OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Thu Oct 31, 2019 9:18 am

Got in a couple of games last night:

Parks: A fairly light resource-collection game with some of the best production values I've ever seen. The art is beautiful -- big cards with images from the 59 Parks series. The resource tokens are stained instead of painted, which I don't think I've seen in a board game before. And the "wild" resource tokens are each a different, tiny animal shape. So charming.

The gameplay itself is easy to grok -- move along the trail, pick up resources, turn in resources to purchase park cards that are worth VPs. Because only one meeple can occupy a given trail space, there are some opportunities to block your opponents. I think it's stellar for a family or casual game night, and a fun change of pace for a heavier group. (Our group was mostly medium-heavy gamers, and we all had a good time.)

Next up was The Estates, about developing real estate (sort of). It revolves around an auction mechanic in a closed economy, so overbidding can be really crippling if you end up broke for multiple turns. Which is what happened to me. Since there was no way I was going to be the best real estate developer, I focused on making our shared neighborhood as crappy as possible, so that the other players' buildings would actually be worth negative points at the end. Miraculously, it worked, and I ended up winning with -12 points. That's negative 12. The player in second place had negative 13.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Thu Oct 31, 2019 11:00 pm

Got my first game of STREET MASTERS in and my Kyoryu got soundly walloped by Dmitri and his gang of thugs.

It was a rather slow play through as I was trying to carefully go through each phase step by step and not bungle any rules. However, I can see that once you get comfortable with the round order you can breeze through a play session quickly. Also love the quick reset time - shuffle some decks, toss out some crate tokens, and you're ready to go again.

First impressions are very positive. It has all the little things I love in games rolled into one - dice, cards, minis, tactical combat, and a nice balance between strategy and luck. Combine that with the quick setup and tear down, and I can foresee this becoming the favorite game in my collection.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Nov 01, 2019 1:23 pm

I"m playing 3 player tonight, but I've played two solo games over the last two nights. The game is insanely fun so far. I'm really diggin' the thematic powers, the challenge, and all the variants. With 24 fighters to choose from, almost as many stages, and about a dozen or so enemies, I'm sure this will be on the table for a while. I'm probably going to end up either ordering the redemption packs from their web site, or picking them up at the next convention they go to. That will almost double my available fighter roster for about 50 bucks. That's a great value.

Anyway, took me two tries to beat the suggested intro stage, so the challenge is there, but not insurmountable. Can't wait to try a new fighter or three tonight though!

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Fri Nov 01, 2019 6:10 pm

Yeah I beat the suggested intro scenario on the second try but missed a couple of minor rules. Probably wouldn't have changed the outcome, but I'm still going to give it one more shot so I can sleep at night.

I want to try a two fighter game as that's the community-voted "sweet spot" player count on BGG. I know playing true solo I missed out on seeing how some effects would play out with more than one fighter.

At some point I need to figure out how to tackle painting this bear. I bought a can of flesh-toned spray primer to at least ease some of the workload. I think I'm going to maybe just go with a paint-as-I-go strategy. Paint a fighter before I play him/her, and try to knock out whatever enemy faction I'm playing with at the moment.

I'm definitely going all-in on the rest of the content when and if it ever gets back in stock.

My favorite moment in the game so far was the first time I realized I could play a card for an Attack, use my Action for an Attack, and Exhaust a card for an attack all on the same turn. I was like the Karate Kid figuring out the Crane Kick. WHA-BAM!!!!! I'm the best around, nothing's ever gonna keep me down!

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Fri Nov 01, 2019 6:55 pm

Oh no there's more Street Masters stuff to buy!?!

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Fri Nov 01, 2019 6:58 pm

I tried to warn you all during Aftershock! I picked up SM from their webstore shortly after it was originally released and 30 minutes after playing my first game, I immediately logged back into the webstore and purchased everything I could. The Redemption packs are a ridiculous value, but once you realize that everything is just more options, more fighters, more enemies, more levels...the desire to grab everything is hard to control. Good luck (and I'm sorry).

