OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Fri Nov 26, 2010 1:35 am

We played 5 player Small World with the Necromancer, who is pretty darned cool. The players learned they need to jump on the Ghosts at least 1/4 of the battles to keep the count low. I like it. Next time Tales and Fables.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 10:02 pm

hepcat smoked me in a Black Friday game of Twilight Struggle -- I gambled on the upcoming Europe scoring card that would mostly eliminate hepcat's VP lead. Then I couldn't catch a break when hepcat was able to play an event tossing 4 Soviet cards from his hand while I had to play US cards with nasty events that pushed up hepcat's scoring close enough for a mid-war VP win on the end-tern military operation bonus. The European scoring card would have been my headline the next turn, too.

We also played Ascension. The more I play, the more I like its variation on the deck-building genre.

I also ran a nice combo in a fully expanded Race for the Galaxy. The Search card for a 5+ military world is awesome when you can deploy a military strategy pretty early.

We messed around with a White Wolf mad Scientist board game called Mwahahaha! but realized the rules were rather confusing, and the format didn't lend itself to quickly skimming the rules while playing. Now that I've read the rules through in detail, I can see the confusion -- successes don't cancel each other out in this game. You can attack an enemy empire or base and get your clock cleaned by winning only 2 successes to your opponent's 5, but still end up taking their empire or resources. What happens is that you only do 2 HP damage to enemy minions, while your minions take 5 HP damage.
We didn't realize that minions are critical but throwaway resources, and your buildup is probably only temporary as other players can pretty easily take away your stuff. The only deterrent is that attackers can become weakened themselves -- opening up opportunities for retribution and opportunity-seekers. Defintely a 4-player game, but the theme is pretty entertaining.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Nov 29, 2010 6:17 pm

The 'Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You..." card, combined with two appearances of "UN Intervention" in my hand at different times sealed the deal, to be honest. Keeping the Defcon status at two so you couldn't overturn my limited control of European battleground countries with coups was the only thing that kept you from running away with Europe and gave me the incremental VP's I needed to win.

I'm just glad whenever someone wants to play Twilight Struggle with little ol' me. I loves me some TS.

Speaking of which, I may have to check out Labyrinth: The War on Terror. It's supposed to use the TS game mechanic but has solo play built in as well as 2 player.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Thu Dec 02, 2010 6:13 pm

Had an awesomely close game of Cutthroat Caverns last night... 9pt, 11pt, 12pt, and 13pt. Can anyone tell me if that handsize 9 power is permanent or when it wears off?

Jow · Post by **Jow** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 11:14 am

Got a bit of summoner wars in last weekend. First game I took the orcs vs. the elves and rolled em pretty handily. The second game was a 2v2, Fallen Kingdoms (me)/Vanguard vs. Goblins/Elves. It looked like I was going to roll the opponent on my side (Goblins) until I forgot the little bastards had a wall in the middle of nowhere. Since I'd put two wounds on Ret-Talus to summon a champion (which died the following turn due to goblin events/attacks), he was more vulnerable than usual. I realized all this a turn too late as a combo of events brought a couple of units to my doorstep and there was nothing I could do to escape. Imagine my chagrin when I went to put the cards away and noticed one of my wall cards was still in the box. Doh.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 6:38 pm

Played Kingsburg with the expansion. And wow, is it wicked kewl. Governor that gives you a Power in the game (the guy who lets you use the +2 counters as +1 or +3, the girl who gets you a +2 counter each year and lets you use more than one in a season, the guy who lets you change a roll of 9 or less into a 3 4 and 6 among them). The buildings have expanded to seven rows (from 5) and have possible replacement strips. The Kings aid is a set of cards with values of 0, 1,1,2,3,and 4 instead of rolling the die you get to plan it, and get vp for the one remaining card at game end. Events to modify the game year (good or bad). Makes for a helluva new game. Played Cirkus, a nifty puzzle game a little like Blokus... Which we also played.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Sun Dec 05, 2010 11:38 am

I wasn't a big fan of Kingsburgh before but I think this expansion did a lot to change the game for the better. A big thumbs up.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Sun Dec 05, 2010 9:23 pm

Mortis, did Kingsburg have too much randomness and not enough variation?

