OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 2:43 pm

Played a couple games of Qwarmageddon with Remus and my sons (one for Remus and one for my youngest). Then I won the ESPWotBW:DaMS game (first time for Remus and my older son)

Debris · Post by **Debris** » Sun Jul 29, 2012 10:29 am

I played a few games of Descent 2nd edition for the first time last night with my Son-in-law and my 11yo grandson. It was a lot more streamlined than the original game, but I thought it was much more fun and actually improves the game play as we moved pretty quickly from one round to the next. Even though some of the scenarios seemed to be tilted to one side or the other, they all seemed to be very close and challenging for us.

The last scenario we played came down to one die roll. The Overlord lieutenant (me) needed to fend off the very last attack of the players. He had 2 dice and just needed to absorb or block 1 damage in order to capture the object the next turn. I rolled the dice and both came up blank! The players won the day and there was much rejoicing.

Remus West · Post by **Remus West** » Sun Jul 29, 2012 10:40 pm

Chaosraven wrote:Then I won the ESPWotBW:DaMS game (first time for Remus and my older son)

This game is actually a lot more fun than it has any right to be. I'm still not sure WTF was going on but I had fun playing it.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Mon Jul 30, 2012 12:50 am

Got in several games of Crokinole with my wife while we were waiting for the CSO to perform tonight. Man, that game attracts a ton of attention every time I bring it out.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Mon Jul 30, 2012 11:24 am

A couple weeks back Tanga had a deal on Factory Fun. and I picked it up. I've played 3 games with my 6 year old and I think it's pretty interesting. The idea of the game is to build a factory. Simple enough. The idea is you get machines that have one to three inputs varying in color and "size" and an output also varying in color and size. The way you get these machines is competitive. There's a pile of machines face down. Each player takes one at random and the players put them all out in the middle of the table and flip them over at the same time. First person to touch a machine with the other hand, gets it and then has to place it in their factory.

The factory design is where the real trouble is in that building anything costs money. Also some resources are limited. You only have 1 of each of the 4 color sources and you only have 3 output recepticles. The game is supposed to be 10 rounds where you can place up to 10 machines (you don't have to pick a machine each round and if you pick one and can't place it you can toss it for a $5 penalty).There are straight pipes and curves, souble curves, crossovers, splits and forks so your design can be pretty complex. Each person has their own game board and it has a classic and expert side. The expert side putting a wall through half the factory making things harder.

You get a special bonus for feeding a machine off the output of other machines, so chaining machines pays off well. This also means that the race to pick a machine once they are flipped isn't as simple as picking the machine with the biggest payoff.

With my son, I played smaller games, only placing 6 machines because once you go beyond that things can get pretty tricky with the chaining and branching and merging and the layout can be daunting.

For $20 shipped I think it was well worth it vs $32.49 at CSI.

http://www.tanga.com/deals/cd262a094d/f ... board-game" target="_blank

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 10:04 am

This past weekend Redwarlord was in town so we had a Saturday 12 hour game-a-thon.

At 2, Seppe, red and I started with the new Dominant Species: The Card Game that red bought me for my birthday. It's basically a trick game but I really enjoyed it. True, it's an abstraction of the theme found in its big brother, but it's very easy to learn and is a nice palate cleanser when playing heavier games. Games take around 15 minutes per player on average.

After that it was a couple of very quick games of King of Tokyo. Always a crowd pleaser. I can't wait for the expansion.

Then we tried the intro scenario for Descent 2nd edition. I'm pretty happy with the changes so far. It sets up quickly and plays even quicker. I explained the rules in about 10 minutes and after that a nice player aid from BGG.com helped players become self sufficient in short order. The only things I'd argue for are zones of control when moving near enemy units, and rest taking up your full turn (right now you can perform rest and one other action...I think there should be more penalty for restoring your stamina back to its starting level. It seems odd you can move and rest on the same turn.). We liked it so much, we later played the Fat Goblin scenario with Zarathud and played through both encounters within it.

After that we played some Olympos. I really am digging this game still. It gives you a full feeling without taking hours to finish. Unfortunately, I was getting cranky due to the heat of the day and started snapping at people during the game. I really cannot handle hot days. The air conditioner helped, but not enough.

