Actually the terrible thing in the Yinsh loss was that I made him aware that he had an out. I was going to win on the next turn and he didn't have any way to stop the winning move. As I looked at the board I said "oh!" when I saw that he had a move where he could grab the win. With that hint he looked around and found it.

No, I am not interested in playing poker, thanks.

[AWS260]

I will never play that game again. I played it once with a group who were unwilling to teach me any of the finer points of the game and made sure the newbie was the brunt of the casual F-U blocking mechanic.

I love that mechanic, but I definitely see how it could be weaponized against someone who hasn't played before. In our game, the one experienced player did a good job of covering its implications while teaching us the rules. As a result, we were blocking each other left and right, but the pain was spread evenly.

[AWS260]

This weekend was Bunny Kingdom. The theme and art are wonderful - you're a Bunny Lord exploring a new world on behalf of your Bunny King. The cards show bunny cartographers, bunny barbarians, bunny Indiana Jones, bunny... You get the idea.

Despite the theme, the gameplay is dry as dust. It's area control on a grid. Spread your presence across the board to control key resource locations and cities. Score victory points. Repeat. It's not terrible - there can be some semi-interesting decisions if you draw the right cards - but nothing to write home about.

We also took good old Everdell out for a spin. Now there's a game that knows how to make a cute animal theme work.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Got in couple of game this weekend. The only new-to-me game was Wingspan, which had gotten a lot of buzz (er, tweets?) in the Bio community. It wasn't too different from some other games I've played, but the theming and art are pretty enjoyable. Would play again.

[hepcat]

Picked up Brook City at Origins last week. It was the Kickstarter version at the level that got me one expansion, plus all the stretch rewards. RMC and I played a few rounds of it on Friday night, but we were learning as we went and I need too sit down and read the rules. I liked what I saw though. You can definitely see hints of all their other games in the system. I actually bought my copy off the Sadler brothers themselves at a booth.

I also found a copy of the out of print expansion for Champions of Hara that I've been looking for online. That was a great find. I paid retail, but it was worth it.

Other acquisitions included Rifles in the Pacific, the new Dice Thrones character set for Vampire/Seraph, a couple of counter trays and some miniature terrain.

[RMC]

For the most part I watched Hepcat and Zarathud buy stuff. I did pick up the Star Realms Frontier card game, and some of the extra's I did not have. I also picked up a big game mat for under my keyboard and mouse, which I really like. I also picked up some odds and ends I didn't have for Roll player.

I played a few games as well.
Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done  - Fun game, worth it for about 30 bucks or so. I beat Zarathud in this one.
Endeavor: Age of Sail - Fun game, I am considering getting this one. I liked the theme, and the play style. I think I beat Zarathud in this game, as well.
Konflict 47 - LTP - Very fun game. The demo'ing person gave us a ton of free product. Very enjoyable.Hepcat and I beat Zarathud in this one...
Terraforming Mars - First time playing this game, and I really enjoy it.
Mare Nostrum - Empires - Love this game. I won this one, and did it by detroying Hepcat's capital.
The Artemis Project - A neat game, it really didn't grab me, but it was fun.
AuZtralia - Fun Cthullu style building/strategy game. We got some important rules wrong, but I still enjoyed it.
Army of Darkness: The Board Game - This is an awful game, I don't really recommend it. A reskinned Castle Panic, but Castle Panic does it better.

[hepcat]

Yeah, Army of Darkness just screams "poor franchise game". I have to wonder, given the fact that it was supposed to be on kickstarter a year or so ago, if they actually DO have the license to make a game with that name.

Mare Nostrum I always enjoy. It's just a classic strategy game that's surprisingly easy to learn, yet has quite a bit of depth.

AuZtralia was fun, but I'm not sure how much replay value is in the game. Granted, the map is double sided to allow for more variety, but even then it seems like your options in the game are limited.

Konflict '47 was a blast, I agree. I've always wanted to try it because it's Weird War II, which is in my wheelhouse. I'm happy it turned out to be a beer and pretzels type of miniature game that just oozes fun, instead of a rules slog that tries to define line of sight down to degrees of angle and what not. I was also pleasantly surprised at the amount of swag they gave us for playing. We paid 2 bucks to learn the game, and they literally gave us 30 to 40 dollar boxes of tanks, infantry, etc.. Thanks again for letting me have your German rail gun tank! I have the rules already, so I'll start building up a couple of forces so we can play again sometime.

