OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

[Isgrimnur]

Played a round of Starfleet Battles with a few guys. The Klingons were driven off by the Federation to leave the Kzinti to attempt and fail at capturing an escaping fugitive.

Spent entirely too many hours and attempts to beat the first mission of Pathfinder Adventures on the PC.

[hepcat]

Whoa, whoa....you’re playing Starfleet Battles now???

<gathers up his rule books and books a flight to Texas>

P.S. it’s all about the Orions and their double engine output at the cost of damage, and the Hydrans riding around in what are essentially just one big goddamn cannon.

[Isgrimnur]

There’s rumors that we might make it to Squad Leader within the next few months

[Zarathud]

I’m getting a used copy of Wingspan in trade from Y. I may need to give up extra shelving for it.

[AWS260]

Last night I pulled out Onward to Venus, playing a 3-handed game solo. I wanted to remind myself how it plays, since all I could remember is that it's a bit odd, and that it has cool planet tiles instead of a board.

In retrospect, it's not that odd, it just takes a while to grok because the rhythm and pace is not obvious at first glance. Onward to Venus is a pretty straightforward area control game. It's mainly a race to claim locations that grant resources or points, with a bit of conflict as players have limited opportunities to take over other players' locations.

There's some nice thematic flavor, if you like Buck Rogers-style science fiction, but the gameplay is a bit mechanical and dry. You never really feel like you're landing laser-tanks on Venus to take over a precious space-mine -- you're just moving X offense points to a location with Y defense points.

In my game, the US won, despite abandoning Earth (the highest-value planet) early in the game. They built an income and military production powerhouse on Mercury, and came roaring back to take Earth and several other planets in the endgame.

Germany and the UK tied for second. Germany was doing really well until the US targeted them late in the game. The UK dominated the outer planets, but they just aren't as valuable as the US-controlled inner planets.

I'll probably try to trade this away at a local board game swap later this month. It's not a bad game by any means, but I have plenty of others on my shelf that I prefer.

[Skinypupy]

I'm having a hell of a time finding something that will keep my attention. I've opened the boxes for Imperial Assault, Gloomhaven, and Legendary Adventures Firefly a few times over the last couple weeks, but haven't gotten past setup before losing interest.

I'm really hoping that when Mrs. Skinypupy finally gets all her stuff moved into the other room and I have a dedicated gaming space again, that it'll rekindle my interest.

[coopasonic]

You should try Journeys in Middle Earth!

[Skinypupy]

You should try Journeys in Middle Earth!

Now where did I put that...

[coopasonic]

You should try Journeys in Middle Earth!

Now where did I put that...

It is very much in the state you left it as I haven't convinced the kids that I can take Zombicide off the table.

[YellowKing]

I'm in a bit of a slump myself. Damn you Final Fantasy XIV!

It doesn't help that I renewed my Xbox Game Pass on top of it.

[Skinypupy]

I'm in a bit of a slump myself. Damn you Final Fantasy XIV!

Worst part is that I'm totally burned out on that too!

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Played Eldritch Horror for the first time last night with 6 (!) players. And no one had played before. It lasted..... a long time. And we were pretty badly beat. Seems like it could be a good game (and I know it's supposed to be), but I don't think I'm ever going to try playing it with more than four players from here on it. It was a bit of a slog.

[AWS260]

There are very few non-party games that I would play with a group that large. Most board games that I know drag significantly with more than 4.

[Anonymous Bosch]

There are very few non-party games that I would play with a group that large. Most board games that I know drag significantly with more than 4.

Indeed, that's a valid point.

There's a handful of titles I recall that definitely do work well with six players, but they're fairly few and far between:

• Cosmic Encounter - requires one of the first three expansions to add a sixth player.
• 7 Wonders - simultaneous turns work wonders for minimising all the player-downtime with larger player counts.
• Codenames
• Spyfall
• The Resistance: Avalon

I also have a soft spot for Duel of Ages II, which works terrifically as a team game (i.e. 3 vs. 3). Teaching it to those with no CRPG/RPG experience does present a challenge though, and it really doesn't lend itself well to rapid gameplay, but over a weekend or something? Tabletop gaming doesn't get much better, IMO.

