Octopus Overlords

Chaosraven wrote:I'm skeptical of "wasting" my one night this week gaming LEARNING a game.

This is why I'm really glad that I'm able to absorb game rules by simply pressing the manual against my forehead for 2 1/2 minutes.

hepcat wrote:

Chaosraven wrote:I'm skeptical of "wasting" my one night this week gaming LEARNING a game.

This is why I'm really glad that I'm able to absorb game rules by simply pressing the manual against my forehead for 2 1/2 minutes.

Mine is almost as efficient.

Come over and press your forehead against my bellybutton while I read the manual.

((HepC: are you finished? CR: Yooooou'll know.))

Remus and I ran thru the Intro Scenario a few times tonight to teach me the MageKnight game.

Pretty cool.

Chaosraven wrote:Remus and I ran thru the Intro Scenario a few times tonight to teach me the MageKnight game.

Pretty cool.

So much for not wasting an evening.

Thanx for the invite.

LordMortis wrote:

Chaosraven wrote:Remus and I ran thru the Intro Scenario a few times tonight to teach me the MageKnight game.

Pretty cool.

So much for not wasting an evening.

Thanx for the invite.

Did you REALLY want to sit there and watch Remus shoving CR's head into his bare belly while he read the rules to MK out loud for 30 minutes?

p.s. I'm disappointed in miniaturemarket.com for jacking the price of Mage Knight up to 70 bucks on their site. I bought it for 55 a few months ago when they briefly had stock of the 1st print run. That they're taking advantage of the shortage to charge almost retail is rather dickish of them.

Doesn't he sound like a jealous girlfriend?

Hepcat finally managed to beat down my resistance and got me to play a game of Twilight Struggle with him. I had been...well, not avoiding. Trying out the game had never been a priority for me, just because I'm not that interested in the the theme. But we both had an evening free, and I just couldn't turn down his boo-boo face any longer.

Well, it turns out he was right, it really is a great game. Through the first two turns, I really didn't have a great grasp of either rules or strategy, and by the third turn he (playing as the US) came within one Ops Point of winning the game by having control of Europe (I forgot that that was a winning condition.) But then I started to get into the groove of it, and started to slowly take control of Eastern Europe and the middle east. He had went after me very aggressively in the early war, pushing the Defcon up to 2 during the first round. Thereafter, since I was always going first, I would try and do a coup early on in each round, to lock him out of any further coups and getting a couple of VPs because he couldn't generate any MPs. By the time we hit the late war, I had a very comfortable lead of 14 VPs and during the first turn I got lucky and drew the Wargames card that ended the game if we were at DefCon 2, while giving him 6 VPs, which was plenty for me to win the game outright.

Synopsis: Much more enjoyable that I had thought. I think I got VERY lucky winning this game. I'm going to think long and hard about adding this one to my collection. Thanks for the game, Hep!

it really is a fantastic game. I've been working on teaching this to a buddy of mine but he keeps making excuses not to try it out due to lack of time or whatever. I'll reel him in eventually.

hentzau wrote: I think I got VERY lucky winning this game.

Nonsense, you won because you played better than me. You took to it like a fish to water around the end of early war. I'm glad you enjoyed it. It really is one of those classics everyone should try at least once. I'm just sorry we didn't get a chance to try A Few Acres of Snow, although I am scheduled to play at Origins with Zarathud in a couple of weeks.

I went ahead and put in an order for 1989 at the game store while we were there. Looking forward to trying that out soon.

One of the reasons I love Twilight Stuggle is that you can make up points later in the right conditions. If hepcat was making a big push at Europe, that by necessity left him vulnerable elsewhere. Since you capitalized on that, you did a great job.

Two more rounds of Monsterpoclypse, which continues to be quite enjoyable. This time we upped the number of units (from 5 to 10) and reduced the buildings to the minimum number required for the map (which in this case was 6). The idea was we would try and incorporate more strategy in taking over buildings to gain their benefits. However, for this map the building locations that you're required to fill first were all in the center, so it was rather difficult to control a building for very long as they tend to be used for Monster destruction. But I can definitely see the strategy element now in placing buildings as part of the game setup as there are definitely buildings you want to keep closer to your spawn points as they confer rather nice benefits. For example, I was able to secure a radar array which boosted my ranged attacks from 5 spaces to 7. While seemingly small, it really made a difference each turn.

