OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 2:52 am

Have a question in regards to Twilight Struggle.

Thematically speaking, why does the WarGames card end the game?

Love the game, personally. Played a couple games "solo" to learn the rules and all, and the game is just, in my opinion, brilliant (I saw a copy of Here I Stand at my local FLGS, and thinking I may want that just to have it, because I have heard good things about that one too).

But anyways, back to my original question....thinking about THEME, why does the Wargames card end the game. And, how does giving your opponent 6 VPs fit in also? I see the theme in most of the other cards, but this one has me stumped in regards to theme.

Anyone have any idea?

Chris

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 9:14 am

From the rulebook:

WARGAMES — (1956 – 1995) Brinksmanship was a term coined by John Foster Dulles to describe a policy of coming close to war, without falling into the abyss. At different times, during different crises, this policy was pursued by both superpowers. However, there was always the danger that brinksmanship could turn the “cold” war, hot. Additionally, brinksmanship encouraged a nuclear posture of “launch on warning.” Game theory demanded that if your opponent were launching a massive nuclear strike, you would have to launch your own weapons before they could be destroyed in their silos. These doctrines shortened reaction times of world leaders from hours to minutes. On November 9th, 1979, the United States made preparations for a retaliatory nuclear strike when a NORAD computer glitch indicated an all-out Soviet strike had been launched. As recently as 1995, Russia mistook a Norwegian scientific missile launch for an attack, and Boris Yeltsin was asked to decide whether or not to counterattack.

Presumable, "wargames" refers to the game theory mentioned in the card description, which increased the likelihood that an elevated level of threat would trigger nuclear war.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 9:51 am

Yeah, as AWS points out, the back of the rulebook has pretty extensive background on each event.

Although I like to believe that the Wargames card is more about Matthew Broderick than any actual historical event.

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 10:32 am

so, my understanding of the card mechanically....is that once it is played, the opposing player gets 6 vp, the game ends, no final scoring, and whoever has the higher VPs wins the game...correct?

THEMATICALLY, I understand it that the player who plays the card is trying to get as close to a nuclear war without causing a nuclear war.

I still don't understand, though, why the game abruptly ends outright....thematically speaking.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 10:40 am

Thematically, I think War Games pushes the Cold War across the brink, with a nod to the movie's idea that the only way to win at global thermonuclear war is not to play.

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 10:50 am

ok, so that would thematically end the game. And cause a nuclear holocaust, correct? That would end the game, obviously.

Am I understanding how the card works mechanically? There is no Final Scoring, and the winner of the game would be the player who has the most VPs after the card has been played (and the 6 VPs are given to the opposing player)?

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 10:54 am

Final scoring only occurs when the game naturally ends. So yeah.

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 10:59 am

ok, then I played it correctly. Thanks

Chris

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 11:23 am

I'm seeing people gush over Lords of Waterdeep all over the internet, and it's only 30 bucks on Amazon. How is it with 2 players and how wife-friendly is it?

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 11:27 am

I'm going to bust it out at my next gaming night in a few weeks, so I can report back, but I think others have been playing it a bunch already. It was this video that really sold me on it.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 11:32 am

wonderpug wrote:I'm seeing people gush over Lords of Waterdeep all over the internet, and it's only 30 bucks on Amazon. How is it with 2 players and how wife-friendly is it?

I haven't played a 2 player game yet, but so far I've played 5, 4, and 3 player games and they were all great. I can only assume it will be good with 2 players as well.

Not knowing your wife, I'm going to take a stab and say it should be extremely wife friendly. The rules for the game can be explained in about 10 minutes, there are always lots of things to do, and the games are short enough that you aren't signing on for a 3 hour Euro slog. Does she like fantasy? I think that would be a key question...even though you can ignore the fantasy element and just play it as a pure resource gathering game getting the correct orange, black, purple and white cubes to get your victory points, it works much better if you really think of them as fighers, rogues, wizards and clerics going out to complete missions for you.

I'm going to try and see if I can get my wife to play me in a 2 player game tomorrow night. I'll report back.

Daveman · Post by **Daveman** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 11:37 am

I like it a lot, there's been plenty of discussion here about it if you peruse the last page or two. Basically it's a typical worker placement type game with a little bit of "take that!" action card playing tossed in.