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Sat Nov 02, 2019 12:38 am

All set up but no one to play with. I’ve had this ready for the past two weeks but my gaming nights keep getting postponed. And I’m out of town all next week.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Sat Nov 02, 2019 9:55 am

After my first 3 player game of Street Masters (well, two games...we couldn't just play one), I do have a couple of small complaints.

One is that the downtime for this game when playing with more than two people can get ridiculous if one of those players has a tendency to agonize over every...single...decision. But even without the chronic AP guy, I can see this being a longer game than expected with more than two in any situation. Our two games last night (with rules explanations) went on for about 7 hours. Without the "scenario 128 would get me this, but if I went with scenario 129, I could do this...screw it, let's discuss scenario 3 again!" player though it probably would have been closer to 2 1/2 hours per game. When I played solo, I was knocking out games in 60 minutes. I would probably recommend against playing this 4 player myself, as that might be too much to bear. However, if you have players who don't get easily bored between their turns, it may be okay. I'm personally fine with it in most situations as I'm way too stupid to come up with plans for my turn in less than 10 minutes.

The other issue is that some of the rules for the stages/enemiesfighters could be better explained. For example: we spent more time than I would have liked last night trying to figure out how to use the glitch tokens with Miss Matrix in the Mob Rules stage. And BGG didn't really have anything helpful to say about it. But once we got a house rule in place for how to proceed, it was a blast.

BUT...and a big BUT...this does NOT mean I don't find this game to be one of the best games I've played in ages. It's an absolute blast. It also made me want to play a double header with this and V-Commandos later if I get done with some work I have to do for the office in time.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sat Nov 02, 2019 10:21 am

I was going to warn against a 4 player game - my experience was similar in that it took exponentially longer to play. I *thought* they added a new option (simultaneous turns?) to the MP experience to try and speed it up, but maybe that doesn't help all that much if you get into a lot of analysis paralysis regardless. When we had a potential 4 player scenario, I instead ran the enemy turns, which was still fun and really made things move along.

But for solo or 2P fun? Easily one of the best purchases I've made. Hour of Need absolutely looks closer to this than Brook City (or Altar Quest), so I'm 100% in.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Sat Nov 02, 2019 12:50 pm

That AP was not me!

Tempted to pick up King’s Dilemma as it’s a legacy negotiation game that builds a story.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Sat Nov 02, 2019 12:56 pm

I approve. Make it so.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Mon Nov 04, 2019 10:06 am

I'll give my two-player impression on STREET MASTERS then I'll shut up about it.

Played Kyoryo and Megan against Dmitri and the Brotherhood on GONE BALLISTIC since I haven't beat it legit yet (the one time I did win, I forgot about having to drop objectives when damaged so I can't count it).

Thoughts:

- I can see why some folks say 2 is the sweet spot. Downtime is fairly minimal but you still get the synergy between two fighters. In my game, Dmitri just happened to be really bad at getting Kick defense, so Megan was able to wail on him while Kyoryo took out minions.

- One thing I saw this time that I didn't pay attention to before was the transition between the start of the game and the end game, where your fighters are powered up. By the end of our game, Megan was sitting on a pile of defense and due to being able to block everything was becoming charged nearly every turn. It's a lot of fun making that decision on when to play a card for an attack and when to "invest" in your character to make him stronger over the long game.

- I wound up losing the game at the end even though the boss was down to less than 10 HP. I didn't take into account that if I was damaged, I'd drop my objective and Dmitri on his turn would be able to pick it up for his third. It was a tactical blunder and made me realize the importance of positioning and thinking ahead about what the enemy will do on his turn.

- Now that I'm used to the game flow, it really is an elegant design. The only slightly fiddly thing is remembering to take advantage of all your Tactic effects that are in play, but that's extremely minor as long as you focus when taking your turn.