Anyway, I was playing again as the Terrasuars and my buddy once again opting for the Empire of the Apes. It would seem that his Ape monsters really shine when brawling and my Terrasaur monsters are rather versatile as he's yet to beat me after four games. I almost killed his alpha Ape after the first move when I picked him up and tossed him through two buildings. Instead of being rubble, the second building was an oil refinery so when he stopped in that spot, he was in a raging inferno, doing additional damage. Once again I ended the game when I pitched him into the nuclear reactor, which always amuses me. We're getting much faster now, though I'm still not sure you could ever play the game in 60 minutes. Our second game was 90 minutes; the first was about 120 but maybe it's possible if you really stick to one type of loadout and really get to know your monster and units.

I still give this game a huge thumbs up and I really have no idea how we missed hearing about this game for so long. There's definitely more strategy than you would think just by looking at it. You can play it at the lowest level and just move things around, but now the elements are really starting to come together for me mentally and I'm seeing how combining unit attacks, taking over buildings, using units to block monster movement, etc... really can make a difference. As nervous as I was about wanting to collect every figure, I'm really getting into the Terrasuars and I don't really care too much about the other factions right now, mostly because there's just so much to learn.

I showed hentzau my copy last night at the gameshop before starting up twilight struggle. i still have my figures in their shipping plastic, for god's sake. i need to find some time to play this with someone.

We got in a couple more games of MK this weekend. We played the first competitive scenario twice. Three players took about 7 hours for the first game and about 4 1/2 for the second. I'm guessing when all players his their stride a three player game will be about 3 1/2 hours and probably close to 5 for a four player.

The shame about that is that it makes it hard to do an afterwork game or get in two games in a weekend unless you start fairly early. I'm really digging it but it's a big commitment for this beer and pretzel gamer who like to get in four or five games in a long day session.

Try the scenarios with the name "Blitz" in them. They have one for the coop and the competitive conquest scenarios I believe. They play a bit faster.

A nasty head cold dropped me on Thursday, so I passed on infecting everyone at the monthly boardgame meetup.

hepcat wrote:Try the scenarios with the name "Blitz" in them. They have one for the coop and the competitive conquest scenarios I believe. They play a bit faster.

I think we'll continue to speed up in our turns as well given that we have only played with the full set of rules twice so there is still a lot of "wait, you can not do that." We did cut over 2 hours off the time between games 1 and 2 and in game 1 nobody ever got around to assaulting a city. In game 2 we conquered all three of them.

Geekway to the West wrapped up last night, and I'm spent. Four days of solid gaming, occasionally til the wee hours. By my count, at least 27 games played over the weekend. I'll give more of a rundown later, but surprise hits of the con for me were Flash Point: Fire Rescue and Merchants & Marauders. Special highlight was probably playing Blood Bowl Team Manager with the designer.

Saturday I got to play some disc golf for the first time in 20 months. Then I went over to a friend's house and we played Catan with Seafarers (I won), Dominion (I won), then nightfall (lost by 1 wound). We had a blast. It was a good way to kill 4 hours on a saturday afternoon.

Thanks to Wil Wheaton's tabletop and a few of you here I am probably going to buy ticket to ride in the very near future. We are also looking for some more board games to buy and I have an addiction, so I will probably buy all the games y'all play and review positively.

Boudreaux wrote:Geekway to the West wrapped up last night, and I'm spent. Four days of solid gaming, occasionally til the wee hours. By my count, at least 27 games played over the weekend. I'll give more of a rundown later, but surprise hits of the con for me were Flash Point: Fire Rescue and Merchants & Marauders. Special highlight was probably playing Blood Bowl Team Manager with the designer.

I was really, really tempted to head down there this weekend, but my wife had annual Norwegian Independence Day activities that fell on this weekend this year. I told my buddy Joe about it, and he was actually supposed to be in St. Louis over the weekend and was thinking about heading over there for a few hours. No clue if he made it though.