I think that's exactly what the Kingsburg expansion fixes. The expansion gives just enough variation for each player and the year, as well as gives each player some strategic control over the King's aid. The ability to peek at the year's enemy becomes powerful. Otherwise, you're guessing whether it's worth giving up that extra VP at the end to make sure you have a pretty good chance at surviving the annual battle. The extra building tracks also provide a more strategic depth.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Sun Dec 05, 2010 9:55 pm

I suppose I thought it was too much randomness before and not enough variation. The game was largely built around rolling the best dice. The king's help chits, the new tracks, and the your special ability card (whatever it's called) help you to build a strategy or at least it did for the one game we got in. I built my game explicitly around rolling bad dice and taking in very few resources and suddenly I was playing a competitive game and having a lot of fun at it... I still lost by a large margin in the long run but I had a lot of fun and that fun wasn't there for me before. Before it felt like it was just rolling dice and then taking the best resources choices you could to get the best buildings. So ultimately before the game either needed beer or this expansion. Beer could make Kingsburg sans expansion in to a Euchre type of enjoyable game.

(Why do we never do beer gaming nights?)

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Sun Dec 05, 2010 11:59 pm

Played 7 Wonders at my FLGS today, and I was really really, impressed. Of all of the recent deck building games I've played (Dominon, Thunderstone, etc.), I like this one better than any of the others. Rules were explained in about 10 minutes, and I had a good grasp of the mechanics after about the second round. We were able to get a game in in about 45 minutes, and there was very little "analysis paralysis" that set in, even though you had a lot of options presented to you each hand. The game I played had a really close score at the end, with no player falling behind another player by more than about 3 points.

Highly recommended, and I would have a copy myself if they hadn't sold out that morning. Of course, all of my impressions are based on a single game, so take that as you will. They are reserving a copy of the game for me from their next shipment of games, hopefully this week.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Mon Dec 06, 2010 12:55 am

We don't do Beer Gaming cuz you guys don't want to start drinking at 1am.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon Dec 06, 2010 10:18 am

Chaosraven wrote:We don't do Beer Gaming cuz you guys don't want to start drinking at 1am.

You guys? Catch me on a Friday and Saturday and the only problem with that statement is "start".

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Dec 06, 2010 11:55 am

LordMortis wrote:
Chaosraven wrote:We don't do Beer Gaming cuz you guys don't want to start drinking at 1am.
You guys? Catch me on a Friday and Saturday and the only problem with that statement is "start".

you "don't want to drinking"?

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Mon Dec 06, 2010 5:15 pm

Hep, any note in the nifty faq printout regarding the Mage hand size?

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Dec 06, 2010 5:55 pm

Chaosraven wrote:Hep, any note in the nifty faq printout regarding the Mage hand size?

i got ya covered, buddy

From the creator:

Like all the abilities, the hand size increase is short lived. At the end of the Encounter, you must discard back down. The most important feature is being able to replace your set card with more options than you had previously - on the fly.

p.s. i'm such a pushover that i ordered a copy of the aforementioned Labyrinth: The War on Terror from gmt games (by way of coolstuffinc.com). Should have it by friday or monday.

Jeff V · Post by **Jeff V** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:48 pm

I just got Dominion: Prosperity the other day and I'm supposed to play it Sunday at a friend's house. Weather gods willing.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:57 pm

Labyrinth arrived today. i'll be bugging the usual crowd for a game soon...

Jeff V · Post by **Jeff V** » Mon Dec 13, 2010 11:29 am

Prosperity added some interesting financial dynamics to the game. We played a couple of Prosperity-only games; each high-scoring as we split the colony cards (10 VPs each) and had a half-dozen VP tokens acquired in-game.

Then we integrated with the other sets. The first had but one Prosperity kingdom card, the other, two. The rules state that the randomizers for all of the kingdom cards are shuffled, and one is drawn for Colony and another for Platinum. If the card drawn is a Prosperity card, then either Colony, Platinum, or both appear in the game. Neither random game had these cards chosen, however.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon Dec 13, 2010 12:21 pm

Jeff V wrote:Then we integrated with the other sets. The first had but one Prosperity kingdom card, the other, two. The rules state that the randomizers for all of the kingdom cards are shuffled, and one is drawn for Colony and another for Platinum. If the card drawn is a Prosperity card, then either Colony, Platinum, or both appear in the game. Neither random game had these cards chosen, however.

We've been playing with five random prosperity cards and five old cards randomly dealing four to each person, letting them choose two, and then picking five at random from the choices.

It's worked well for us so far.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Tue Dec 14, 2010 8:11 pm

Nothing this weekend, but I hope to be playing a bunch of games soon!

A little history, as I posted on a thread at GamingTrend. I got into "adult" boardgames a few years ago after receiving the Lord of the Rings co-op game as a present. I went on to collect a few others: Arkham Horror, Carcassonne, several Risk variations, etc. However I really didn't have a lot of friends to play them with, and interest waned until they pretty much sat in my garage collecting dust.