[AWS260]

I playtested a game for a friend last night -- the first time I'd ever playtested a game. It was a pretty interesting experience.

Since it's a solitaire game, I played while he observed. I occasionally talked through my thought process, or he would interject to ask about a decision or correct a rules error, but mostly it was just me playing in silence. Afterward we talked through different aspects of the design -- the pacing, arc, balance, how well the mechanics connected to the theme, elements that seemed incomplete or out of place. I don't typically dissect a game in such granular detail, so I really enjoyed the discussion.

I won't say more about the game itself, other than that I think it has a lot of promise. It's still in early playtesting and will undoubtedly change significantly before it sees the light of day, assuming it ever does.

[hentzau]

Steampunk Rally is also playable with larger numbers, if everyone knows the game and if you trust everyone.

There's a huge amount of dice rolling and manipulation of your dice through the powers of your device, and the recommend that everyone does this phase simultaneously and then only take turns during the actual race portion of the game to speed things up. They give you enough dice to be able to play with 8 players at once.

I've always wanted to do a big 8 person team Formula D race...but that would probably be a really bad idea.

[coopasonic]

I've always wanted to do a big 8 person team Formula D race...but that would probably be a really bad idea.

Have done it. It was. Maybe with all experienced players it would be less of a slog. Maybe. How many damn times can you count out your move... seriously. I loved Formula D... and hated playing it.

Gravwell is my go to "racing" game now, though I am still partial to powerboats/powerships for a more typical racing game.

[hentzau]

I've always wanted to do a big 8 person team Formula D race...but that would probably be a really bad idea.

Have done it. It was. Maybe with all experienced players it would be less of a slog. Maybe. How many damn times can you count out your move... seriously. I loved Formula D... and hated playing it.

Gravwell is my go to "racing" game now, though I am still partial to powerboats/powerships for a more typical racing game.

I would play it with a timer and with a "one shot at counting" rule. Use a pointer to show the spaces you are going in, no take backsies.

[AWS260]

City of the Big Shoulders tonight. I've never played a stock game before, so it was very much a learning experience. It's definitely heavier than most of my gaming, but the various moving parts interlock nicely. At the end I came in a very close second (of three) -- in part because I managed to tank the stock of one of the leader's companies in the last round.

My only concern/potential criticism of the game is that it's very generous with money. While the economy is very tight at the beginning, by the end the oldest companies were absolutely swimming in cash. It takes away some of the pressure in the last couple rounds of the game.

Hopefully I'll get to try it again sometime, now that I know what I'm doing.

[hentzau]

Pulled out this old classic last night. Only had two players, so it wasn’t as much fun as a big 6 player salvo fest, but still a good time.

[coopasonic]

Played Citadels on Saturday. It was... different. I totally crashed and burned, but it was interesting.

[coopasonic]

Played half of a 3 player game of Wingspan at lunch yesterday and about 32% of a 5 player game of Wingspan at lunch today. One day I will get to play the whole damn game. I think with 3 experience players it could be played in an hour. At the very least next month I will have time to play the whole damn thing. I am enjoying it. Yes, it is a bit simple with very limited player interaction, but it's also pretty and fun without a whole lot of downtime.

[AWS260]

I got to play Innovation a couple nights ago, a game I'd been hearing some good things about. It's decidedly difficult to explain, but basically it's a card game utilizing ten decks of innovations, sort of like civ tech advances. Every single card is unique and all of them have different benefits and abilities. On each turn you can either draw new cards, play cards, or use cards' abilities. The heart of the game is using cards against your opponents to score certain cards into your score pile. As your score pile grows, you claim achievements, five achievements wins the game.

What's interesting is that because all of the cards are different, you never know what combinations you're going to get. Some of the abilities are pretty nasty and we had some wild point swings between players. Bottom line - it was a lot of fun, and fairly easy to grasp. Because the cards are unique I see a TON of replayability here, this one's definitely going on my "to buy" list.

I played Innovation for the first time tonight, at a pub with a friend who is also in Vancouver for SHUX. We had a blast. The cards are ridiculous and unpredictable, and I completely understand why some people don't like it, but I am in love. Definitely going to try and pick up a copy some time soon.