I'm really going to shoot for this next year. Sounds like a good time.

hentzau wrote:I was really, really tempted to head down there this weekend, but my wife had annual Norwegian Independence Day activities that fell on this weekend this year.

Did you find out what that weird rock, paper, scissors game was that you filmed last year when they were playing crokinole?

Boudreaux wrote:Geekway to the West wrapped up last night, and I'm spent. Four days of solid gaming, occasionally til the wee hours. By my count, at least 27 games played over the weekend. I'll give more of a rundown later, but surprise hits of the con for me were Flash Point: Fire Rescue and Merchants & Marauders. Special highlight was probably playing Blood Bowl Team Manager with the designer.

I really like Merchants & Marauders.

miltonite wrote:

hentzau wrote:I was really, really tempted to head down there this weekend, but my wife had annual Norwegian Independence Day activities that fell on this weekend this year.

Did you find out what that weird rock, paper, scissors game was that you filmed last year when they were playing crokinole?

No, this is a different Scandinavian event, and I doubt that I'll ever run across those guys again. They flew into Chicago from Sweden specifically for the Scandinavian Day Picnic, so the odds are I'll never see them again.

hentzau wrote:I'm really going to shoot for this next year. Sounds like a good time.

It was a blast. There's a huge board gaming community in St. Louis, the local Meetup group has events several times a week. Unfortunately I don't have the time to attend very often these days, so Geekway is where I cram several months' worth of gaming into four days.

Here's a rundown of the games I played over the weekend:

The Resistance
Flash Point: Fire Rescue
Lords of Waterdeep
Defenders of the Realm
Brass
Confusion: Espionage and Deception in the Cold War
The Castles of Burgundy
Navegador
Mage Knight
Eclipse
Tsuro
Dice Town
Letters From Whitechapel
King of Tokyo
Merchants & Marauders
Blood Bowl: Team Manager
War of the Ring

On Saturday, I played:

Rolling Freight for a 2nd time. It's awesome, but good god does it foster slow play(AP- Analysis Paralysis).

See the image below from the 'Geek:



Each of the cylinders is a good to be shipped. Each of the circles is a city. Each city produces a random good once per game, during 3 phases. Each of the cities, in addition, demands a certain color of good.

So not only do you have to see what cities want what goods, you have to count how many dice each delivery will cost you. Half the goods give bonuses for being shipped long distances, and half for shorter deliveries. It's insane, I can spend 10-15 minutes planning out a route, and I'm not prone to AP.

We played 2/3 of a game that still took 4 hours.

Boudreaux wrote: Here's a rundown of the games I played over the weekend:
The Castles of Burgundy
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Castles is fantastic. Stefan Feld is one of my favorite designers.

I had never heard of it, and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Winning by a couple dozen points didn't hurt, either.

I spent all day Sunday playing Risk: Legacy. Let me just say, we have opened all but one pack and the game is FAR different (and more fun) than it was in the beginning. I had brought more complex games like BSG and LoW, but Risk: Legacy had that "just one more game" quality that we couldn't put down!

Tom Vasel reviews Rolling Freight and calls it the best train game he's played. I hope this gives this great game some exposure.

I hate to say this, but Tom Vasel calls a LOT of games the greatest <fill in the blanks> game he's ever played. Not saying it's NOT a great game, I'm just saying Tom is not my go to guy for reviews lately.

He does have a tendency to get overly enthusiastic about the Flavor of the Month, doesn't he?

I'm planning on a full weekend of gaming. Heading down to my parents for the long weekend, and filling up the underseat storage of my van with games. Going to get in a game of A Few Acres of Snow with my brother, and then whatever strikes Joe and my interest on Sunday. Maybe even a game of Twilight Struggle (yes, I bought the damn game after playing it with hep. I'm so weak.)

hepcat wrote:I hate to say this, but Tom Vasel calls a LOT of games the greatest <fill in the blanks> game he's ever played. Not saying it's NOT a great game, I'm just saying Tom is not my go to guy for reviews lately.

That's exactly why I stopped listening to him ages ago. Enthusiasm is great and all, but he's always incredibly positive about just about everything he talks about.

hentzau wrote:Maybe even a game of Twilight Struggle (yes, I bought the damn game after playing it with hep. I'm so weak.)

