Octopus Overlords

Dominion gets much better with expansions. I think most people would agree that Intrigue and Prosperity add a lot to the game, and few people like Alchemy. I'm really enjoying Dark Ages, but it's not an expansion for beginning players, particularly if there's a veteran in the group.

Sigh...for those that ordered the Dawn of the Zeds 2nd edition for Victory Point Games, make sure you inventory your game after you open it. Not only do I have a dozen or so cards with stripes down one side, I'm also missing a card.

This whole experience has changed my mind about ordering any more of their games, I'm sad to say.

Did you write them back? I've known most of those guys for years, they are good people.

Yeah, I'm just frustrated right now. I'm sure (well, I hope) they'll take care of me. But that's two strikes in rather short order. I just don't have the time or patience for this right now.

edit: I will say that one of the main guys responded almost immediately and seems genuinely upset that I've had this many issues with the game. If they get me right without having to wait a long time, all will be forgiven.

Played some Talisman and King of Tokyo this past weekend with Chaosraven, redrun, CR's son, and LordMortis (on Friday but not Saturday). I continue my undefeated run of "come from behind how the heck did that happen" victories in Talisman and my "complete lack of a hope to win" defeats in KoT.

How were you behind in Talisman?

I think Chaosraven was the only person who was lagging, though it was hard to tell with Drake because he spent most of the game loot monkeying and I had no idea that was bad or good.

LordMortis wrote:How were you behind in Talisman?

I think Chaosraven was the only person who was lagging, though it was hard to tell with Drake because he spent most of the game loot monkeying and I had no idea that was bad or good.

If Drake didn't get sent to jail from the inner region where he had begun his run towards the crown I would never have had a shot at all. His losing that one die roll gave me the shot I needed. I'd say that qualifies as "behind".

I received my X-Wing and Dungeon Command shipment from Miniature Market. Everything fits in my Plano case, but I had to cut a hole in the side divider for the forked tip of the Falcon's hull.

I was also able to confirm that I can fit 6 Dungeon Command armies into my Husky deep bin, so there's still room for the next expansion!

Zarathud wrote:I received my X-Wing and Dungeon Command shipment from Miniature Market. Everything fits in my Plano case, but I had to cut a hole in the side divider for the forked tip of the Falcon's hull.

I was also able to confirm that I can fit 6 Dungeon Command armies into my Husky deep bin, so there's still room for the next expansion!

Good to know about the falcon. Are you using this Plano? That's the one I am using. My wave 2 X-wing order was marked as delivered today so it will sit in the package room until next week, excited to get a look at it though.

Resistance to buy X-Wing miniatures... crumbling...
My original plan is to wait until my son's old enough. He's 2 years old now.

Surely that's old enough?

The Rocketman wrote:Resistance to buy X-Wing miniatures... crumbling...
My original plan is to wait until my son's old enough. He's 2 years old now.

Surely that's old enough?

I jumped in with both feet, certain my 10 year old Star Wars loving son would enjoy it. We've played a few games but he didn't seem to get into it. After one 75 point game he only wanted to play smaller 50 point ones, didn't like the army building aspect of it so I just made up both teams and let him pick Rebels or Empire, etc. Last night I was looking over the new ships online and called him over and he told me "Dad, I don't really like that game."

Oh well, he saved me about $100 at least, plus I'll likely Ebay what I have now.

Chrisoc13, that's the same Plano 5231 case. Some strong scissors will let you cut a hole in the long divider after taking some off the bottom. Stack both big bases and cards, and put the Falcon on top. Rebel/Imperial pilot cards fit side by side with Slave 1 in the back on the circular radar blip.

Remus West wrote:

LordMortis wrote:How were you behind in Talisman?

I think Chaosraven was the only person who was lagging, though it was hard to tell with Drake because he spent most of the game loot monkeying and I had no idea that was bad or good.

If Drake didn't get sent to jail from the inner region where he had begun his run towards the crown I would never have had a shot at all. His losing that one die roll gave me the shot I needed. I'd say that qualifies as "behind".