[coopasonic]

I've played Pay Day with the family the past two nights. Wow. I remember liking that game. Now I see that it is 100% random with the potential for 1 or 2 meaningful decisions over the course of the game (one decision really but you may have more than one opportunity to make it or double or triple down). As much as we may scoff at games like Ticket to Ride, compared to something like Pay Day or Life, it is brilliant, full of meaningful choices.

[AWS260]

I learned Isle of Skye last night. I know that it got good buzz when it came out a few years ago, but the strong resemblance to Carcassone put me off for a long time (I don't like Carcassone). However, a friend wanted to play it, so I gave it a shot.

It's really good! The tile-laying is solid, if unremarkable, as everyone is building their own little land. The real genius is in how you acquire those tiles. Each round, every player draws 3 random tiles from a bag and assigns a value to each. Then you have the opportunity to buy one tile from another player, at the cost they assigned. And the other players can buy your tiles. If no one buys one of your tiles, then you have to buy it, at the value you had assigned.

This means that you're constantly evaluating how much opponents will be willing to pay for your tiles. Maybe you have a tile that would provide a lot of points to another player, but is useless to you. So you price it high, to maximize your profit. But the other player doesn't bite, so you're left paying out the nose for a tile that you didn't even want.

It's a simple ruleset, very easy to teach, that results in some agonizing decision-making. My only caveat would be to avoid high player counts, since more players means there will be more tiles and options to evaluate each turn, which could really slow things down. We played with three, which I think is just about perfect.

[AWS260]

We played a game of Eldritch Horror that went right down to the wire. On the very last turn, the Doom track ticked down to 1, the last card in Mythos deck was revealed, my character was ritually sacrificed by my wife's character, and we solved the third and final mystery that won the game.

Still one of my favorite games.

[Zarathud]

Played Villainous with the kids. Hades (youngest) was going to win after advancing her Titans, and then Jafar (me) was able to get the lamp to the Castle after hypnotizing the Genie (and Aladdin) so I would win if she was blocked. That turn, instead, the Wicked Queen poisoned Snow White even with Dwarven protection. The kill won the game instantly. Pretty neat puzzle, even though the kids and I fumbled around with the rules and tactics.

[hentzau]

I really enjoy Villainous. It was the surprise game of last year for me. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the base game. The new villains from the expansion are a bit more esoteric than the base game ones. And I have yet to see anyone win with Prince John, although I was one turn away from winning the last time we played. Regardless, every time we have played when someone won almost everyone else was a turn, maybe two away from winning. Great, great game.

[Zarathud]

With Villainous, the key seems to be to clog up the other players’ boards with Heroes so their actions are half effective. Each deck (Villain and Fate) seems to have 1-3 “must play” cards, so you want to sift through the decks to find them ASAP.

[AWS260]

Tonight I tried Pax Pamir (2nd ed.) for the first time, playing a friend's copy (mine is supposed to arrive this weekend). What a treat. I love the tight economy, the historical flavor text, the deeply interactive mechanics. I'm very glad that I'll have a copy of my own, even though I think I'll have a hard time getting the family on board with this one.

Tomorrow is the last day of school, so I'm picking my kid up at noon and spending the afternoon playing board games with him. He has requested High Frontier.

[coopasonic]

Got the kids to play Clank! last night. Despite their initial protestations they were both into it. The younger went Mercenary heavy against my advice and he did OK, but wasn't really competitive at the end. He was also first to leave the dungeon. He was also incredibly lucky. For most of the game the bag was full of his red cubes and they just never seemed to come out, where mine were all coming out. We all made it out. I made it out with 1 life. The elder had 2 life, but only 1 cube in the bag and no clank in his deck. I beat the oldest my 6 or 7 points, he went heavy cash with the treasure map, I went heavy explorer and ended up buying most of the (whatever the 7 point and nothing else cards are) cards, but also grabbed a crown, backpack and second artifact.

I'm curious to see if my wife would be play it. We've yet to pull her into any kind of deck builder.

[coopasonic]

Another game of Clank! last night, this time with the Sunken Treasures expansion. The younger was at a birthday party so it was the elder, the wife and I. The wife was slow to pick it up and asked "what would you do" on pretty much every turn. About the time the elder was heading to the exit my wife had to go pick up the younger. She already had an artifact so I took over her turns basically running for the exit and grabbing whatever she could along the way, including a couple of Tomes and a diamond. The son and wife made it out, unfortunately I was taken down one move away from escaping the Deep. My son was very excited to have won, but when we added everything up, my wife scored an absentee victory. If I had been able to move one more time I would have beaten them by 30 points... which basically tells me I didn't really need to go down for the 30 point artifact, which is what killed me. Oops.

