Octopus Overlords

Tried Dungeon Run, didn't care for it. Don't know if we just rolled poorly, but there seemed to be a severe lack of treasure. The rules were a bit wishy washy in my opinion.

Also tried Conquest Of Planet Earth. Big fun with that game. I have enjoyed every Flying Frog so far, so that was not a big surprise.

Jaymon wrote:Tried Dungeon Run, didn't care for it. Don't know if we just rolled poorly, but there seemed to be a severe lack of treasure. The rules were a bit wishy washy in my opinion.

Also tried Conquest Of Planet Earth. Big fun with that game. I have enjoyed every Flying Frog so far, so that was not a big surprise.

How many players did you have with Dungeon Run? Anything less than 4 and the game isn't all that good. As for the treasure, it's not supposed to be doled out to everyone. It's limited because they want you to start stealing from others at some point, plus they don't want to unbalance the game by making it easy to obtain them. On the subject of the rules, what's wishy washy about them? It's a light dungeon crawler, so if you're expecting something deeper you're going to disappointed. Personally I love DR for what it is...light fun with backstabbing.

I also love Conquest of Planet Earth a great deal. It's goofy fun. I highly recommend the coop version of the game though, as the head to head can turn into a REALLY long game as folks just screw each other over to keep them from winning. Honestly, it's pretty different than any other Flying Frog game because it was designed by someone outside the company and is just being repped by them.

My Qarriors strategy is beginning to revolve around what the worst possible side of each die will be as that is what I will consistantly roll. Stupid non-dragons.

Whew! I've been out of the office for three weeks, and despite two cross-country trips during that time, I got some good gaming in.

My college buddies have recently began an annual gaming weekend between Christmas and New Year's. This year, we played:

Eclipse twice. I like it more and more each time.

Through the Ages - the best Civ game in existence, even better than my old favorite, Advanced Civ.

Three games ofHanabi - an unappreciated masterpiece. It's criminal this one is OOP.

Urban Sprawl: Great times with this one too.

Too bad this gathering only takes place once a year.

I tried a solo game of Defenders of the Realm last night in order to get the rules down pat. I was intimately familiar with Pandemic so I grasped the concepts really quickly. I got my ass handed to me but it was a lot of fun.

I'm on a self-imposed game buying moratorium until I can play through some of these I got for Christmas.

YellowKing wrote:I'm on a self-imposed game buying moratorium until I can play through some of these I got for Christmas.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Sorry.

YellowKing wrote: I got my ass handed to me but it was a lot of fun.

Welcome to the DotR club...

So under hepcat's law, you're going to break that moratorium within 24 hours.

hentzau wrote:

YellowKing wrote: I got my ass handed to me but it was a lot of fun.

Welcome to the DotR club...

And the frustration of losing with a partner is twice as fun!

Chaosraven wrote:

hentzau wrote:

YellowKing wrote: I got my ass handed to me but it was a lot of fun.

Welcome to the DotR club...

And the frustration of losing with a partner is twice as fun!

At least then you have someone to blame! How long does it take to play a solo game (he asks knowing he'll never have time for it)?

coopasonic wrote:

Chaosraven wrote:

hentzau wrote:

YellowKing wrote: I got my ass handed to me but it was a lot of fun.

Welcome to the DotR club...

And the frustration of losing with a partner is twice as fun!

At least then you have someone to blame! How long does it take to play a solo game (he asks knowing he'll never have time for it)?

Depends on how quickly the game kicks your ass...

We beat the Dragons for the first time (for me) yesterday! Yay us!

As to the Quarriors strategies. I had a nice quick (if extremely lucky) win yesterday with nothing but stuff that cost three quidity. I basically chose nothing but the knights that allowed you cull extra dice and kept my pawns for the possibility of putting out more guys. I added the growth spells to make sure I always had at least two quidity when they were in play. I quickly culled my dice down to 8 dice. Two Growth spells, 4 knights, a pawn, and a portal and it worked out nicely. The enemies each managed to put up a dragon in their bags full of dice, not enough to take down my 2-6 points being scored every turn. It was a lucky win but a win on tiny dice, just the same.

At least then you have someone to blame! How long does it take to play a solo game (he asks knowing he'll never have time for it)?

Well it took me 3 hours but that was because I had to keep taking breaks to get my daughter back to bed or change the baby's diaper. I'd say about 20 minutes of that was setup, as I was taking my time and checking out all the minis and cards.

I really wasn't being very efficient, as I was just trying to understand all the rules and try different things. I imagine that, just like Pandemic, we will learn quickly not to dawdle.

The things I think I'm going to like about it over Pandemic are the following:

- Larger number of actions per turn. This really opens up a lot of doors. I like the idea of being able to move, do something, move back, do something else, etc. all on one turn. The strategerie seems deeper since you have more options on how to waste your time until you are inevitably destroyed.