You made it into the Crown of Command before he would have marched forward turn by turn in the inner region. I'd say that qualifies as actually ahead.

However, with his spell/follower/items combos, he could have munchkined you into never taking a turn if he had enacted the combo, so that puts you either technically behind again or the victim of a broken dynamic, I don't know which. So who knows? I just don't think you were ever really behind by the normal swing of things. The only one who seemed behind to me was chaosraven.

Zarathud wrote:Chrisoc13, that's the same Plano 5231 case. Some strong scissors will let you cut a hole in the long divider after taking some off the bottom. Stack both big bases and cards, and put the Falcon on top. Rebel/Imperial pilot cards fit side by side with Slave 1 in the back on the circular radar blip.

Good to know thanks for the info

LordMortis wrote: The only one who seemed behind to me was chaosraven.

As much as I love Talisman, I don't believe I have ever won the FFG version.

Another game of Spartacus, another Solonius win. That house special ability is devious.

It's becoming clear that paying attention to schemes and assets is far more important in this game than acquiring gladiators and equipment for the Arena. I spent 8 gold on Spartacus and he never even fought. One good gladiator is enough, save the rest of your money for bidding on hosting the games and invite yourself against the weakest gladiator out there.

Chaosraven wrote:

LordMortis wrote: The only one who seemed behind to me was chaosraven.

As much as I love Talisman, I don't believe I have ever won the FFG version.

Me either. Of course, it seemed like the only time I ever had a real shot was when I was suiciding. I enjoy Talisman but for reasons I can't explain it always feels too long and there's still some broken dynamics on spell casting.

LordMortis wrote:

Chaosraven wrote:

LordMortis wrote: The only one who seemed behind to me was chaosraven.

As much as I love Talisman, I don't believe I have ever won the FFG version.

Me either. Of course, it seemed like the only time I ever had a real shot was when I was suiciding. I enjoy Talisman but for reasons I can't explain it always feels too long and there's still some broken dynamics on spell casting.

I think part of the problem is the game design favors munchkining your character and the more munchkined you get the more chance of broken mechanics. Any individual mechanic works fine. It is simply the combinations that turn up to break things.

Remus West wrote:I think part of the problem is the game design favors munchkining your character and the more munchkined you get the more chance of broken mechanics. Any individual mechanic works fine. It is simply the combinations that turn up to break things.

They never actually seem broken even if imbalanced except with some of the spell stuff (and I hate the insta death stuff as well. I think that's a horrible dynamic for a game that takes hours and hours to play. "Hey. Look. Know how you've been hanging in there for three hours. And you keep working up your lives as best you can and playing it safe. You drew a bad card. It's over, anyway." )

LordMortis wrote:

Remus West wrote:I think part of the problem is the game design favors munchkining your character and the more munchkined you get the more chance of broken mechanics. Any individual mechanic works fine. It is simply the combinations that turn up to break things.

They never actually seem broken even if imbalanced except with some of the spell stuff (and I hate the insta death stuff as well. I think that's a horrible dynamic for a game that takes hours and hours to play. "Hey. Look. Know how you've been hanging in there for three hours. And you keep working up your lives as best you can and playing it safe. You drew a bad card. It's over, anyway." )

Anything that basically hands you the game is broken, imo.
The Dragon Amulet lets your scales count towards all three colors. On its own it is helpful.
The Dragon Talon counts your scales as +2 instead of +1. On its own it is helpful.
Together they make it silly easy to over power entire stacks and the dragon king.

I think any ability that allows you to always have a spell lends itself to breakage. Maybe putting a die roll on it would be better. Something like "each turn roll a die 1-3 if your craft allows gain 1 spell 4-6 nothing happens".

Remus West wrote:I think any ability that allows you to always have a spell lends itself to breakage.

Pretty much

Remus West wrote:

LordMortis wrote:

Remus West wrote:I think part of the problem is the game design favors munchkining your character and the more munchkined you get the more chance of broken mechanics. Any individual mechanic works fine. It is simply the combinations that turn up to break things.