Then we jumped over to the old standby, Alien Frontiers. Zarathud had just received the factions expansion pack so we tossed it into the mix.

Honestly, I'm not sure about the expansion. The reason I like Alien Frontiers so much is that it's a very tight, streamlined game. It's a light to mid weight game in its base form and the factions added enough to tip that more towards the mid range. It didn't help that the manual explaining the factions and their game mechanics is atrocious. We had to talk through a few of the factions to understand what they were supposed to do. They really need to fix that up before the next print run.

Finally, we ended the evening with us splitting into two groups and playing the mini games that come with the starter packs for Dungeon Command. Granted, it wasn't a full game we played but it certainly gave me a feel for how the game flows. I like it and I think it's going to get better once we start customizing our warbands. The only downside is that it's a bit pricey to get into at 39.99 a starter. However, I think most online sites have the starter sets for around 26 bucks, so that alleviates the pain a bit.

EzeKieL · Post by **EzeKieL** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 3:10 pm

We're thinking of playing a 4 player full conquest scenario of Mage Knight. We've all done the introduction mission so we kind of know the mechanics and how to play and so on.

How long do you think a game like that would take? Roughly.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 3:15 pm

EzeKieL wrote:We're thinking of playing a 4 player full conquest scenario of Mage Knight. We've all done the introduction mission so we kind of know the mechanics and how to play and so on.

How long do you think a game like that would take? Roughly.

Without Experience and the high probability of needing to re read stuff, I'd say three to four hours depending on how much analysis you guys go through. When you start wanting to attacking multiple guys at once and need to work through if it's even possible that takes time even when you're more familiar with the game.

EzeKieL · Post by **EzeKieL** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 11:02 pm

aha thanks. We'll give it a shot ^^

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 9:24 am

Monday night Tommy, Stuart and I got in a game of Village, and I have to say, I was quite taken by the game.

In the game, you are playing the role of a family trying to achieve fame and fortune in a small medieval village. You start with four members of our family, your family farm, and a map of the village. In the village are various random resources scattered in multiple action areas: Harvest, Market Day, Traveling, City Council, The Church, Family, and Crafting. There is also spaces for the village chronicle, the village Well, and the graveyard. The Farm card is used to show family members that aren't assigned to a location, as well as the amount of grain you have in your stores, and a time track around the outside edge of the farm.

On your turn, you take one of the randomized resources (cubes of different colors) from a location, and this allows you to perform that location's action. For instance, you can take an orange cube from the Harvest location, and get 2 bags of grain from the stores to add to your farm. Next turn, you may grab another orange cube from the Craft area, take one of your family members and move them into an apprenticeship in one of the craft buildings, costing you 3 time units, and then that apprentice can make you whatever that building provides for another 3 time units. So you grab yourself a cart. On your next turn, you decide to go traveling, so you take a green resource from the Travel location, and then pay your two orange cubes, your wagon, and 2 time units, and move one of your family members onto the first city in the travel area, gaining you that bonus for the area, and you place a marker on it to show that you visited there. A round continues until all of the resource cubes in play have been gathered up. Once all of the resources have been gathered, you then have a Mass, where the family with the most members in church gets some bonus prestige. The other areas:

Family: Allows you to take another family member from your reserve and add them to your active members. All of the family members are numbered, from 1-4. You have to take the lowest numbered family members first.
Church: Take one of your family members and try and get them accepted by the church. This is a random chance, where all of the applicants are dumped into a bag and 4 at random are pulled out (including a number of generic black monk figures, meaning you are never guaranteed a spot in the church.)
Council: Pay green influence cubes and some time, and get into the village council! This grants you bonuses, including stealing the first player action, getting resources of your choice, etc. Plus bonus Prestige points at the end of the game, based on how far in the council you advance.
Market Day: At this location, you have a group of customers wanting to buy different things. During Market Day, all players can sell off their goods to these people for prestige points at the end.