[hentzau]

I got to play Innovation a couple nights ago, a game I'd been hearing some good things about. It's decidedly difficult to explain, but basically it's a card game utilizing ten decks of innovations, sort of like civ tech advances. Every single card is unique and all of them have different benefits and abilities. On each turn you can either draw new cards, play cards, or use cards' abilities. The heart of the game is using cards against your opponents to score certain cards into your score pile. As your score pile grows, you claim achievements, five achievements wins the game.

What's interesting is that because all of the cards are different, you never know what combinations you're going to get. Some of the abilities are pretty nasty and we had some wild point swings between players. Bottom line - it was a lot of fun, and fairly easy to grasp. Because the cards are unique I see a TON of replayability here, this one's definitely going on my "to buy" list.

I played Innovation for the first time tonight, at a pub with a friend who is also in Vancouver for SHUX. We had a blast. The cards are ridiculous and unpredictable, and I completely understand why some people don't like it, but I am in love. Definitely going to try and pick up a copy some time soon.

I felt the love for Innovation the first time I played it. Second time I couldn't stand it. I'd like to say it was beer goggles, but I don't drink.

[hepcat]

On a scale of 10, which would be something like Gloomhaven, to -2000, which would be Wealth of Nations, what would you rate Innovation?

[hentzau]

On a scale of 10, which would be something like Gloomhaven, to -2000, which would be Wealth of Nations, what would you rate Innovation?

Me? About somewhere around a 3. Id play it if everyone else wanted to.

[hepcat]

Okay, let’s say you’re stranded on a desert island and all you have to amuse yourself is Wealth of Nations or slamming coconuts against your genitals. How many coconuts do you think you’d go through before a rescue ship arrived?

[hentzau]

All of them.

[Zarathud]

Kick a man while he's nursing his wife back to health. why don't you?

Just because you can't recognize the glory behind an auction-based economic engine builders from a much crunchier time. At least it's not Thunderstone.

[AWS260]

I'm at SHUX and have played surprisingly few games, mainly because I had some weird vision issues and had to spend about 24 hours in a hospital being tested to make sure I wasn't on the verge of a major stroke (I wasn't, and I'm fine).

Once I was finally discharged this afternoon, I hit the convention games library with a vengeance:

Raccoon Tycoon - Stock market + auction + resource management. As a two-player game, it frankly kind of stinks. The auction is a major source of points, but with just two people it's utterly flat. It probably improves with more players, but even then I think the auction will be a weakness. It's not innovative, just a straightforward go-around-the-table open auction. Since money is public, there are no surprises. On the plus side, the art is adorable.

Caper - A very engaging two-player game about leading competing gangs of international jewel thieves, basically. There's a tight back-and-forth as you assemble and equip teams to conduct heists in three different cities. It's more thoughtful and strategic than the small box would suggest, and I would definitely recommend it.

March of the Ants - This comes across as a real passion project. The designers are also the artists, and they are not exactly Ryan Laukat. Many of the pictures are obviously traced directly over photo references, and those that aren't are... not great. But the gameplay is very solid. It's an area control game about ant colonies competing over the resources in a single meadow. As board game themes go, it's really creative and comes through very well in the mechanics. I hope that someone gives this a graphic overhaul someday.

London (2nd edition) - This was the highlight among games I've played at SHUX so far. It's a tableau-builder about re-building the city after the Great Fire of London. The theme is great, the art and production design are fantastic, and there's a neat "poverty" mechanism that constantly pushes back against your progress. If this is still in print, I'd like to pick up a copy for myself.

[hepcat]

Kick a man while he's nursing his wife back to health. why don't you?

Just because you can't recognize the glory behind an auction-based economic engine builders from a much crunchier time. At least it's not Thunderstone.

We’re just having some fun wit’ ya.

Hope your wife and AWS are both back in tip top shape soon!