It was nice to finally drag the wife into a deck builder. I am not sure she really knows what she is doing yet, but we might be able to drag her into it again.

[AWS260]

Tomorrow is the last day of school, so I'm picking my kid up at noon and spending the afternoon playing board games with him. He has requested High Frontier.

In addition to a basic game of High Frontier (I lost badly), we played Gizmos, which is the most straightforward engine-builder I've ever seen. It takes the mechanics of an engine-builder -- spend resources to get powers to get more resources to get better powers, etc. -- and strips the theme to the bare minimum. Each power you acquire is a "gizmo" (a card) slotted into your "workbench" (your tableau). That's it.

The charm comes from the resource markers. Instead of cardboard punch-outs, they're marbles, held in a 3D dispenser. It is delightful. Instead of taking a blue resource token from a common pile and adding it to your personal pile, you are plucking a marble out of the dispenser and putting it in your "energy ring," aka the cardboard circle that prevents your marbles from rolling off the table.

That tactility really adds to the mix, as Gizmos would be very dry without it. Overall, it's a solid, light engine builder, and I could see it working well for a casual gaming session. I personally prefer something with a bit more crunch, like Race for the Galaxy.

[Skinypupy]

I lost my board gaming room today when Mrs. Skinypupy decided she was finally (after telling me she was going to do it for two years now) going to move all her stuff out of my office into the spare room.

Sad that I lost the gaming space and its definitely going to put a dent in my board gaming, but I'll be thrilled if I actually get my office back at some point this summer.

[AWS260]

I played a 2-player game of Pax Pamir with my better half tonight. She won late in the game, after eking out the slightest edge in spies and tribes.



It's a very, very sharp game at two players. We each switched allegiances at least three times, in order to make sure that other player couldn't leap out to an insta-win. Tons of armies were built, as we worked to deny each other a dominance victory. Very different from my previous game at 3 players, which was much more focused on currying favor with the dominant coalition.

[hepcat]

I lost horribly at the first dominance check in my two player game Saturday. I forgot that I could switch loyalties by simply playing a patriot from the winning coalition, or by taking a prize from that group, etc.. The event right before that dominance check reduced the need to have 4 blocks more than the other coalitions down to two.

I really need to wrap my mind around the fluid allegiances this game demands you play with.

[Skinypupy]

My long weekend started today, and Mrs Skinypupy surprised me with Legendary Encounters: Firefly this afternoon.

Can’t wait to dig into that, dodgy artwork and all.

[Smoove_B]

My long weekend started today, and Mrs Skinypupy surprised me with Legendary Encounters: Firefly this afternoon.

Can’t wait to dig into that, dodgy artwork and all.

Once I can unpack some more, I might have a solution for you.

[Skinypupy]

Well...shit. Got everything unwrapped and sorted, and I’m missing the deck for the first episode (Serenity Part 1). Got everything else, but those 10 cards are nowhere to be found.

Game store won’t take it back because it’s been opened, so I guess I’ll be contacting Upper Deck’s support after the holiday.

EDIT: Scratch that, I'm an idiot. Since that episode's cards are mostly ships, I had set them aside in a different pile for some reason. Overlooked them 4 times as I counted through everything else.

Guess that's a pretty good indicator that tonight might not be the best time to try and learn the game, given my level of tiredness.

[Punisher]

Game store won’t take it back because it’s been opened, so I guess I’ll be contacting Upper Deck’s support after the holiday.

This is an absolute crappy policy. Do they expect everyone to stand there and open it in front of them? If you don't open it you wont know if its missing components.

[RMC]

Game store won’t take it back because it’s been opened, so I guess I’ll be contacting Upper Deck’s support after the holiday.

This is an absolute crappy policy. Do they expect everyone to stand there and open it in front of them? If you don't open it you wont know if its missing components.

I am fairly sure that is the policy of most of the brick and mortor stores.

[Skinypupy]

Played the first game this afternoon, and I really like it so far. I love how they separated it into the same episodes as the show, gives it an excellent flow.

I played solo with two hands, Mal and Zoe. I started making sense of it all about midway through the first episode, and won that one pretty easily. During the second episode - somewhere around the third time I discarded Mal’s cards into Zoe’s deck, then couldn’t remember whose turn I was on because the kids distracted me - I came to the realization that I need to figure out a better system of keeping the two hands separate.