I've played 3 games so far, all 2-player with my almost 10 year old son. After the first game they've taken about 45 minutes to play and have been close games up until the final scoring, where we've had 2 last-minutes changes in winner and one blowout. The blowout was in part a result of a perfect mix of certain quests and buildings that came up. Specifically, my "secret" objective included completing Arcana quests. Lots of Arcana quests were drawn to choose from, and several buildings that allowed me to get wizards (often needed to complete Arcana quests) also came into play. I cleaned up at the end.

As much as I've enjoyed the 2-player games, I really want to play with more players. I'm hoping the playing time, relatively easy rules, and not-terribly-important theme will appeal to my wife.

*EDIT* - Heh, nice simul-post there

Like Hentzau said, if you want you can "get into" the theme... read the quests and lore text, picture yourself recruiting rogues at the shadowy inn, etc. Or you can just look at a quest, see you need 4 black, 2 purple cubes and 4 gold and go get them.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 11:42 am

wonderpug wrote:I'm seeing people gush over Lords of Waterdeep all over the internet, and it's only 30 bucks on Amazon. How is it with 2 players and how wife-friendly is it?

I had a bunch of Amazon trade-in credit, so I ordered this, and might get a game in with the gf this weekend, so I should have a first-hand report next week.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 11:49 am

I've had 4 games of 3 or more players and it's played well each time. LoW won't change the world of gaming, but that's not what it intends to do. It's just a solid game that balances perfectly on the edge of filler and meat when it comes to gaming.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 12:00 pm

I got in a 3 player game last night with Tommy and Stuart, and it was a lot of fun. Well, espcially fun for me because I kicked their asses in the game. I got really lucky in being able to set up a constant flow of fighters, which was extremely helpful since I was going for Warfare and Commerce quests, and a lot of Warfare quests came up. I really concentrated on getting those done, and at the end 6 out of 7 quests quests were Warfare and Commerce (the one Arcana quest I got luck and was able to get right away was the Orb of the Magister, which allowed me to place one agent on another location already used by an opponent.) Plus I got a lot of money and resources right at the end, and managed to beat them both by about 30 points. (They both tied for second). Game was close up until the end, I think we were all within about five points of each other.

Hep said it perfectly, it is a great balance between meat and filler. Plays in a short amount of time, has a satisfying experience, great components, nice element of strategy, minor element of "screw you", not overly prone to AP. I'll be glad to play this one whenever anyone wants to.

Also got in a game of Risk Express, and I kicked both their asses again, taking both North and South America for a decisive victory. It was a rare evening of wins for me.

Remus West · Post by **Remus West** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 12:20 pm

When's the next Octocon?

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 12:31 pm

Octocon isn't an event or a place, it's an idea. we can have octocon anywhere.

so i'll meet you at the denny's off I80 at 4 today.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 4:07 pm

Wonderpug, I find LoW very wife friendly. Quick to learn and quick to play. For my views, go to YouTube and type Electronic Eremite reviews Lords of Waterdeep (I would link but I am away from computer). That is my video review of it.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 4:08 pm

baelthazar wrote:YouRube

Is that the dbt version?

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 10:13 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:
baelthazar wrote:YouRube
Is that the dbt version?

How the heck did you catch that?! I corrected it in seconds!

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 10:31 pm

I'm in and out a lot during the work day. Sometimes I get lucky.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 10:57 pm

Played two games this evening. One I liked, the other I absolutely despised.

First up was Revolution!, a blind bidding game where you influence persons of note by outbidding the other players. There are three types of influence: Force, Blackmail, and Gold. Force trumps everything, and Blackmail is more powerful than Gold. Ties award no influence over the person, but you can stack multiple types. Force and Gold beat Force alone, assuming the amount of force applied is equal.

Each of the persons will "reward" the winner with anything from direct VPs, influence in a building worth VPs if you control it at the end, or other types of currency. Some persons are immune to force, some to blackmail, and some to both of those. Money always works, you just have to pay more than the other guys.

A force immune guy will usually get you blackmail currency for the next round, and vice versa. Anything short of five tokens will get you gold to fill you out to 5. If you're over, so much the better.