- Dice rolls! I know some people hate the luck factor but I think it makes some of the greatest gaming moments. There's nothing like the thrill of victory when everything depends on one roll (nor nothing like the agonizing defeat!)

- It remains to be seen whether some heroes are "gimped" over others, but I know in Pandemic it often felt like (at least with two players) that if we didn't draw a Medic or similarly useful role we were pretty much fked. I do like the large number of hero classes and they all (at least on the surface) seemed to have cool abilities.

And yeah, you called my bluff on the self-imposed moratorium. Did I mention I still have $10 in credit at the game store? No way I'm going to let that sit.

hepcat wrote:

Jaymon wrote:Tried Dungeon Run, didn't care for it. Don't know if we just rolled poorly, but there seemed to be a severe lack of treasure. The rules were a bit wishy washy in my opinion.

Also tried Conquest Of Planet Earth. Big fun with that game. I have enjoyed every Flying Frog so far, so that was not a big surprise.

. On the subject of the rules, what's wishy washy about them?

The main trouble was with monster roaming. Are they required to move towards players? It does not say, it just says that monsters HAVE to roam. This became an issue when the end boss shows up, and the rules do say the end boss can teleport.
perhaps we were just not being aggressive enough.

Jaymon wrote:

hepcat wrote:

Jaymon wrote:Tried Dungeon Run, didn't care for it. Don't know if we just rolled poorly, but there seemed to be a severe lack of treasure. The rules were a bit wishy washy in my opinion.

Also tried Conquest Of Planet Earth. Big fun with that game. I have enjoyed every Flying Frog so far, so that was not a big surprise.

. On the subject of the rules, what's wishy washy about them?

The main trouble was with monster roaming. Are they required to move towards players? It does not say, it just says that monsters HAVE to roam. This became an issue when the end boss shows up, and the rules do say the end boss can teleport.
perhaps we were just not being aggressive enough.

The first player always chooses which adjacent tile to move the monster, or in the case of the boss which tile to teleport to anywhere on the map. That allows players to use monsters as tools against other players or to move them towards themselves to help them level up.

In other news, I just received my copy of New Era. Initial component impressions:

1) Ooh, meeples for workers!
2) Nice, they added wooden tokens for resources.
3) They must have listened to complaints and added an actual scoring track that isn't just the back of the game box. It also includes a rule's aid.
4) Cards are the same, thick stock as 51st State. No complaints there.
5) I know they want to mass market this, but cramming three languages onto each card, aid, rule book? Thankfully, they know where their bread is buttered and the headline language on each card is English.

After reading the rules, my thoughts are:

1) They dropped leaders from the rules, but in the addendum they add that they can be put back in as they require no changes to the new rules. I think I may do this.
2) Adding in the cards from 51st State is out of the question for me. The new cards all include a defensive rating, which is not found on the old set's cards. They new rules do include rules for adding a defensive rating to the old set's cards, but I don't like the idea of having to constantly refer to a conversion list. Also, the new icons they use are different than the previous game's iconography and I find that very distracting. For now I think I'll just add Leaders as that's fairly inoffensive.
3) The only real addition to the rules is a cleaned up scoring chart and the ability to conquer and reach agreements with an opponents incorporated location. This can get ugly as there are new defensive locations that can be used in the "shootout" portion of an attack to reduce the range at which an opponent can attack you. Basically you attack another player's location (or attempt an agreement) as if you were doing the same thing to a card in your hand...but you declare the range you have first before a target. The defender then puts in any defensive tokens they have. The attacker can respond with more attack tokens and when everyone is done adding tokens (or the attacker withdraws), the total attack range is figured out and the attacker then chooses a location within that range to either conquer. Agreements are treated much the same way but without the shootout.

Can't wait to get this on the table and try it out.

edit: gotta love poorly translated box blurbs:

Four factions have grown. Their boundaries have widened. The conflict is not to be averted. Blood will soon be shed. Mutants Union is the power that made rocks rolling and attack. Other factions respond quickly. The New Era begins. The Era of War...

Jaymon wrote:Perhaps we were just not being aggressive enough.

At first the shortage of "game" seemed sad. I wanted to be able to build levels and gain skills and get stuff and have combos but then I came to the realization that the game 40 minutes posturing for position while you wait for the boss. The game is all about aggression or forced alliances against the guy who got the killer skill set start.

"Do I kill the monster knowing I can't pick up the treasure?" "Do I send the monster after someone else and give them the exprience to weaken them or do run the monster away?"

The game is not what I wanted at all but it is pretty good for what it is. 40 minutes of screwing over the other people at the table while trying not to get screwed over. It's what I think Order of the Stick should have been. Quick, concise, and with the adverserial nature necessary built in to the advancement of the game. In OotS getting adversarial pretty much ruins the adversaries game and the damned game takes forever to play. In DR it's necessary and knowing that there are essentailly, what, 40 plays total to the game where many of the plays are nothing, puts the pressure on to make stuff happen from the get go.