I thought I had steeled myself in preparation for the artwork, but...damn. It is truly spectacularly awful. To the point where I wonder if the artist had actually even seen the show he was supposed to be illustrating for. Good lord.

[Smoove_B]

I thought I had steeled myself in preparation for the artwork, but...damn. It is truly spectacularly awful. To the point where I wonder if the artist had actually even seen the show he was supposed to be illustrating for. Good lord.

I couldn't bring myself to purchase the game because of the art, so my buddy fixed it. Again, I need to unpack a bit more but he told me if anyone wants access to what he did, it's not a problem. I just need to keep unpacking...

[Blackhawk]

I played solo with two hands, Mal and Zoe. I started making sense of it all about midway through the first episode, and won that one pretty easily. During the second episode - somewhere around the third time I discarded Mal’s cards into Zoe’s deck, then couldn’t remember whose turn I was on because the kids distracted me - I came to the realization that I need to figure out a better system of keeping the two hands separate.

When I solo games that involve multiple decks (Legendary, Crossfire, etc), I just get strips of balsa (or pencils, or popsicle sticks) and divide the space between me and the play area into separate spaces for each hand.

[hepcat]

I thought I had steeled myself in preparation for the artwork, but...damn. It is truly spectacularly awful. To the point where I wonder if the artist had actually even seen the show he was supposed to be illustrating for. Good lord.

I’m assuming the artist had no experience with the show, and when he asked what the characters looked like, was simply told “vaguely human”.

[YellowKing]

EDIT: Scratch that, I'm an idiot. Since that episode's cards are mostly ships, I had set them aside in a different pile for some reason. Overlooked them 4 times as I counted through everything else.

You could certainly be forgiven for assuming Upper Deck left some cards out - it's pretty common for them. Our game group was missing an entire deck from LE: PREDATOR.

Fortunately their support is pretty good and they shipped out replacements right away.

[Skinypupy]

Boy, you can get really screwed, really quickly if you get either a bad run of cards in your hand, or a run of super-expensive cards on the bridge right at the beginning. My starting bridge was cards that cost 6,6,7,8,5, and my first few hands only drew 3-4 shinies. That run ended very quickly.

[AWS260]

Tried Bunny Kingdom at three players. I liked it better than at two players, but I still don't really like it.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Played Inis for the first time last night. Ended up tied with two completed victory conditions at the end with two other players but ties go to the (some Celtic term for leader I don’t remember) which wasn’t me. Worse, I could’ve won the turn before if I had just attacked a player who entered a territory I occupied. Oh well. Overall, It was fine, but it reinforced for me that area control games aren’t my thing.

[hentzau]

Some light gaming with a buddy and his family yesterday...several hands of Dungeon Mayhem and then about half a game of Tiny Epic Galaxies. Today, about 8 hours of D&D with a party of about 7 players. Oy.

[Skinypupy]

I decided to jump back into Pathfinder Adventures on iOS today. It's a game I really enjoyed, but had set it aside in frustration about a year ago. I've been feeling the urge to jump back in lately, so I started over from scratch.

Sadly, I was quickly reminded why I quit in the first place when my 96% chance roll to kill the scenario boss (needed a 6 on 3d10) failed when I rolled three 1's. I then cornered him a second time, had a 93% chance (needed a 6 on 2d10 & 1d8) and failed when I rolled three 1's...again.

At least I don't feel the need to spend a dozen hours before quitting due to RNG frustration. This time it happened within the first hour.

[Punisher]

Game store won’t take it back because it’s been opened, so I guess I’ll be contacting Upper Deck’s support after the holiday.

This is an absolute crappy policy. Do they expect everyone to stand there and open it in front of them? If you don't open it you wont know if its missing components.

I am fairly sure that is the policy of most of the brick and mortor stores.

If so, I'm glad I never ran into that. If I am paying full price for a game I expect the full game to be there. If I did run into something like this I'm not sure if I'd shop there anymore.

[Blackhawk]

I will say that every time I've had a missing or damaged component from a board game, the publisher/designer has shipped out replacements, no questions asked.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, it's like when you buy a vacuum or things you need to assemble from big-box stores. The instructions say "contact manufacturer for support - do not return to store". If I opened a sealed game box in a LFGS and it missing dice or meeples, how exactly would the store manager remedy that? Crack open another box and cannibalize the parts? What happens to that other box then, it's now their problem? Or is it like when you buy something at a big box store and it has two left sides or three wheels because the store accepted an open return and just restocked it? This is why we can't have nice things.