Now, many of the actions you see on the board are going to cost you one very important resource: Time. You move a marker around your farm track for every time point you use. There are also Plague resource cubes that will cost you time as well. Once the marker has moved all the way around your track and crossed the bridge, you MUST kill one of your lowest numbered family members. These family members can be taken from any location on the board, or your farm. Once you remove them, you add them to the village chronicle if there is still a space in the chronicle for them. For instance, in a 3 player game, you can only have one body in the chronicle space for Travel, so the first player to kill off a family member while traveling gets that space. If a second player would happen to kill off a traveler, then they would end up going into one of the anonymous grave spots, earning that player no bonuses at game end.

It's this little morbid piece of business that I think really separates this game from other Euros that I have played: the management of the death of your family members. When we first started playing, we were trying to avoid spending time as much as possible, because we didn't want to kill off any of our family members. Sometime around the third turn, it dawned on me that to have any chance of winning the game, you have to be somewhat aggressive about killing off people to gain spots in the village chronicle, for the bonus prestige points you gain at the end. But it's painful decision, because you paid a lot of resources to get that 1st generation family member to the highest spot in the council. But, death's a bitch.

The resource cubes were just that: Resource cubes. Even though the game says what the resource cubes are in the manual (stuff like speaking and skill and the like) to us they were merely colored blocks, and I knew that I needed to have a pink and an orange one to buy that plow. The theme kinda fell apart at this point.

We also ran into a problem with the resources. Early on in the game, Stuart took a cube from the Council, and handed over a green and brown cube to add a family member to the Council. Tom and I did a bit of a "huh?" because the council wanted two green cubes. It was at this point that we discovered that Stuart could not distinguish between the green and brown cubes. Printed on the board, he could tell them apart, but when he had the actual physical cubes, he was clueless, he just couldn't tell. Color blindness is a bitch. And oddly, this is the first time in a long time that his color blindness has caused a problem in a game. Well, to resolve the issue so we could continue to play, I grabbed a Sharpie and put a black dot on one face of each of the brown cubes. It offended Tommy's sensibilities that I was defacing a brand new game, but a little black dot didn't bother me none too much.

We weren't able to play a full game, because we got started late, but I really enjoyed what we were able to play. From our one run through the game, it seemed like the Market Day space was VERY powerful...I was able to snag the Market Day space each turn, and when we did end the game, I was 20 points ahead of the next closest player. We didn't have hardly anyone in the village chronicle though, so the bonues from that, and the council and church spaces never came into play.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one. The art on the board is exceptional. Putting the little number stickers on the meeples was a pain, and the resource cubes...well, their color choices were unique. Gameplay was different with the time/death mechanic, and the rounds were all different based on the resources that came out.

If you like medium weight Euros, this one is a good one. On the weighting scale, I'd put this one a little bit above Lords of Waterdeep.

Boudreaux · Post by **Boudreaux** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 12:39 pm

EzeKieL wrote:We're thinking of playing a 4 player full conquest scenario of Mage Knight. We've all done the introduction mission so we kind of know the mechanics and how to play and so on.

How long do you think a game like that would take? Roughly.

I played multiple 4-player games of Mage Knight at a recent game con, and every one of them took around 3 hours. The usual decrease in playtime that comes with familiarity was countered by the added time we spent thinking and strategizing as we got better at the game.

Daveman · Post by **Daveman** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 5:55 pm

Our extended family rented a house at the shore this week. I was only able to stay for Saturday through Monday but there was enough bad weather that we managed to get in several good games before I had to leave...

1. King of Tokyo. This remains a big hit with everyone. Lots of fun with a surprising amount of strategy to it but is still fast playing. Our early games were mostly monster-free-for-alls with most games going to last man standing. Now we're a lot more careful, generally trying for point wins unless someone slips up, gets really low on health and then the claws come out. My favorite personal win was a 4 player game where I was beat down and accomplished little the whole game. Everyone else had 13+ points while I had about 5. While trying to heal one round I wound up with 1 claw and my opponent yielded Tokyo to me... not what I wanted. By some miracle no one rolled any claws against me and I started my next turn in Tokyo. I rolled 5 claws, wiped the power up cards and revealed the one that does 3 damage to all other players. Everyone was at 7-8 health... BAM! Killed them all

2. Alien Frontiers. I've had this since it first came out but this was the first time I got it to the table. Everyone but my 10 year old son loved it. He seemed kind of bored but admittedly his rolls weren't so hot and he rarely had any good options beside putting his ships on the Colonist Hub. Boring as that seemed to him it did keep him competitive throughout the game. My father and brother-in-law monopolized the lunar mine early on and that really seemed to put me behind. They had 4-5 ships for a long time before I got my 4th ship into play. But I hung in there and stayed competitive too, mostly because I used the Alien Artifact a lot. Toward the end I played a lot of colony-shifting games with some discard powers but it wasn't enough to prevent my father-in-law from winning.