Oh, and I suck at DR. So while I enjoy it, I'm only good for getting my ass handed to me about twice before getting ready to move on to something else. I'd never be up for a full evening of DR marathon playing.

The 2nd Quarriors expansion has been previewed at the new Dice Tower News site:



Find it HERE.

Final Flight has released their first preview of Rex, the retheming of the classic Dune board game. Though I've never played Dune, I'm interested in the reprint.

Here's the Preview



While I like the TI world, I'm sad that the awesome Dune theme didn't make it.

I'm so torn about that. The mechanics of Dune were fantastic, but part of what made them fantastic was that they tied so incredibly tightly with the theme. Taking those same mechanics and separating them from the theme seems...wrong.

That reminds me I have the AH Dune with only a few pieces missing. I should get those pieces replaced.

I've heard that Dune was great but only with 5 or more. Is that accurate? I love TI and political games, but rarely have more than four.

My last play of Dune was 20 years ago. I think we only had 3 or 4 players. Mom found it stuck in the back of a closet about two years ago.

BTW Zarathud, we looked up Marilyn Monroe's skirt. That was a surreal experience and the conference HQ was in the Sheraton right behind the NBC building on the river.

Last night we played our first round of Defends of the Realm. It did not end well. Luck killed us quickly, as we wound up failing in our attempt to kill the red general, and then having him advance quickly to the main city with some bad card draws. In hindsight we missed some opportunities to stop him earlier, but we just weren't being aggressive enough. Fun game though and everyone loved it.

Then it was time to break out Memoir 44, playing with my buddy Scott. I started as the Germans on the first Pegasus Bridge scenario and though I held out valiantly, I got overran 4-1. When we switched sides Scott got some lucky rolls and managed to kill a unit earning him a medal. This completely changed my strategy - If he scored one more medal, he'd win the entire game outright, even if I did win the match.

This put me in the surprising position of playing defense with my mass of allied troops against his tiny German squad. It was a fun plot twist but he eventually took me out by picking off another unit from his heavily fortified bridge. He loved the game and plans to buy it for his dad.

Remus West, LordMortis, redrun, bb2112, and I got together for an evening of Kingsburg, Qwarriors, and Arcana. Arcana turned out wicked, with LM at 43, bb and I at 42, and Remus at 37 (due to a last turn switcheroo pulled by bb2112... damned Kingmaker). Qwarriors was fun, we tested the Cull or Score variant. And my amazing win in Kingsburg with a military victory (sort of), beating out Remus by 2 points as bb2112 dropped backward 9 points when the Demons ate his building.

Lord help me, today I spent several hours making video reviews of Dungeon Petz, Eminent Domain, and Eclipse! I still need to edit bits and upload them to YouTube (and then to BGG) but soon you all will be able to hear me speak about these games. I hope I didn't talk too fast, but I was hoping to keep times lower than 40 minutes.

Hepcat, I will get a restraining order! So try to contain your reaction to my awesomeness.

baelthazar wrote:I hope I didn't talk too fast, but I was hoping to keep times lower than 40 minutes.

I'd imagine that's hard to pull off. Speaking fast is a big speech turn off. Things need to sink in as you speak. At the same time 40 minutes to explain a game is too much as well. My attention span would be long gone. I'd think I might be good for about 15 minutes to learn a game and get a review from video tutorial. Half an hour tops if I am entertained. The strange thing about that is that often takes one or several hours of reading the destructions and sitting in front of the physical game to actually learn it. shrug

baelthazar wrote:
Hepcat, I will get a restraining order! So try to contain your reaction to my awesomeness.

I've built up a tolerance over the years for awesomeness by spending an hour each morning looking into the mirror.

Played a few rounds of The Kids of Carcassonne with my soon-to-be 6 year old. She was ecstatic because of the whole "build your own game board" concept. She's seen me play the D&D board games and couldn't get her mind around the idea of not having a fixed game board, so it was nice to finally be able to introduce that concept. I was really impressed with the quality of both the Meeples and the cardboard tiles which seemed of much higher quality than similarly priced games. She didn't quite grasp the strategy, but I could see the little gears turning in trying to figure out where to place tiles and how to orient them to at least make longer roads. Amazon has some type of ten year anniversary edition of the regular game...maybe by this time next year she'll be ready.

hepcat wrote:

baelthazar wrote:
Hepcat, I will get a restraining order! So try to contain your reaction to my awesomeness.

I've built up a tolerance over the years for awesomeness by spending an hour each morning looking into the mirror.