So yeah, I'm hooked. I'm debating on whether to keep screwing around with this map, or jumping right into a story mission with hero decks.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Nov 04, 2019 11:20 am

I've got 5 games under my belt now. Two of them were with 2 other players, two of them were solo with one fighter, and the last was solo with two fighters. The last setup is definitely my preferred one. It allows for the synchronicity that so much of the game relies on.

So far I've played the Gone Ballistic scenario with the Brotherhood three times, so I'm done with that one for a while. The fourth was the Mob Rules stage with Cybertooth or whatever her name is. That one proved more annoying than anything else as we couldn't quite figure out how to handle her glitch token actions, but we eventually squeaked out a win in the 11th hour. It was VERY close.

Saturday I played the Reel Horror (I think that was what it was called) stage with Davenport Manor and Selene. So far that's my favorite. It has many of the same rules as the Mob Rules stage, but it makes the objectives into movie theater monsters that have escaped the screen and are trying to get out of the movie theater and into the public.

If you end your turn on a concession stand, you heal a point of damage. So I spent most of the game standing on top of a popcorn machine, apparently. I lost, but only because I didn't manage my characters well enough. I look forward to trying this one again with some different fighters though.

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Mon Nov 04, 2019 3:01 pm

Just wrapped up my first solo Street Masters solo game. Gone Ballistic stage like many other folks here with Kyoryu vs The Brotherhood. Had to do some looking up of some rules for clarification but was able to get into a good rhythm after a bit. And like many folks here that stage kicked my butt. Really enjoyed it though and I think I'm going to use two heroes next time. Really exciting when you play a good card combo and the dice are cooperating. Real bummer however when a proximity mine deals you 5 general damage.

Also wrapped up my Target for Today mission and will have to post the horrible fates, ummm, results of the mission in a little bit.

That was a fun time and I'll probably start a second mission in a couple of days.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Mon Nov 04, 2019 3:05 pm

I played Sagrada a couple of weeks ago and forgot to post anything here. It's like a deeper version of Azul and I liked it a lot better. I will be looking to get more plays in a couple weeks.

Ralph-Wiggum · Post by **Ralph-Wiggum** » Mon Nov 04, 2019 3:44 pm

Played Terra Mystica for the first time in a few years. I forgot how much I like that game, although it is the epitome of a point salad. Even so, it actually can play pretty quickly; maybe I can get my gaming group to break it out now and again.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Mon Nov 04, 2019 5:02 pm

A couple of notable games from the Extra Life gaming marathon that I participated in over the weekend:

Hab & Gut: A stock-manipulation game that forces you to act on incomplete information. Between each pair of players sits a board -- hidden from the other players -- with cards that will influence the market. So the cards on your left might drive up the price of wheat by 4, but the cards on your right will drive it down by 8. Everyone is working with incomplete information, trying to time their buying and selling to eke out as much profit as possible. Oh, and you periodically can donate a portion of your stock to charity, and whoever donates the least automatically loses.

Which is exactly what happened in our game -- in the final tally, we discovered that the far-and-away leader, the guy who had been ruthlessly manipulating the market to his favor, had donated just a bit less than the rest of us. So he lost.

Hab & Gut was reasonably fun and very fast to learn and play, at about 45 minutes total. But the theme is dry as dust. Like, Sahara-dry. To the point that I probably don't want to play it again.

Intrigue: Oh, this was so mean and so good. Thematically, it's nothing too exciting -- you are trying to place family members in other players' palaces, where they will generate income for you. Mechanically, it's delightfully brutal. In order to place a family member you must bribe the palace's owner. But others will be competing with you for that spot, and they will be offering bribes as well.

For example, Alice and Bob both try to place a family member in Charlie's palace. There's only room for one. Alice offers Charlie a $10k bribe to pick her relative. Charlie agrees, and Alice delivers $10k. Then Bob offers $15k. Charlie agrees, and Bob delivers $15k. But Bob was mean to Charlie earlier in the game, so Charlie picks Alice's family member, and Bob's relative is permanently exiled from the game. In sum, Charlie made a profit of $25k, Alice paid $10k for a position that may or may not turn a modest profit, and Bob has paid $15k for absolutely nothing, except humiliation.