3. Ticket to Ride: India. I was really hoping for a 5 player game of TtR: Europe but we only had 4 interested so we did our first 4-player game of India. I really like this map. I've come to the conclusion India is my favorite map for 3-4 players (it doesn't support 5). Europe is a close 2nd... but the long routes, ferries, tunnels and train stations make it a little more complicated with new players. India only adds in ferries and a slightly different bonus scoring mechanic and is much easier to teach. Plus the map is just brutal, with a web of short, interconnected routes all over the board and a ring of larger routes along the outer edge. It's very easy for the more obvious, direct routes to get blocked, forcing you to find a way around. There are plenty of ways to do so, but it gets very competitive very quickly.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 8:49 am

Ugg, I'm teetering on the edge of putting in an Amazon order for Merchants & Marauders and the War of the Ring upgrade kit. Teetering, I tell you!

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 9:18 am

Chaz wrote:Ugg, I'm teetering on the edge of putting in an Amazon order for Merchants & Marauders and the War of the Ring upgrade kit. Teetering, I tell you!

Can't tell you anything about WotR, but I love M&M. Doesn't hit the table nearly enough.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 10:10 am

hentzau wrote:
Chaz wrote:Ugg, I'm teetering on the edge of putting in an Amazon order for Merchants & Marauders and the War of the Ring upgrade kit. Teetering, I tell you!
Can't tell you anything about WotR, but I love M&M. Doesn't hit the table nearly enough.

WotR is one of my all-time top 3 games, and I mainly want the bigger cards from the upgrade kit to replace my first edition micro-font cards. I've heard enough about M&M to make me think that it's the pirate game I was hoping Blackbeard would be.

Edit: Okay, I decided to be good and only ordered M&M. I'll get the WotR upgrade kit at some point, but I can continue to love it in all its retro glory for a while longer and save myself $20.

SpaceLord · Post by **SpaceLord** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 1:35 pm

I've demoed enough games of Shadowrift now that I've put together two bulk orders of 6 copies. At 26 bucks, it's a fucking steal.

And yes, the game is as good as advertised. It's awesome that you can build fighters, rogues, healers, and builders/merchants in a deck-building game.

It's also the first game I'm aware of that you can do combos between players:

I play a card that lets everyone in the party look at, and discard one of the top two cards of their deck. The guy to my right can look at his top 3 cards, and put an attack or a Wound(think Curse) into hand. First, he discards a useless card due to my played card, and then looks at the top three cards, and puts an attack card into hand. Then, another player plays a card that allows all other players to draw a card. The 2nd player knows that the top of his deck now has a "draw another" card on top, so he draws 2 cards.

You *need* this kind of cooperation in this game, since some of the monster decks are nasty:

Each round, the baddies get "power points"(PP) equal to the number of players. These points are then used to put cards from the monster deck into play. As an example, a really nasty monster deck is Demons. With the Demon deck, helpful villagers are replaced with Cultists, who help bring monsters into play faster by adding a PP. Since Cultists are not friendly villagers, if your town is full of Cultists and Corpses, game over.

The monsters in the Demon deck are nasty as well:

One monster says that players cannot remove Cultists from play.
Another discards innocent villagers are replaces them with Cultists.
Another monster's ability discards villagers from the top of the town deck, except for Corpses and Cultists, so it cycles the Cultists through much faster.
And, finally, the Boss monster puts Cultists into play the first two turns, is immune to damage while a cultist is in play, and, on turn 3, sacrifices a Cultist. If she does, the heroes lose.

Fan-tasic.