It's a game that's quick to get through the turns, easy to understand the basics, and not so deep that a newbie (like myself) has a chance to make a good showing. It's got a good deal of meta and conflict, and I enjoyed it.

Contrast that with Hansa Teutonica with the East Expansion Board.

Spend actions to build a point pool, place pieces to stake out a route, move pieces on the board, etc.

I was taught the rules, but given no primer on strategy. Left to my own devices, I didn't happen onto anything remotely coherent until one player was 75% of the way to winning and I started getting the gist of it.

My take away from it was that it took everything I don't like about multiplayer solitaire games and then took it the opposite direction with a deliberate F-U mechanic.

As it is one action to move multiple pieces, if I get to the end of my turn, have no move that can definitively help me, have an action and a piece left to play, it's in my best interest to play it at a location deliberately in someone else's way. Not in the normal sense of blocking someone else, but because if you bump me, I get to freely place that piece plus another one on adjacent roads. If you don't, then I can move that and at least one other piece to where I really needed it to go in the first place, and can leverage that to my advantage later.

Perhaps I underestimate the underhandedness of German traders, but this seemed to be more of an underhanded game than I would have expected. Perhaps something more in line with spy networks or PTAs would have struck me as a better fit.

I enjoy spirited conflict in games, but making a major mechanic out of the F-U move strikes me as a line I don't like crossing. Perhaps my feelings for the game are colored by the fact that I was basically left to founder on my own with no assistance in strategery from the experienced players, but even before I realized that I was abandoned to sink, every F-U move I witness ratcheted up my blood pressure about five points. I was well and truly pissed by the end of the game.

The tl;dr version for HT? DO NOT WANT!

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 11:20 am

Chaosraven wrote:Oh, and LordMortis: there's a single thing I don't have for Small World... the Tunnels expansion, which was a promo at Spiel 2011, which is rules for combining SW and SW:Underground. Now downloaded.

New Small World stuff on it's way:

http://www.coolstuffinc.com/p/Board%20G ... 0Expansion" target="_blank

Daveman · Post by **Daveman** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 3:01 pm

You can still get Tunnels for free + shipping from the Days of Wonder store... but it does look like it'll be included in the Realms expansion coming this summer.

I played a couple games with it, and while I think it's one of the better ways to combine the two games together, I'm still not crazy about it. Small World races have to start on the surface, Underground races below ground... and while there are the tunnels that allow you to move from one map to the other we've rarely felt much need to do so.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 11:58 pm

Got Lords of Waterdeep in. Yeah, that's a swanky insert, and awesome that they included a diagram in the manual.

So the next thing is getting hold of both Mage Knight and Eclipse. Both are about to get reprints. Both may be in short supply even after the reprint. The reprints are due around the same-ish time, but far enough apart that either I order both in one order and the order sits there for a while waiting for Eclipse to come in, or I get them separately and pay an extra $10 in shipping (lame).

Small print runs making games automatically a pain to get make me sad. Also, Amazon Prime shipping has spoiled the hell out of me. Extra shipping charge? WHAAAA?

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 9:47 am

Got my ass kicked in 3 games last night.

First up was a game of 1812 The Invasion of Canada. Seppe played the Yanks, I played the redcoats/Canadians/Indians. I started off strong, but couldn't draw the truce cards I needed to end the game before the damn Yanks could swarm up from their distant mustering points. I'm still not completely sure about this game. On the one hand it does what it's supposed to do perfectly: a light wargame that plays VERY fast yet gives you a sense of actual warfare via simplified area control mechanics. On the other, it can be too simple.

Zarathud arrived during the game, so after we finished up with that we started a game of the oft talked about Lords of Waterdeep. Seppe won that as well while Zarathud and I tied.

I'm trying not to burn out on LoW so we only did one game before moving onto the final game of the night, Mundus Novus. I am absolutely in love with this little game. It's only two decks of cards and some cardboard doubloons, but the gameplay is deceptively deep and varied. Zarathud took to it like a pig to mud and was able to beat us all in a very close game. I can't seem to get enough of the damn game though and look forward to a full game of 6 one day (it takes 2 to 6 players and once learned, can be played in about 45 minutes).

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 10:36 am

Combos and set collections? Yes, I like. And twice I was so close to getting the flush rather than winning on points.