They never actually seem broken even if imbalanced except with some of the spell stuff (and I hate the insta death stuff as well. I think that's a horrible dynamic for a game that takes hours and hours to play. "Hey. Look. Know how you've been hanging in there for three hours. And you keep working up your lives as best you can and playing it safe. You drew a bad card. It's over, anyway." )

Anything that basically hands you the game is broken, imo.
The Dragon Amulet lets your scales count towards all three colors. On its own it is helpful.
The Dragon Talon counts your scales as +2 instead of +1. On its own it is helpful.
Together they make it silly easy to over power entire stacks and the dragon king.

I think any ability that allows you to always have a spell lends itself to breakage. Maybe putting a die roll on it would be better. Something like "each turn roll a die 1-3 if your craft allows gain 1 spell 4-6 nothing happens".

I have found that the characters with the always have X spells, are just better and have an easier chance at winning. They can cast dumb spells to clear them out, and hope to pull the get a level for free card. If everyone else is playing a martial character, or a spell caster that has to buy spells, or only get's them back when certain events happen. These let the 'free' spell character to really cycle the deck and get all the goodies out of the deck faster. And some of those spells allow them to take on very high level monsters quickly, while the martial guy is running away from them.

I have the base set and most of the expansions. I think I am missing the City expansion and that is all..

A Amrtial character only needs to get up to the 6 gold required to buy the spellbook and "presto" they always draw a spell to start their turn too.

Remus West wrote:A Amrtial character only needs to get up to the 6 gold required to buy the spellbook and "presto" they always draw a spell to start their turn too.

Maybe I am not remembering correctly, but you have to have a minimum stat to be able to cast spells. So you have to get up to 6 gold, and kill enough to get your stat(not the stat you are using to fight with) up a few levels, right?

But it's been a while since we played, so I might be remembering wrong.

The biggest loophole we found with Second Edition Talisman was the unlimited gold bug that you could do with the Archmage (I think it was) and the City expansion. If you became the archmage, you could no longer be turned into a frog. So you could borrow as much gold from the bank as you wanted, and leave the city without worrying about repaying it, since you couldn't be turned into a frog.

hentzau wrote:The biggest loophole we found with Second Edition Talisman was the unlimited gold bug that you could do with the Archmage (I think it was) and the City expansion. If you became the archmage, you could no longer be turned into a frog. So you could borrow as much gold from the bank as you wanted, and leave the city without worrying about repaying it, since you couldn't be turned into a frog.

That is gone with the newest version.

and you can only cast as many spells a turn as you started with, so there isn't any Spell-BlitzCycling shit any longer.

been rereading the rules for any errors in our play and of course found a couple more

We played with the house rule the "always have a spell" charcters could only cast once each player's turn or at any time in reaction to something new happening to them. So if everyone piled on, they could defend. But otherwise only 1 spell cycled per player.

Just wondering, anyone a Space Empires 4X fan (GMT Games)? I happen to have an extra copy of the new expansion Space Empires 4X: Close Encounters that I would let go for a good deal. It is new and in shrink. I have an open copy and the additions for the game are REALLY cool, so if you are a fan, you will enjoy the expansion.

PM me if interested.

Got Sentinels of the Multiverse (along with the expansions) today. My boys and I played 2 games (lost horribly) but we really liked it (I think even better than Legendary). What are your all's thoughts on that game?

MythicalMino wrote:Got Sentinels of the Multiverse (along with the expansions) today. My boys and I played 2 games (lost horribly) but we really liked it (I think even better than Legendary). What are your all's thoughts on that game?

I only played it once. It was my last game of a Friday Night Octocon, I was tired, and I was trying to learn the rules as I played, and apparently picked one of the most difficult combos to start with, so I didn't have a great first experience with it. But I know I'm in the minority on this one.

I recently introduced another gaming friend in the area to Sentinels and he really enjoyed it. I'm bringing it to Octocon (along with the latest kickstarter expansion I'm hoping to have this week) per his request.