[coopasonic]

Played half of a 3 player game of Wingspan at lunch yesterday and about 32% of a 5 player game of Wingspan at lunch today. One day I will get to play the whole damn game. I think with 3 experience players it could be played in an hour. At the very least next month I will have time to play the whole damn thing. I am enjoying it. Yes, it is a bit simple with very limited player interaction, but it's also pretty and fun without a whole lot of downtime.

and yesterday I finally got to finish a game... solo. Hey, it was better than nothing. Man are actions scarce at in the final rounds. Scoring on easy I beat the Automa 77-71, if I called it normal it would have been a 78-77 loss. Solo goes pretty quick and the Automa is super easy to run.

[AWS260]

Today's SHUX gaming:

Fugitive - A great, fast two-player game of deduction and deception. As the fugitive, you play an ever-ascending sequence of cards face-down, trying to eventually reach your getaway plane. As the marshal, you try to deduce exactly what number cards the fugitive has put down on their trail, so that you can piece together the track and catch them before they escape. Super-tight and tense.

Era: Medieval Age - A roll-and-build game: you roll the dice, they give you resources, you use those resources to place buildings, which in turn give you more dice, etc. The buildings are chunky, plastic pieces that you lay out on a grid, which lends a great sense of tactility. All of that plastic makes it expensive for a pretty straightforward game, but the gameplay is really solid. A very good family title, I think.

Century: Spice Road - As we were packing up Era, a guy sat down nearby with a copy of Spice Road and a blue balloon, which at SHUX means "I'm looking for someone to teach me this game." So we went over, taught him, and played a very close, competitive game. Then we stuck around to play Villages of Valeria with him, because he was really nice and eager to play another light game.

Millennium Blades - The card game that simulates playing a card game. I generally don't play card games like Magic, in part because I have no interest in spending hours looking up ideal deck construction and building decks. Millennium Blades does away with that by compressing deck-building (including buying, selling, and trading cards) into a 20-minute phase of the game itself. I've never played anything quite like it, and I'm very impressed by how smooth it plays. Not entirely my cup of tea, but I'm very glad I spent a few hours today learning and playing it.

Hadara - We played a truncated learning game at the publisher's booth. It's a relatively swift civilization-builder. The card selection and cube-pushing is clean, but there's very little theme and virtually no player interaction.

Honorable mention to SHUX's live-moderated version of the scamming horse race game from the Korean reality show The Genius. (If you haven't seen this show, full, subtitled episodes are on YouTube.) I didn't play, but my wife did, coming in first.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Today's SHUX gaming:

Fugitive - A great, fast two-player game of deduction and deception. As the fugitive, you play an ever-ascending sequence of cards face-down, trying to eventually reach your getaway plane. As the marshal, you try to deduce exactly what number cards the fugitive has put down on their trail, so that you can piece together the track and catch them before they escape. Super-tight and tense.

Amen.

This has long been one of my favourite travel games, thanks to its minimal size and nifty magnetic box designed to resemble an attaché case. I love the thematic tie-in and the way it follows up from Burgle Bros. It does such a great job of conveying the tension of 'The Chase', and the asymmetric struggle to get out of town with the loot or track down and capture the tea-leaf.

[hepcat]

Saturday I played a two player game of V-Commandos with two teams of two. I screwed it up though by forgetting to refer to the Operation setup rules. I just treated it like 3 terrain missions instead of the arcing story line it should have been. Still, I enjoyed it because it forced us to make some sacrifices towards the end of one of the first terrain missions. But darn it, it would have been SO much better if I'd just remembered to read the operation setup section first!

Before that we played the first story from Arkham Horror 3rd edition. We lost, but only after about 2 1/2 hours of "I think we're going to win!". But, as it does in a Lovecraft game, we screwed ourselves over in our hubris and paid the price. I ended up enjoying this quite a bit. I picked up the expansion that was just released and I'm looking forward now to diving more into it.

Yesterday I embarked on a solo game of Aventuria with all the new stuff from the kickstarter for the expansion/new edition. The dungeon crawl variant is a definite win in my book. I started one with two characters.

You strip out all but 10 action cards (no equipment) to simulate being thrown in the dungeon. Then you add in 10 “desperation cards”…things like “chain” or “rusty pen knife” (there’s an absurd number of them because the game takes up to 4 players…so they put in about 15 for each player). Finally, you assemble a “loot deck” from a bunch of your normal cards, tossing in a few reward cards to add some variety).