Lords of Waterdeep is just excellent at what it does: light worker placement plus a touch of interrupt your neighbor. If you can keep getting the same type of quests done that fit your lord's objectives, you will stomp everyone else. So next time we'll have to interfere with seppe more.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 10:40 am

He was burning us even before the reveal of his lord and subsequent points. When seppe is concentrating on a game, the likelihood of winning against him is slim to none.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 2:03 pm

Mom kept the kids last night so I got to participate in my first board game session in months.

We hit up Memoir '44. First round I lost 8-7, so a pretty even match on a fairly simple map where the Nazis expectedly won due to their defensive position.

The second round was much more interesting. We played a very complex map with artillery, tanks, and infantry and lots of hills and barriers. Both sides were evenly matched. Fortunately for me the dice got hot, and I ended up destroying my opponent 12-4.

Really fun night. Next session we're going to join our two copies together and play the gigantic D-Day scenario.

SpaceLord · Post by **SpaceLord** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 8:26 pm

The Colonial board game thread over in Forum Games has reached Turn 2. I've pasted the current game board below.

Good times so far!

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 10:48 pm

The tabletop area at PAX East is amazing. Gabe & Tycho said today it's almost its own convention within a convention, and I think I agree. It's basically a football field sized area with a third dedicated to retailers and "we'll teach you" tables, a third dedicated to freeplay rentals, a third dedicated to Magic:TG, and a third dedicated to miniatures. That's right: It can fit that many thirds.

I walked through browsing a couple times, but today I sat down and learned & played a 5 player Small World with an instructor and really really enjoyed myself (and I was only 3 coins away from winning!) I've been wanting to try the game for a long while, and this was a perfect way to do it. I can see myself spending a big chunk of tomorrow just wandering around trying as many new board games as I can.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 11:20 pm

Sounds like the perfect weekend.

WarPig · Post by **WarPig** » Sun Apr 08, 2012 1:43 am

Dominion, Fluxx (pirate, zombie, monty python), and Cards Against Humanity today with friends and family from out of town.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Sun Apr 08, 2012 11:17 pm

Spent the weekend at my GF's place with her and her folks. As background, she and her family play a bunch of parlor and traditional games together, so they're not non-gamers, but geeks they ain't. My GF is becoming more open to this kind of stuff though. We played a game of Scrabble this afternoon, and she asked what games I'd brought. I had a handful in the trunk, and decided to try out Waterdeep, since even though I hadn't played, the whole thing's pretty straightforward.

I started setting it up, and immediately got looks from the folks. As I started into the rules explanation, the furrowed brows came out. My GF reassured them that it'd all make sense when we started playing. I decided to kind of gloss over the actual theme (I didn't think explaining that the orange cubes were fighters was going to help anything), and basically played everyone's first round of worker placement for them to get them the idea.

The first few turns were a little rocky, but by halfway through, they started to get a handle on things. It took them a little longer to really make sense of the intrigue cards and why you'd want to use them, but they figured it out. The game ended with three of us within a point of each other.

Amazingly, they unanimously wanted to play again now that they understood the whole thing, and mom ended up demolishing everyone. So verdict is big thumbs up. It's nice because the theme is there enough to lend some flavor if you want it, but it's just as easy to completely ignore it if it doesn't appeal. For the thirty or so bucks this one runs, I'm very glad I've got it. Unfortunately, I still don't know how it plays with 2, but I'm guessing very well.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 12:03 am

I've had luck with introducing Dominion and Ticket to Ride at family gatherings. My sister repeatedly crushed me at Dominion and the folks like TtR. Catan is always good, and you might be able to get racing fans into Formula D.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 1:39 pm

Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan: An assassin and a traitor sneak into the Lion clan compound to search two buildings for their goals. The Lion clan have standing sentries and moving patrols to try and find the Scorpions.

The ninja can drop those pesky guards with shuriken. The traitor is carrying a six of sake and a couple cats. And they can bring along a few ropes. And together, they have access to a secret passage. Scorpion movement is done secretly on a pad while the Lion has the board with pieces on it. Every time the Scorpions move, they make noise. The farther they move, the farther away they can be heard. The Lion, while the alert level is low, can only listen with two locations.