It's got some fiddly record keeping that can annoy folks, but there's tokens to help with that in the enhanced edition, as well as oversized villain cards available now that alleviate eye strain from constantly reading their normal sized versions.

My (kickstarter) Zpocalypse arrived today!!

And in other news, a new message about Storm the Castle was posted also (kickstarter), and that he may be able to start actual production, which will take about 25-30 days for it to be finished (if I am undersanding the message correctly).

Man, I am so crazy excited about my hobby life at the moment!!

EDIT:

I see that the kickstarters for the Shattered Timelines expansion are starting to recieve their copies. I pre-orderd, along with the other mini-expansions, from miniaturemarket. Any idea from anyone when the pre-orders from online distributers will start to go out? I cannot seem to find any information. I really hope it arrives before March 31 (going on vacation, and will be out of town from Sunday - about Wednesday/Thursday). But I cannot find any real info. At least I know that they will be shipping very soon, since the kickstarters have actually started getting theirs at their houses.

Played my first game of Malifaux today. Absolutely addicted to it after doing so. We used some old heroscape terrain and it worked out better than I expected.

The game has an incredible amount of replayability due to the extensive scenario generation rules. I also feel like I've just begun to scratch the surface of my faction's capabilities. Gonna finish painting them and then look over some more figs. Gotta be careful though. Even though the game has a rather low entry price, once you get started it's hard to stop. It reminds me of a more mature version of heroscape actually...albeit on steroids.

Edit: just got back from my FLGS and was pleasantly surprised to see that the Conquest of Planet Earth expansion, Apocalypse. I always have a good time with this game so it was a must buy for me.

Played our first game of Zpocalypse (3 player game). I came out the winner. Great game, loved it. Great sense of humor with it (my son was impressed that he actually got the gumball machine weapon card, and his figure that he had already picked was the figure with the gumball machine).

A few questions on the wordings of a few cards, but nothing too bad. The game went about 2.5 hours, maybe, but there was explaining the rules, and then I had to look up some rules questions here and there, searching the book. So, probably actually about 2 hours, maybe less for the actual game.

I really like this one, though. The progression of your stats and finding the survivors, along with feeling like you just never really had enough stuff to use for what you needed to use it for really made it feel like a zombie movie/show. All in all, great game, great fun.

We also played 2 games of Sentinels of the Multiverse. We won both times, but not sure about how we really did with the rules. My oldest boy was really distracted during the game, and was causing me to have seisures. Still, lots of fun.

Oooh, Space Talisman Relic is shipping out to stores. I want this.

Zpocalypse showed up yesterday. No idea when I might get to play it. I have my first attempt at lunch time board gaming at work today also. Unfortunately schedules are already getting screwed up so I don't know if we'll even get to play anything. On the plus side, I found a guy in the building next to me that is going to BGGCon so I will know 3 people there! That's 200% more than last year!!!

The schedule thing has been killing my efforts at lunchtime gaming. Finding a time when five people are in the office for lunch is way harder than you'd think it'd be.

I'm not putting up another Kickstarter thread... but wanted to post that the new, revised KS for the Small World 2 app is up now.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/day ... ref=search" target="_blank

It's a much better campaign now, clearly stated as being solely for the development of the app for Android/Kindle/Steam. The iOS version is already a done deal. There are only a few pledge levels, but with a few add-ons. If all you want is the app it looks like $15 will do it, plus a few new exclusive races/powers. If you're a board game version fan, for $40 you can get the app plus a doublesided 6-player board for SW/SWU... and with a $10 add-on cardboard versions of the new races and powers. If you're nuts you can get a deluxe edition boardgame for $320... which, as much as I love Small World, is crazy.

It's already 2/3 funded in 2 days! I'm looking forward to playing it on Steam.

I'm not putting up another Kickstarter thread... but wanted to post that the new, revised KS for the Small World 2 app is up now.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/day" target="_blank ... ref=search

I backed it. It's one of the more popular games with my students, but I typically have to sit out and teach the game. My family won't play it at all--they hate confrontational games, so hopefully the pc version will allow me to play it myself.