It's a delight.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Mon Nov 04, 2019 6:11 pm

Picked up Point Salad and ordered Dune and King’s Dilemma.

I love combo games with engines. Terra Mystica, Race for the Galaxy, Terraforming Mars, Eclipse and similar games get their grips into me hard.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Sat Nov 09, 2019 9:59 pm

My wife surprised me by coming home with Innovation. I had a great time with it the one time I played at SHUX, and I'm very happy to own a copy. We played one game in which I leapt out into an early lead and then got crushed in the midgame.

Then we went to our FLGS, where my son pulled down City from the library. I had never heard of it, and first impressions were not encouraging. This is a kickstarted indie production through and through, with fairly awful graphic design and a manual that I will charitably describe as serviceable. But the gameplay is surprisingly tight -- you're gradually building a city across an undeveloped wilderness, constrained by your limited budget and roads. I ended up losing badly, because my road network sprawled inefficiently across the map, while my son did a much better job of maximizing his roads. Not a pretty game, but we had a good time.

Malificent · Post by **Malificent** » Sun Nov 10, 2019 10:28 am

My copy of Clank: Legacy arrived and I managed to get a game in Saturday with my group of 3.

This game was a blast. It's got the Clank sense of humor plus the solid Clank mechanics stuffed full of legacy choices. I think in game 1 alone, it felt like we placed 20+ stickers, and got to make a bunch of fun choices. I think because it only plays 10 games, they're not worried about stretching things out. But after the 10 legacy games you can still keep playing without the legacy aspect, even combining with other Clanks.

Really looking forward to playing again next Saturday.

Ralph-Wiggum · Post by **Ralph-Wiggum** » Sun Nov 10, 2019 9:48 pm

Zarathud wrote:Picked up Point Salad and ordered Dune and King’s Dilemma.
.

I watched a short video on Kong’s Dilemma this morning. It looks pretty interestIng; please let us know your thoughts once you get a chance to try it out!

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Sun Nov 10, 2019 11:12 pm

Ralph-Wiggum wrote: Sun Nov 10, 2019 9:48 pm
Zarathud wrote:Picked up Point Salad and ordered Dune and King’s Dilemma.
.
I watched a short video on Kong’s Dilemma this morning. It looks pretty interestIng; please let us know your thoughts once you get a chance to try it out!

Want to grab pretty lady, but flying machines make bad hurting. Agh what to do?!

Ralph-Wiggum · Post by **Ralph-Wiggum** » Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:18 am

wonderpug wrote: Sun Nov 10, 2019 11:12 pm
Ralph-Wiggum wrote: Sun Nov 10, 2019 9:48 pm
Zarathud wrote:Picked up Point Salad and ordered Dune and King’s Dilemma.
.
I watched a short video on Kong’s Dilemma this morning. It looks pretty interestIng; please let us know your thoughts once you get a chance to try it out!
Want to grab pretty lady, but flying machines make bad hurting. Agh what to do?!

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Mon Nov 11, 2019 4:37 pm

On Sunday I played Alchemists. It's got a lot going on!

Collect ingredients (scorpion tails, toads, the usual). Mix into potions. Test potions on students or yourself, so that you can deduce each ingredient's properties. Publish academic articles about your findings. Sell potions to traveling adventurers. Transmute feathers into gold. Go shopping for a fancy robe.

The heart of the game is a complicated, app-mediated deduction puzzle. Every ingredient is secretly assigned properties. By mixing them in potions, you can start to deduce what they are. Once you know what is what, you can earn money by selling custom potions and build your reputation by publishing your findings.

But there's no time! You have to sell a potion now, before that barbarian wanders out of your shop, so mix up some mushrooms and eagle's claws and hope for the best. And it's imperative that you be first to publish, so you can secure that sweet, sweet grant funding from the local monarchy. And so you cut corners, make guesses, and sometimes outright lie. Hopefully no one will come along later and debunk your theory.