Then you play through a deck of cards for each of the 4 levels of the dungeon (the dungeon deck). Each of those decks has 10 cards, with an alarm card in the bottom 5. You also have an equipment card on which you store found equipment that you pick up along the way. Equipment is comprised of tools, torches and magic keys. Every time you make a skill roll for a challenge card (one of the card types in the dungeon deck), if you don’t use a torch, you subtract 5 from your roll (hey, it's dark). Tools and magic keys are used by some of the challenges you may stumble across in the dungeon deck.

When you pull the alarm card, you refer to a small table that tells you what encounter you have to endure (they’re always combat encounters). Set up the combat per normal adventure mode rules and fight with your deck of less than ideal cards. If you win, you can remove one of the desperation cards and grab a loot card (trading it with another player if you can’t use it or don’t want to.

After each encounter, you also get one recovery point per time counter still left on the encounter’s time card, plus 2. You can spend those to heal up, get fate points, buy practice or training cards, etc..

It’s a blast, I tell ya. I don't regret backing this one at all.

[AWS260]

I got in a couple of games this holiday weekend:

Space Park - A short, light game about touring vacation spots around the galaxy, collecting crystals and exchanging them for bonuses that will accelerate your progress toward victory. It uses a rondel action-selection mechanism, which I haven't seen before in a game this simple. Good for a casual family gaming session (the 9-year-old seemed to really enjoy it), but not much more than that.

Viticulture - This is right in my sweet spot: medium weight, worker placement, a well-integrated theme. The gameplay is intuitive and pushes you to plan a turn or more in advance, which I love. In our game, I was able to plant a decent set of vines and start filling orders ahead of the other players, so I jumped into an early lead. But I didn't expand much beyond those early vines, and we all reached the finish line nearly neck-and-neck. I ended up coming in second by a single point. Great fun.

[AWS260]

I had a late night playing Paladins of the West Kingdom, from the same designer as Architects of the West Kingdom and Raiders of the North Sea. Unlike those games, Paladins doesn't have a novel approach to worker placement. Most of the worker placement is on your personal board, so there's not a lot of interaction with other players. What it does have is meaty, interlocking systems that are generous enough to allow for long-term strategies -- but tight enough to elicit frequent groans because you can't *quite* do the thing that you wanted to.

My favorite part of the game is how you acquire workers. At the beginning of each round, you'll get six workers -- two from a unique Paladin who is helping you out this round, and four from a communal pool. Importantly, workers come in different colors, and the colors dictate which actions you'll be able to take. So you have to figure out the ideal combination of Paladin and pool worker colors to achieve your goals this turn, and hope that someone else didn't take those workers before you.

In our game, I focused on two tracks: sending out missionaries and building the capital's walls. I found some good combos and was pretty pleased with my score, but ended up coming in third (of four). The eventual winner built an impressive high-scoring combo from fighting barbarians, which was a track that I barely touched.

It plays long at four -- took us about 3.5 hours, which I could see coming down to 2.5 with more experience. I'd like to try it at 3 or even 2 players, so that I can pay closer attention to what others are doing and maybe try to get in their way.

[coopasonic]

Got a two player game of Too Many Bones in yesterday. We made it to the Tyrant without too much trouble, but got demolished in the final battle. It might have been a better idea to delay engaging the tyrant, but we had to finish up and get to bed so we pushed it and paid the price.

[hepcat]

What did you think of TMB?

[coopasonic]

I'm liking it. We aren't really getting into the story bits on the cards because my kid has no patience for that so I can't comment on that, but mechanically it is really interesting. We have played with four different gearlocs (Boomer, Patches, Picket and Nugget) and they are all very different and interesting. There are interesting choices on the encounter cards and the tactical combat is more tactical than I was expecting. I haven't played any character a second time and we have been playing the shorter adventures so I haven't seen much of the character development, but based on all of the options it looks like it should be interesting.

Also, Tom Vasel is an idiot. His initial review said everything looks cheap and he couldn't possibly be more wrong. The art on the dice may lean a bit towards functional, but with so many unique faces, that's just necessary. On the rest of it I can't even imagine where he is getting that opinion.