EzeKieL · Post by **EzeKieL** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 10:06 pm

Boudreaux wrote:
EzeKieL wrote:We're thinking of playing a 4 player full conquest scenario of Mage Knight. We've all done the introduction mission so we kind of know the mechanics and how to play and so on.

How long do you think a game like that would take? Roughly.
I played multiple 4-player games of Mage Knight at a recent game con, and every one of them took around 3 hours. The usual decrease in playtime that comes with familiarity was countered by the added time we spent thinking and strategizing as we got better at the game.

It took us 8 hours ;D.

Only one city got conquered ^^.

We had fun though and that's the most important thing

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 2:09 pm

Played through three or four rounds of DungeonQuest and confirmed it's a perfect "in between" game. In explaining how it works to my buddy, I placed my first tile, had to move through it and then picked up three corridors, all of which required additional movement. The final tile I put down? Bottomless pit. Rolled the dice, missed my agility check and it was game over for my character. I'm pretty sure it was about a minute, which has to be a record. Anyway, we had a blast and were repeatedly amused at just how ridiculous everything is. Neither one of us was ever able to even get close to the dragon's lair, and out of the four games we played, I was the only one that actually managed to escape with 180 gold coins. My only complaint is that the monster combat really slows down the momentum. We were playing with the official rule variant for combat where each player has three cards and depending on what's selected a grid determines damage. In theory it should be shorter than the official way, but it's still slow. I wish it could be resolved with dice as I think it would really speed things up.

We also completed the first two scenarios for D-Day Dice and had a blast. My buddy was familiar with the solo rules so I was really the one learning the basics. When you're looking at it, it doesn't seem like it would be fun, but we really enjoyed the lite strategy and luck elements. We noticed pretty early on that getting the icon RWB bonus is key - particularly the double solider. I apparently have a penchant for rolling skulls (must be all the Heroscape) so I was collecting multiple instances of "Dead Man's Gift", allowing us to gear up and negotiate various hazards on battlefield. I think it took us an hour each to finish Exercise Tiger and Omaha Beach, but the time just zipped right by. I'm sort of regretting now that I didn't become a lifetime backer as the idea of having more and more maps, expansions, etc... delivered to me is much more appealing now that I've played. But without question, we really enjoyed the game and I can see it becoming a staple title in my basement. He has expansions that apparently allow us to play as the Germans and after last night, I'm seriously considering Airborne in Your Pocket as a way to continue the fun.

We finished up with a quick round of Heroclix, just to try and figure out the rules in hopes that we can make the jump to Mechwarrior Heroclix some time soon. We also spent a bit of time working through some of the basics for Battleground, but there's only so much our old-man brains can take in on any given night. I'm beginning to think we could meet two or three times a month and still not have enough time to do it all.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 10:58 am

My son and his friends got out Last Night On Earth yesterday, and had a blast with a couple scenarios. Then they grabbed the Martian one and ran out of time (night wise) with their crazy Zombie versus Martian versus Hero thing.

The Rocketman · Post by **The Rocketman** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 6:18 am

Smoove_B wrote:Played through three or four rounds of DungeonQuest and confirmed it's a perfect "in between" game. In explaining how it works to my buddy, I placed my first tile, had to move through it and then picked up three corridors, all of which required additional movement. The final tile I put down? Bottomless pit. Rolled the dice, missed my agility check and it was game over for my character. I'm pretty sure it was about a minute, which has to be a record. Anyway, we had a blast and were repeatedly amused at just how ridiculous everything is. Neither one of us was ever able to even get close to the dragon's lair, and out of the four games we played, I was the only one that actually managed to escape with 180 gold coins. My only complaint is that the monster combat really slows down the momentum. We were playing with the official rule variant for combat where each player has three cards and depending on what's selected a grid determines damage. In theory it should be shorter than the official way, but it's still slow. I wish it could be resolved with dice as I think it would really speed things up.

We play it with a dice variant. Basically every monster has 2 attributes which you have to test. Fail a test, take a wound, succeed in a test, monster gets wounded. There are some extra details to it, but it's a very nice variant: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/570325/ ... ce-variant" target="_blank.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 8:19 am

I love Amazon. Ordered Merchants & Marauders on Friday morning, it's set to be delivered today. Also pleasing is that the UPS tracking info says the box is 6.1 lbs. I know they always over-estimate package weight, but still, that means BITS! Yay for engagement present to myself.