Alchemists is kind of a bear to teach, and our game lasted about 3 hours, but I really enjoyed it. The theme ties everything together so well, and the tension between experimenting and publishing is exceptional. If I have one complaint, it's that the deduction element could be a bit harder -- by the end of our game, all of us had figured out almost all of the ingredient properties. One of the other players complained that the special ability cards were unbalancing, but I thought they brought a welcome element of chaos.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Wed Nov 13, 2019 10:58 am

Had a fantastic game of Innovation last night.

I was able to rush ahead on technologies, reaching the Information Age while my wife was still toiling away in the Renaissance. I couldn't leverage my superior civilization into victory right away, but it was just a matter of time. Until she activated a card that let her steal one of my advanced technologies -- and then used that stolen technology to score an immediate victory. It was brutal, brilliant, completely unexpected, and amazing.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:28 am

Over the past year I've made some new board gaming friends, and it's giving me a chance to play games that I would probably never try otherwise. Case in point, Bus. It's a new edition of a game that has been out of print for two decades, about... buses. And, uh, breaking the space-time continuum.

Bus is the kind of game that I'm increasingly drawn to: a fairly simple ruleset that leads to difficult decision-making, with lots of player interaction. I'd say Inis also falls into this category (although it's a completely different type of game).

Every turn, the city residents are trying to get to a specific type of building: office, pub, or home. If you can deliver a resident along your bus line, you score a point. You have to jostle with other players to expand your line, buy more buses, and lay down new buildings (ideally along your line and no one else's). Also, you can spend an action to stop time -- which means that instead of moving to their next destination, the residents decide to stay where they are. This throws an enormous monkey wrench into the works, because everyone is relying on the predictable cycle of home→office→pub to plan their actions.

It's very clever, very thinky, and short enough that we learned it and played two games in less than three hours.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:42 am

Got in a demo game of Core Space last night. Really fun. I was running the game for my buddies, and they seemed to really enjoy it too. I’m going to move forward with getting a couple of extra crews and the Galactic Patrol and Guards sets. Just wish this stuff was easier to get over here.

Lorini · Post by **Lorini** » Tue Nov 19, 2019 10:17 pm

I will be at BGG Con. I am probably the only over 60 African American woman who will be there so walk up and say hi

Fardaza · Post by **Fardaza** » Tue Nov 19, 2019 11:56 pm

Lorini wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 10:17 pm I will be at BGG Con. I am probably the only over 60 African American woman who will be there so walk up and say hi

Wish I could! Maybe next year after I retire.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Wed Nov 20, 2019 2:52 am

Year end busy season for me. The summer conventions are easier. Come see us in Columbus!

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Thu Nov 21, 2019 10:04 am

Lorini wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 10:17 pm I will be at BGG Con. I am probably the only over 60 African American woman who will be there so walk up and say hi

Hi. I'm one of the 3000 or so middle aged white men.

I was there yesterday, took some time to figure out where the heck everything was, including my car.

Played a couple games of Tash-Kalar, a learning game of Root, some Crokinole and a learning game of Spirit Island. That may be a record for me for day 1 games played.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Thu Nov 21, 2019 10:41 am

coopasonic wrote:some Crokinole

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Sat Nov 23, 2019 7:28 pm

Tash-Kalar (W)
Tash-Kalar (W)
Root (L)
Crokinole (W/L)
Spirit Island (W)

Space Base (L)
Unmatched (W)
Blitzkrieg (W)
Rajas of the Ganges (W)
Coloma (W)
Black Orchestra (L)

Sagrada (W)
Space Base (W)
Maracaibo(L)
Whitehall Mystery (L)
Splendor (W)

Space Base (L)
Zoo-ography (W)

I've never experienced so much winning.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Sat Nov 23, 2019 7:55 pm

Ralph-Wiggum · Post by **Ralph-Wiggum** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 12:41 pm

After about 15 scenarios, I finally completed my character's personal quest in Gloomhaven and got to retire him last night. I was excited to open up a new character box until I realized that we had already revealed the new character (due to the party's reputation).