Nonsense. Twilight Struggle is a game anyone should be proud to own.

Chaz wrote:

hepcat wrote:I hate to say this, but Tom Vasel calls a LOT of games the greatest <fill in the blanks> game he's ever played. Not saying it's NOT a great game, I'm just saying Tom is not my go to guy for reviews lately.

I can show you 30 reviews in the past year that Tom's been "meh" about. Heck, several he outright thrashed. He's only called one game in the past year "one of the best *overall* games I've ever played. He often calls a game "one of the best of the year", which is not nearly the same thing coming from a guy who owns 800 games. His Top 10 of all time compiled last year only had 1 new entry, ST:Fleet Commanders.


He's right here though, RF is great. It can just bog down.

Boudreaux wrote:

hentzau wrote:Maybe even a game of Twilight Struggle (yes, I bought the damn game after playing it with hep. I'm so weak.)

Nonsense. Twilight Struggle is a game anyone should be proud to own.

Check to make sure you don't have replacement cards that need to be put into your game to replace errata'd cards. I had to order mine, but Zarathud's 2nd print run had them in a little baggie in the game. Not sure if the edition you have has them incorporated yet.

As for Vasel, I still like the guy's reviews, I just take them with a grain of salt now. I held him up as an example of Star Trek Fleet Captains' greatness when it initially came out, but after that I saw quite a run of exuberant reviews of stuff that didn't seem to go beyond "I love the theme".

I'll have to check out the train game you mentioned though.

I found Cosmic Encounter players!!!!

((SNOOPY DANCE))

SpaceLord wrote:

Chaz wrote:

hepcat wrote:I hate to say this, but Tom Vasel calls a LOT of games the greatest <fill in the blanks> game he's ever played. Not saying it's NOT a great game, I'm just saying Tom is not my go to guy for reviews lately.

I can show you 30 reviews in the past year that Tom's been "meh" about. Heck, several he outright thrashed. He's only called one game in the past year "one of the best *overall* games I've ever played. He often calls a game "one of the best of the year", which is not nearly the same thing coming from a guy who owns 800 games. His Top 10 of all time compiled last year only had 1 new entry, ST:Fleet Commanders.


He's right here though, RF is great. It can just bog down.

Tom evokes quite a reaction from other board game reviewers as well. Some are bitter of his popularity. Some dislike his style. For such a positive and largely personable-seeming guy, he can be quite polarizing. I know one other fairly prolific reviewer who very much dislikes Tom's style. I rarely watch him any more - first, because I just do my own reviews now, second because he burned me on Star Trek: Fleet Commanders (and a few others).

I've heard Rolling Freight is a long game and can get a bit exhausting. The aesthetic looks dreadfully boring to me, but I would be willing to try it and be proven wrong.

What doesn't look boring is the contents of this giant package of review copies from GMT I got today! I am giddy about trying out 1989, which just looks marvelous and Virgin Queen (although I'm not sure where to find the players or the time for that one... still, it also looks excellent). Some of my compatriots will get to try out Bomber Command and Sicily: Fast Action Battles.

I'll keep people posted about my impressions. I'm literally drooling over 1989, and I'm either planning to force the wife to play or solo play it because I'm so excited!

Like I said, I don't dislike Vasel. I just don't buy games solely on his word any more. And while I agree that Star Trek Fleet Captains has some balancing issues (Feds can win by turtling and doing science missions pretty easily) I'm hoping the upcoming Romulan expansion adds a new dynamic to the game. I think there's a good game in there, it just needs a few tweaks to make it really shine, imho.

baelthazar wrote:I'll keep people posted about my impressions. I'm literally drooling over 1989, and I'm either planning to force the wife to play or solo play it because I'm so excited!

It's fun! I posted some impressions on the previous page; I'm curious to hear your take.

I have my order in at our local FLGS. I fully expect to have it in my hands by this time in 2014.

Chaosraven wrote:I found Cosmic Encounter players!!!!

((SNOOPY DANCE))

play with them for 2 straight weeks nonstop and see how much they want to play after that.

Nerdsday night I assume?