Or at least, that's what I'm telling myself it is.

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:41 pm

SpaceLord wrote:I've demoed enough games of Shadowrift now that I've put together two bulk orders of 6 copies. At 26 bucks, it's a fucking steal.

And yes, the game is as good as advertised. It's awesome that you can build fighters, rogues, healers, and builders/merchants in a deck-building game.

I ordered this game based off of your review...just arrived today. Got it all separated and everything...haven't had a chance to really look at it though.

SpaceLord · Post by **SpaceLord** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 12:04 pm

MythicalMino wrote:
SpaceLord wrote:I've demoed enough games of Shadowrift now that I've put together two bulk orders of 6 copies. At 26 bucks, it's a fucking steal.

And yes, the game is as good as advertised. It's awesome that you can build fighters, rogues, healers, and builders/merchants in a deck-building game.

I ordered this game based off of your review...just arrived today. Got it all separated and everything...haven't had a chance to really look at it though.

Some overlooked rules:

Monsters hunt! I missed this the first two times. If a monster Kills something, and the target is not in town, flip the town deck over until you hit a Villager or Wall, and kill that Villager(unless there's a Guard face-up). The designer has clarified that monsters kill Infiltrators just as readily when hunting as friendly villagers.

Do not place the Cultists into the Traveling Villagers deck, unless the enemy deck is the Demons. That's not really mentioned in the rules. Replace the other 4 Infiltrators with the Cultists when playing versus the Demons.

I also suggest you keep the enemy deck face-down, even though the setup says to keep them face up, this is to avoid seeing more than the top card. When done this way, keep bringing cards into play until you have a card on top that can't be paid for, since there's several cards that cost 0.

I have sleeved the pink "Start-1-2-3" monster cards, as well as the Coins, in a different type of sleeve than the regular cards, in order to make sure they don't get shuffled into player decks.

Here's the designer's Rulings thread on BGG.

Basic Strategy:

For your first game, I suggest Glacien, or possibly Necromancers. For Necromancers, Resurrect is really important. Also, I'd pay attention to the Gravedigger, from the Traveling Villagers deck, especially in games without Resurrect, since very few cards can deal with corpses piling up.

When basic villagers die, they'll eventually come back through the Travelling deck. I'd grab them every time: they're much cheaper than the travelers.

Have fun!

SpaceLord · Post by **SpaceLord** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 12:25 pm

Tom Chick has posted his first impressions of Road to Enlightenment, a recently released game from a new publisher. In RTE, players are playing one of 7 monarchs in late 17th-century Europe. It's essentially a Card-Driven-Civ game, sort of a mix between MtG and Twilight Struggle/Here I Stand. Tom really loved it.

I backed it, and tried to grok the rules on Monday. Oh boy. I've learned complicated games before, but this one takes the cake. I need examples! But I'll press on, since I loves me some civ-building games, and in what other game can you play Blackbeard *and* Jethro Tull?

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 12:55 pm

Guys, I'm going to solicit here. I have a copy of Fortress America, the FFG reprint that I need to get rid of. There is nothing wrong with the game, in fact it was only played once and the cards are fully sleeved. I actually quite liked the game. The issue is that it was the game I played on the day before a catastrophic event in my life - my wife was expecting twins and we lost them in premature labor at 20 weeks. I can't even look at the game, let alone think about playing it again.

At the moment I have it up for an auction on eBay, but Boardgamegeek is not letting me list the auction on their site, so it isn't getting any exposure. I have a proposed Buy it Now price of $54 + $11 shipping for the buy it now price, but - if it doesn't get any bids I can cancel the auction and sell it for a best offer. I paid around $60 for the game, including shipping, and then another ~$10 for the card sleeves, so even the buy it now price is a pretty good deal (considering it is pristine).