Fardaza · Post by **Fardaza** » Wed Nov 27, 2019 2:06 am

Ralph-Wiggum wrote: Tue Nov 26, 2019 12:41 pm After about 15 scenarios, I finally completed my character's personal quest in Gloomhaven and got to retire him last night. I was excited to open up a new character box until I realized that we had already revealed the new character (due to the party's reputation).

After spending the better part of a week waiting for various storage elements to arrive and sleeving cards, I finished my FIRST Gloomhaven scenario today! Playing solo with 3 characters was a bit of a challenge, but we survived with almost nothing left.

Second scenario tomorrow!

Fardaza · Post by **Fardaza** » Wed Nov 27, 2019 2:08 am

Ralph-Wiggum wrote: Tue Nov 26, 2019 12:41 pm After about 15 scenarios, I finally completed my character's personal quest in Gloomhaven and got to retire him last night. I was excited to open up a new character box until I realized that we had already revealed the new character (due to the party's reputation).

What a drag!

I'm a long way from retiring anybody!

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Wed Nov 27, 2019 9:29 am

We're roughly 50-60 scenarios into our Gloomhaven campaign which is currently coming up on the one year anniversary of weekly play

I think that qualifies it in our gaming group as the BBGOAT (Best Boardgame of All Time).

I think we only have 2 characters left to unlock. It's been fantastic fun so far. My only negative is that it quite literally has excluded any other game from getting to our group table for a year now. That's not likely to change anytime soon given that we have the expansion on standby, and Isaac is working on a bigger expansion as we speak.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Wed Nov 27, 2019 11:55 am

I picked up London (2nd edition) after enjoying it immensely at SHUX. It's definitely holding up for me -- the tableau-building isn't revolutionary, but it's very well-balanced.

The poverty mechanic, whereby you generate more and more poverty as you develop the city, is great, and really key to victory. Having more poverty than your opponent is bad, and having a lot more poverty than your opponent is generally disastrous. But if you build a tableau filled with poverty-mitigation cards like (drum roll) Sewers, you won't have space the money- and point-generating cards like Lloyd's of London or Buckingham Palace.

I won last night be focusing strongly on keeping poverty relatively low. I didn't have as many point-scoring cards, but my opponent's endgame penalty for generating much more poverty was enough to give me the win.

paulbaxter · Post by **paulbaxter** » Thu Nov 28, 2019 11:37 am

YellowKing wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 9:29 am We're roughly 50-60 scenarios into our Gloomhaven campaign which is currently coming up on the one year anniversary of weekly play I think that qualifies it in our gaming group as the BBGOAT (Best Boardgame of All Time).

I think we only have 2 characters left to unlock. It's been fantastic fun so far. My only negative is that it quite literally has excluded any other game from getting to our group table for a year now. That's not likely to change anytime soon given that we have the expansion on standby, and Isaac is working on a bigger expansion as we speak.

At roughly a similar spot with my boys. Probably slightly behind, and we have three still unlocked characters. The boys still love it and look forward to it. Their personalities are such that they really hate when things don't go well, but Gloomhaven is great for adjusting difficulty, so we just always play on easy and everyone is happy. Picked up the expansion while it was one sale as well. New character from Forgotten Circle certainly has some INTERESTING abilities, though I think it will take a couple of times to really learn it.

I hope this isn't too spoilery, but my oldest son had a personal quest on his original character that involved him getting exhausted a certain number of times. Since we rarely get into serious trouble He only just last week retired his original character. He calculated out that he was level 12 based on xp progression.

I think my favorite part of the game is just the silly city and road adventures.With 4 of us, I'm the one who reads the cards and I let the three of them come to a majority decision on the outcome. There's a certain card about a retired Cragheart that just amuses me.