Cut to a couple of weeks ago. Was looking for a present for a friend of mine and found out we have a new local game store. Great place - they have gaming sessions going on all the time with all sorts of games, give demos, great selection, and their prices are very reasonable (about what you would pay for a game ordered online w/shipping). I pretty much went a bit nuts over this place and vowed to get back into board gaming.

So I decided to stock up on some popular favorites - on my Christmas list I have Pandemic, Last Night on Earth, Dominion, Ghost Stories, and a few others I can't remember off the top of my head.

I bought my friend Castle Ravenloft. He is a big D&D nut but doesn't really have the time or enough people to play regular sessions. I thought it would be a perfect fit for him - gives him the taste of a D&D dungeon crawl in a reasonable amount of time with as few or as many players as he has available. Can't wait to try it out with him after Christmas.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 3:13 pm

My little brother sent me a game from my wishlist on Amazon...that I had forgot to remove some time ago. He chose the only 1 out of about 20 that I didn't want/need.

Thankfully, Amazon's return policy rocks (except for taking out the cost of shipping even though it had free shipping initially) and they reimbursed me the cost in a gift card this morning.

I then promptly preordered Mansions of Madness. A Betrayal at House on the Hill/Castle Ravenloft/Descent style game set in a Lovecraft world?

Yes please....

Boudreaux · Post by **Boudreaux** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 3:57 pm

I'm getting ready for my annual two-weeks-off-for-Christmas vacation with friends and family, and have not one but TWO bags of games packed for the trip. Even though our kids (mostly the baby) have become a major obstacle to game time when we travel, I'm hoping to get in at least one play of everything I'm bringing. Thankfully, I'm finished with the annual stand-in-front-of-my-game-shelves-for-30-minutes-trying-to-make-a-decision-about-what-to-bring exercise.

In the bags:
Twilight Struggle
Carson City
Thebes
Battlestar Galactica
Mystery Express
Cyclades
Cutthroat Caverns
Category 5
Coloretto
Bang!
Felix - Cat in the Sack
Roma

Hmm. It actually looks like a lot more than that in the bags.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 4:00 pm

Twilight Struggle is at the top of my list, too.

It's mostly going to be Redwarlord and I so the two player games like TS, Tide of Iron, Summoner Wars and some GMT games I've been wanting to break out are going into the hatchback. But we have our annual big game night with a group of guys on Tuesday and that's when Arkham and BSG hits the table.

Boudreaux · Post by **Boudreaux** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 4:56 pm

Tide of Iron is one of those games I really enjoy, but hardly ever play. I'd love to throw it in the car to take, but the chances of playing it are pretty low. A lot of our extended family plays board and card games, but they tend to skew more toward the lighter and shorter Euros. My brother in law is the one exception, and Twilight Struggle is for him.

I'd also love to take Game of Thrones LCG, Fury of Dracula, Middle Earth Quest, War of the Ring, and half a dozen other games like that, but they'd just sit forlorn in the corner. Have to restrict those to the local gaming group.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 5:21 pm

I then promptly preordered Mansions of Madness.

I am all over this. Have you seen the models included? Holy Yog Suggoth, actual Cthulhian miniatures. I pretty much freaked out when I saw that.

The second D&D boardgame set will be out early next year as well, and is supposedly compatible with Castle Ravenloft. I'll probably pick that one up assuming Ravenloft is good.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 5:30 pm

Ravenloft is fun, but I'm just not a D&D guy. Given my druthers, I'll go Lovecraft over medieval fantasy any day of the week. The only downside (which may not be a downside to those who play and love Descent) is that one person has to act as the game itself, in a sense. playing against the other players by throwing in the enemies, puzzles, etc..

Scenario based gameplay also bridges that gap between rpg and boardgame for me. I like the idea of buying new adventures when i tire of the ones in the box. although i've read that the 5 scenarios included with the game are changed each time by the included cards so that there's a great deal of variation on what can happen within the scenarios themselves.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 5:31 pm

I played Railroad Tycoon with buddies last night. That's a fun game, though I can only assume that the person in charge of coloring the city hexes is color-blind. It's extremely difficult to tell blue hexes and purple hexes apart, which led to a couple strategic mistakes based upon people thinking a city was one color rather than another. I do wonder how hard it is to make that easy when you only have five (IIRC) colors involved.