*high five*

My Dungeon Petz review is probably at around 30 minutes. Undead Viking at BGG has pretty long videos and I think I can mitigate the length a little by putting in "reference points" for those that want to skip ahead. I don't know how Tom Vasel keeps his so short, and he does talk a bit fast as well. They say Midwesterners have a faster cadence and I lived in New York too, so my normal is probably "fast" for some.

My real block is that it is taking 10 hours to upload just one of these videos onto YouTube! I'm not sure I have a solution for this other than taping at lower quality (and I'm already taping at standard quality on the HD camcorder) or breaking them up into two videos - which seems like a bad move. It isn't a huge problem, as I can pretty easily set them to upload overnight, but a little bit of an annoyance. If I keep doing this, I'm going to have to find a solution for an external mic that doesn't cost $$$.

At the moment, the Dungeon Petz review is going to be live in about and hour or so. It is an interesting game, so I suggest that anyone thinking about it check out the video. The wife enjoyed playing it... but I don't know how often she is going to want to have it hit the table.

An industry note - FFG posted rules for both Wiz-War and Nexus Ops, their two high-class remakes. From what I have seen, both are either on the boat or nearly to stores, so I would expect to see them fairly soon. I've got Wiz-War on order, because it is right up my alley, but I'm still deciding if I want to try out Nexus Ops. It looks a little like Conquest of Nerath and only a tad more complicated than Risk.

I have the Wiz-War and the expansion (I think I have an expansion for it) and was way fun many years ago. Suddenly I have the urge to break it out again. I wonder why. Hmm... I assume FFG is going to make the parts are purdy, as opposed to shoving it all in an 8x5x1 box.

LordMortis wrote:I have the Wiz-War and the expansion (I think I have an expansion for it) and was way fun many years ago. Suddenly I have the urge to break it out again. I wonder why. Hmm... I assume FFG is going to make the parts are purdy, as opposed to shoving it all in an 8x5x1 box.

Yup.

Wizard Figures


Spell Cards:


Map Tiles:


The running commentary on the rules at BGG states that the FFG rules seem to smooth over some of the inadequacies of the old rules. I recently (about a year ago) sold a copy of the Phil Foglio cover edition of Wiz-War for an egregious sum (considering the parts were paper and chintzy and I think I spent all of $15 on it back in the day). Pity that FFG didn't try or couldn't get Phil Foglio to do some of the art for this edition. I love his comic Girl Genius and his art for Magic: The Gathering is always my favorite.

My group played the tutorial scenario of Mage Knight. I love that game...possibly one of my top favorites ever. Was 3 of us....

Then, one guy had to leave, so that left me and the other guy. So, we played the first quest of the Lord of the Rings card game...and stomped it!! I played the Leadership Deck, and he played the Spirit deck. We beat that quest so bad, I thought we played wrong...but I am fairly certain that we played it ok.

Next week, we pull out Runewars since I have the Banners of War expansion on the way. I am also picking up Middle Earth Quest. That one always looked interesting, but I just never picked it up.

Any thoughts on that one?

Chris

MythicalMino wrote:I am also picking up Middle Earth Quest. That one always looked interesting, but I just never picked it up.

Any thoughts on that one?

Middle Earth Quest is great, and really shines (I think) as a 3-player game. It's semi-cooperative with a team of Heroes against a single Sauron player, and what I like so much is the two sides play almost completely different games. The strategies and tactics are different, the mechanics are different, everything. In addition to the overt win conditions each side has a hidden mission, and it's important I think that everyone is aware of what the hidden mission possibilities are. So much of Sauron's game is subterfuge and misdirection, making the Heroes think he's after one thing while he quietly accomplishes the real mission.

It's exciting, it's tense, and most of our games have come down to the wire. If you're not tired of the Lord of the Rings setting yet, Middle Earth Quest is the epitome of a great adventure game.

I've had that one sitting under my bed for almost a year now. I'm bad at getting games played.

Chaz wrote:I've had that one sitting under my bed for almost a year now. I'm bad at getting games played.

OctoCon

LordMortis wrote:

Chaz wrote:I've had that one sitting under my bed for almost a year now. I'm bad at getting games played.

OctoCon

You havin' that in Boston this year? Sweet!

Chaz wrote:

LordMortis wrote:

Chaz wrote:I've had that one sitting under my bed for almost a year now. I'm bad at getting games played.

OctoCon

You havin' that in Boston this year? Sweet!

If you made it into Western Pennsylvania or Northern New York The drive time would be similar for me.

Chaz wrote:

LordMortis wrote:

Chaz wrote:I've had that one sitting under my bed for almost a year now. I'm bad at getting games played.

OctoCon

You havin' that in Boston this year? Sweet!

We are! Head over to Bus Terminal C at South Station on March 21st with an armful of your favorite games and just wait.

Just got done playing two games of Thunderstone on Facebook. Great, great port of the game. If you're a Facebooker, give it a try!