I understand if nobody here is interested, but I am somewhat desperate to get rid of it (without taking too much of a wash) and I thought I would see if any of my friends here wanted it. Sorry to burden people with my story, I didn't want to kill the mood here. Also, if anyone wants Fortress America and is interest in Gates of Loyang, Ghost Stories, or Ascending Empires, I could sell these with it and ship them together. I am trying to pare down my collection.

Here is the ebay listing: http://www.ebay.com/itm/251124523086?ss ... 1555.l2649" target="_blank. If you go to BGG, you can see the actual game in my video (I'm the Electronic Eremite).

I will say, that when my wife and I were holed up and trying to cope, the iPad was a life saver. We played tons of games of Ticket to Ride HD (we prefer the Europe map) and I was addicted to Le Havre iPad to pass the time. We haven't done much in the way of boardgaming (we also had to move to Dayton, OH, so that was a huge undertaking), but we have gotten a chance to play the new Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small. We really liked Agricola: ACBAS, because you can play it in 45 minutes, you don't have to feed your workers, and you are focused solely on building the best farm with a limited number of actions. For the price, you get a lot of game. I worry a little about replayability, given there is NO random aspect to it (like the cards in Agricola).

I'm very anxious to try Descent: 2nd Edition and the Conversion kit came in. I must say, the edition was expensive, but worth the upgrade. Descent now seems like a game that you can play in an hour or so and have a much tighter experience focused on fun rather than rules. It seems closer to Last Night on Earth, but less limited in scope. I think it will be a real winner.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 12:59 pm

Man, sorry to hear about your tragedy, bael.

I'd buy it but it's not something I'm really interested in. Plus, I've got my gaming purchases for Gencon already mapped out in my head:

Smash Up
Rune Age expansion (if available)
Doctor Who card game (if available)
Mage Wars...mmmmaaaaayyyyybbbbeeeee
King of Tokyo expansion (if available)

Speaking of which, I can't remember whether or not you said you were going to Gencon. If so, we'll have to get together with the rest of the gang.

p.s. Descent 2nd Edition is a lot of fun. We played a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed it.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 1:07 pm

Sorry, bael, that really stinks. I'm potentially interested, but my finances can't afford a ton for another board game right now. Hopefully you find a buyer on ebay.

Octavious · Post by **Octavious** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 2:23 pm

After wanting it for a billion years I finally picked up Last Night on Earth. It was between that and Dungeonquest. We played a couple games of the base scenario and we liked it a lot. The rules only took us one game to get the hang of and the setting is just so much fun.

We'll move onto the advanced scenarios the next time we play. And then I'll pine over the 8 billion expansions and suppliments for it.

Dungeonquest looks like a lot of fun, but it was like 20 bucks more and I know you pretty much get killed like 80% of the time. I would find it hilarious. I think my wife would just get annoyed. It's on my shortlist to buy, but I figured LNOE was the safer bet.

Octavious · Post by **Octavious** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 2:29 pm

Smoove_B wrote:Played through three or four rounds of DungeonQuest and confirmed it's a perfect "in between" game. In explaining how it works to my buddy, I placed my first tile, had to move through it and then picked up three corridors, all of which required additional movement. The final tile I put down? Bottomless pit. Rolled the dice, missed my agility check and it was game over for my character. I'm pretty sure it was about a minute, which has to be a record. Anyway, we had a blast and were repeatedly amused at just how ridiculous everything is. Neither one of us was ever able to even get close to the dragon's lair, and out of the four games we played, I was the only one that actually managed to escape with 180 gold coins. My only complaint is that the monster combat really slows down the momentum. We were playing with the official rule variant for combat where each player has three cards and depending on what's selected a grid determines damage. In theory it should be shorter than the official way, but it's still slow. I wish it could be resolved with dice as I think it would really speed things up.

FYI there is a dice only variant posted on boardgamegeek. It seems a lot of people play it that way and say it does in fact speed the whole thing up. I haven't looked it up myself as I don't have the game yet, but it shouldn't be hard to find.

There's also an "official dice varient since I was curious.) Maybe that's what you already saw?

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_c ... riants.pdf" target="_blank

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 3:58 pm

hepcat wrote:Man, sorry to hear about your tragedy, bael.