But that quibble aside, it was a lot of fun. I won in the end with a railroad network that ran from Memphis northeast to Cincinnati, and then northwest through Chicago to Des Moines and a western link. The key was setting up a network that allowed a succession of three-link deliveries while my east coast compatriots shuffled around a lot of one and two link deliveries.

A good time and a game I wouldn't mind busting out again (assuming I can fit it and furniture - good lord that board is big

).

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 5:42 pm

I still need to get a game of Steam in. I've had the game for 2 friggin' years almost and have only played it once.

SpaceLord · Post by **SpaceLord** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 7:15 pm

I bought Blokus for my brother's family. Hope they like it. And it's lightweight enough for my nephew to play in a couple years(he's almost 5).

I hope to play Twilight Struggle this weekend, and I also just bought Empire Builder, and hope to get a game of that as well. Bring on the crayons!

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Sat Dec 18, 2010 1:23 am

hepcat wrote:I still need to get a game of Steam in. I've had the game for 2 friggin' years almost and have only played it once.

Did you miss the Tanga sale on Power Grid and Puerto Rico? Hopefully my sisters have figured out that I'm not so hard to buy for...as long as they buy me a board game. I'll be taking the Fish to Cat & Mouse tomorrow to buy my sister's boyfriend either Battlestar Galactica or Arkham Horror. I'll make them come to my place to play Castle Ravenloft.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Sat Dec 18, 2010 5:53 pm

Thurs we played Kingsburg (with expansion, the only way to go!) and Cutthroat Caverns. I cannot believe Remus stole my win. I think the only recourse is to take the Thantigist or whatever it was called, and bury it in another state in an unmarked grave. Friday we played Arkham with King in Yellow Herald variant (those Blight guys are a pain!), and then had a terrible time trying to remember how to play Dungeon Lords. But next time we'll know what we're doing!

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Sat Dec 18, 2010 8:34 pm

Hentzau convinced me to buy 7 Wonders after a game last Tuesday. my gaming closet is bursting...

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Sun Dec 19, 2010 12:55 am

Whew. I was ::this:: close to buying 7 Wonders for myself at Cat & Mouse today.

Turns out Battlestar Galactica might not get delivered to the US for Christmas, and Arkham Horror is just out of print. There's a hope that I might be able to snag Battlestar Galactica if it comes in at Chicagoland on Wednesday.

Has anyone tried the game Resistance? I heard it's in the Werewolf style, but nobody gets eliminated. It's supposed to plays up to 7 pretty quickly.

Jeff V · Post by **Jeff V** » Sun Dec 19, 2010 10:59 am

El Guapo wrote:I played Railroad Tycoon with buddies last night. That's a fun game, though I can only assume that the person in charge of coloring the city hexes is color-blind. It's extremely difficult to tell blue hexes and purple hexes apart, which led to a couple strategic mistakes based upon people thinking a city was one color rather than another.

Umm...seems to me you are the color blind one if you can't tell them apart. Apparently, the artist found no trouble whatsoever, hence the coloring.

I know the artist on that game, and typically he does outstanding work. In this case, I'd guess it was a production problem; a lot of their game components came from China.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Sun Dec 19, 2010 11:50 am

Arkham Horror's first print run from FFG has a similar problem. The colors are off on a few card backs and their corresponding spaces on the board. I would imagine it's a quality control issue as the subsequent reprints addressed the problem. it's still annoying as heck, though.

Jow · Post by **Jow** » Sun Dec 19, 2010 1:54 pm

I'm gonna be looking it up on BGG as always but am interested in an OO take on 7 Wonders. What's so awesome about the game?

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 12:28 am

The issue is that the "blue" cities are not blue - they're magenta. I don't see how anyone could reasonably see them as blue - it's only by process of elimination that we could figure out that they're intended to be blue. Apparently it's a fairly widespread complaint, since BGG has tokens to print and cut out to make the blue cities green, to distinguish them easily from the purple cities.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 12:31 am

Has anyone attempted Arkham Horror solo? I hate to see it collecting dust and it's too complicated and lengthy to hold my wife's interest. Anyone know where I can find a good solo rules summary? My admittedly lackluster Googling turned up a lot of people playing it solo but not much in the way of a set of "house rules" to do so.

Jow · Post by **Jow** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 12:56 am

i can't imagine you'd have to change the rules to solo it. You'd really need to play a minimum of 3 investigators to make the game run well though I think.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 12:59 am

There's no 'bad guy' player, nothings hidden/secret between players. So choose how many characters you want to use and be those players. I believe the guys here do that to reach the number of players they want and trade off control or cooperate decision to use extra guy.