The Scorpions can search each turn once they're inside the buildings, call out two locations, which can be any of the spots that they were in at any point, including the start location. The Lion has seeded the board, so there are the goals, traps, hidden guards, etc.

A pretty fun little game. I played the cat-chucking traitor, and managed to find my goal right off, giving the Honored Guest a close shave. The ninja was never able to find the supply cache and fire it before the sun came up.

Stone Age Worker placement and resource management with a bit of rolling going on. Have your workers increase the farming research, head to the breeding hut, research tools, increase your jewelry trading skills, or go try to acquire resources. For the resources, every worker placed there gets a die to roll. You divide your pips by the cost of the resource to get each level.

Resources are used to feed your meeples, traded for cards that have immediate effects and VP conditions, then there are huts that have costs and also can gain resources, tech benefits, etc.

I managed to get over 100 VPs and not come in last. The owner, also a published game designer, managed to crush the rest of us with over 200 VPs at the end.

I also enjoyed it and wouldn't mind playing it again.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 7:06 pm

I really enjoyed Stone Age, it inspired me to cobble together a little game of my own. A bit of Allocation like Stone Age, buildings like 51st State production/effect, a planning stage like Shogun, and a pair of decks (one for events, one for War/Attack).

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 10:09 pm

Played a game of Vinhos last night with 3 others and some nice Portugese wine. A lot of our moves were sub-optimal as we learned the intricacies of building vinyards, producing wine, selling for money, exporting for VPs, influencing experts, gathering extra actions and winning wine tasting events. Even choosing one of your 12 actions in a game involves a placement mechanic. It's a bit overwhelming at the start but everything gels mid-game.

Pro tips: Producing only a few bottles of awesome wine puts you at a disadvantage for extra actions. Cashing out money at the right time is critical, as is knowing when to use an expert bonus or cash him in for points at the wine tasting.

I had something of a hangover this morning, but it was well worth the fun.

phoenfyre · Post by **phoenfyre** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 7:46 am

Zarathud wrote:Played a game of Vinhos last night with 3 others and some nice Portugese wine. A lot of our moves were sub-optimal as we learned the intricacies of building vinyards, producing wine, selling for money, exporting for VPs, influencing experts, gathering extra actions and winning wine tasting events. Even choosing one of your 12 actions in a game involves a placement mechanic. It's a bit overwhelming at the start but everything gels mid-game.

Pro tips: Producing only a few bottles of awesome wine puts you at a disadvantage for extra actions. Cashing out money at the right time is critical, as is knowing when to use an expert bonus or cash him in for points at the wine tasting.

I had something of a hangover this morning, but it was well worth the fun.

I've been tempted to pick this up, but I am afraid it would be too complicated for my normal group of players. It looks like a lot of fun though.

Has anyone seen the new Ogre up on kickstarter? I'm drooling over it, but I don't know that I can afford a game that large that will get so little play. I'm trying to convince another local player to pick it up instead.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/847 ... n?ref=live" target="_blank

Just look at how big that box is!

For those wondering how Lords of Waterdeep playes with two, I've read that some people think it plays best with two, as you have a lot more options each turn. I've played it with two and with three; the game played differently with both but was really enjoyable either way. I'm eager to try this game with five players to see how that works out.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 8:39 am

phoenfyre wrote: Has anyone seen the new Ogre up on kickstarter? I'm drooling over it, but I don't know that I can afford a game that large that will get so little play. I'm trying to convince another local player to pick it up instead.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/847 ... n?ref=live" target="_blank

Just look at how big that box is!

For those wondering how Lords of Waterdeep playes with two, I've read that some people think it plays best with two, as you have a lot more options each turn. I've played it with two and with three; the game played differently with both but was really enjoyable either way. I'm eager to try this game with five players to see how that works out.

Ogre was the game that got me started in boardgaming/wargaming/roleplaying. I ordered Metagaming Concepts' Ogre and Wizard from the back of an issue of Boy's life magazine. Played them both a ton...even got my dad to try Ogre with me once, which, after I pulled off a rule's lawyery move that Zarathud would have been proud of, he swore to never play a hex-based boardgame again. So from a nostalgia issue it's cool, but I certainly will not drop that kind of money on the game.

And LoW is great with 5. Choices get a lot more limited, so you have to be really flexible in your strategy.