I'd buy it but it's not something I'm really interested in. Plus, I've got my gaming purchases for Gencon already mapped out in my head:

Smash Up
Rune Age expansion (if available)
Doctor Who card game (if available)
Mage Knights...mmmmaaaaayyyyybbbbeeeee
King of Tokyo expansion (if available)

Speaking of which, I can't remember whether or not you said you were going to Gencon. If so, we'll have to get together with the rest of the gang.

p.s. Descent 2nd Edition is a lot of fun. We played a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed it.

I was going to go to Gencon, but with everything happening, I decided not to go. Next year I will be smack in the middle of both Origins and Gencon, so that might be nice.

Hep, I was mulling over my copy of Mageknight actually. I liked it, but with no gaming group I just can't see it will get much play. If you are interested in a gently used one, after Gencon, let me know.

Chaz, I'm willing to go lower. If you can handle a smaller price, make me an offer. Particularly if the eBay sale doesn't go through. The priority here is that I make a bit back and get the game gone.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 4:02 pm

I already have Mage Knight. I would suggest you keep it, to be honest. Not having a regular gaming group that would play is exactly WHY you should. It's the perfect solo game.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 4:07 pm

hepcat wrote:I already have Mage Knight. I would suggest you keep it, to be honest. Not having a regular gaming group that would play is exactly WHY you should. It's the perfect solo game.

Oh, you meant the figures... yeah, those go for cheap and are useful for all sorts of things. Like proxies for Descent 2nd Edition. If I was going, I would pick some up for that very reason.

I was thinking that regarding Mage Knight, but after moving my boardgames I feel like I might have too many to be feasible. And I am adding Ogre, Ground Floor, and The Doom that Came to Atlantic City to the mix. Yeesh...

I think Mino is interested in FA, so I took the ebay down. Like I said guys, I didn't want to get all heavy in here, but this is one of the roughest things. And it doesn't help I was away playing my hobby when it all went down. But also that hobby is good for keeping one's sanity. But thanks for the well wishes, I missed the time talking about games (and I am happy to be back doing that).

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 4:13 pm

Wait...are we discussing Wizkids Mage Knight or the first game to bear that name? 'Cause I'm talkin' about the former.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 4:18 pm

hepcat wrote:Wait...are we discussing Wizkids Mage Knight or the first game to bear that name? 'Cause I'm talkin' about the former.

I have no idea what you are talking about!

I have the boardgame from Wizkids called Mage Knight. You said something about buying Mage Knights at Gencon.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 4:20 pm

Oh my goodness, you're right. That's a typo on my part, sorry. I meant Mage Wars.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 4:24 pm

To add to the confusion, there's actually a Mage Knight game from 2000, also created by Wiz Kids - it was the first time the "Clix" bases were introduced. I'm not exactly sure how it relates to the 2011 version of Mage Knight (same world, same mythos, etc...) but I was surprised to learn it.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 4:26 pm

hepcat wrote:Wait...are we discussing Wizkids Mage Knight or the first game to bear that name? 'Cause I'm talkin' about the former.

The first game to bear the name Mage Knight was by WizKids and to my knowledge that's how the company got started. I think it was the last collectible game I got involved in/obsessed with. I still have four tackle boxes full of those damned figures.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 4:26 pm

Yeah, that's the one I was referencing in the latter part of my earlier reply. I had forgotten that Wizkids actually made that as well though.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 9:15 pm

hepcat wrote:Oh my goodness, you're right. That's a typo on my part, sorry. I meant Mage Wars.

Well that certainly makes more sense! Mage Wars looks interesting. Let me know your impressions!

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Fri Aug 10, 2012 7:23 am

Played an interesting variant of Magic the Gathering last night, called The Horde. It's a cooperative against a deck made up of Tokens and Spells. The Horde casts its spells for free, and flips cards until it hits a spell where the tokens it flips are put into play. The Horde has haste and must attack every turn at Random. The damage you do to the Horde mills the deck, and the win conditiion is No Cards in Deck, No Cards in Hand, No Creatures on Battlefield. We played some 60 card decks against a Golem/Construct Horde and got trounced, then played our EDH Commander decks against a Zombie Horde and won (thanks to a timely Elesh Norn from my Ghave deck keeping the board clear of smaller zombies)