Octopus Overlords

Zombicide is about dropping lots of figures on the map and trying to survive. There are some fiddly rules to make it work (since playing with seppe I've found 5 things that increase the tension/play) but it has a good sense of getting you into tense situations, which you overcome and get cocky until everything turns into shit again. The original rule book/scenaios has been improved by now listing the suggested players, time and difficulty. As a tactical game there aren't a ton of options and some balancing things are counter-intuitive (like your ranged weapons always hitting other players before zombies).

IMO it is fun and lite if you're not expecting either a full mini or board game. Lots of the fun comes from the characters being obvious archetypes (like the Dude), which is why the optional heroes are so popular. There are other zombie games with more depth and scenarios but those rules also require a player to run the zombies. I think the simpleness is a benefit and Season 2 will no doubt give the game a little more depth.

Seppe wrote:

MythicalMino wrote:what is your thoughts on Zombicide? I just cannot pull the trigger on it. I have watched some video reviews...and it just does not "get me". Honestly, there is a lot of ppl that do, according to their latest kickstarter...so what is it about the game that you guys all love so much?

I think if it did not have a zombie theme it wouldn't sell half as much. I do not think it is a great game. I do not find the decisions to be made interesting. Maybe as a solo game it would be better. Sorry to break Zarathud's heart with this.

That has been my thinking by watching all the videos on the game...and why I have not been able to justify the purchase.

MythicalMino wrote:

Seppe wrote:

MythicalMino wrote:what is your thoughts on Zombicide? I just cannot pull the trigger on it. I have watched some video reviews...and it just does not "get me". Honestly, there is a lot of ppl that do, according to their latest kickstarter...so what is it about the game that you guys all love so much?

I think if it did not have a zombie theme it wouldn't sell half as much. I do not think it is a great game. I do not find the decisions to be made interesting. Maybe as a solo game it would be better. Sorry to break Zarathud's heart with this.

That has been my thinking by watching all the videos on the game...and why I have not been able to justify the purchase.

I think if you aren't into zombies you won't like it. If you are, it's a pretty good co-op game the few times I have played it. I think it is my favorite zombie game I have played so far. I have last night on earth too but I feel like there is no way to kill zombies in that game and I spend much more time running around searching forever to have any chance to kill a zombie. Zombicide I actually have good weapons to kill some zombies!

I like that it is good solo, and I like that the components are very high quality. It isn't for everyone, but I do enjoy it. Not my favorite game, but a good one.

SpaceLord wrote:

MythicalMino wrote:Have any of you played Kemet (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/127023/kemet" target="_blank)?

It is another game I now own, really wanting to get to the table...Ancient Egypt mythology game, in the same vein as Cyclades.

I have Kemet as well, and have it set up at home, and plan to learn it tonight. I've heard really good things.

I played Kemet twice this weekend, with 2 and 4 players. I like it a lot, it's a fast, light-ish wargame. I love the components as well. I'd like to try it with 3 and 5 players, since there's a location on the board that doesn't appear on the 2/4 player side.

Just spent the last two weeks with Richard Breese, the designer/publisher of the Key games. Played so...much...Keyflower. Testing the expansion for Keyflower, which is coming out at Essen this year. Now that I'm back I can't wait to play something else. Also played an extremely long game of Boring Boring, I mean Bora Bora. I could have delivered a baby between my turns I swear. I should have an opportunity to play it again this weekend, hopefully at a far faster pace. I also got Kemet and hope to play later today.

I found someone at work to play Android: Netrunner with! So far we have only played once using my (terrible) decks, but he is waiting on delivery of the base set so he can build his own (if you can call the options you have with just the base set building). MY corp almost had it's first win, but we played a rule wrong and he won. I think I won if we hadn't messed up that rule (but maybe not as an agenda would have ended up face down in the Archives). Still it's awesome (and can I include any more parentheticals?)

Lorini wrote: I could have delivered a baby between my turns I swear.

That's a...unique...way of measuring time.

hepcat wrote:

Lorini wrote: I could have delivered a baby between my turns I swear.

That's a...unique...way of measuring time.

...and not very helpful. We need to know if this is a first child? Second? Third? In my experience the difference is huge.

I played a solo game of Relic last night. I only got about halfway through using two characters, but I dig it pretty hard.

I like that the characters definitely play differently. Last night, I had the space marine and the assassin. The space marine had high strength, so he tried and stick to the red threat spaces. Of course, sometimes the dice roll made him miss them, and sometimes the red deck spit out a blue or yellow threat that he had to deal with. This wasn't so bad, because his starting mission tasked him with losing two fights to complete it.

By contrast, the assassin had more balanced stats, but had a special ability saying she could evade any enemy she wanted. Because of that, she was able to go into the middle tier pretty early, because she could pick and choose her battles.

Yup, it's Talisman: IN SPAAAAACE!, but the various ways that you can control your encounters, rolls, etc help a lot. Yeah, it's still a luck-heavy game, but less so. There's no direct player combat, but there are plenty of ways to steal other people's stuff and otherwise screw with them. Yeah, I like, and want expansions.

coopasonic wrote:

hepcat wrote:

Lorini wrote: I could have delivered a baby between my turns I swear.

That's a...unique...way of measuring time.

...and not very helpful. We need to know if this is a first child? Second? Third? In my experience the difference is huge.

When the little hand is on the 1st baby and the big hand is on the 8th baby, it's 1:40. That's all I know.

Chaz, I'm jealous. I ordered Relic from Cardhaus and they STILL have not shipped it, despite being available everywhere else. So, a caution about using Cardhaus. I wanted to go "local" and it bit me in the butt.

hepcat wrote:Legendary is getting an expansion in June.. I'm still a big fan of the game and I'm looking forward to this one.

Am I losing my mind or did I read somewhere that these cards were a challenge to sleeve? Or was it that someone was coming out with sleeves just for Legendary? After sorting everything out, I'm afraid the cards are going to get mangled - they're rather thin and not nearly as durable as what I've become accustomed to for shuffle-builders.

I haven't attempted to sleeve them yet, but I do agree they're a bit more flimsy than some deck builders' cards. Although I've noticed a few recent games have the same issue.

Can't make any Tabletop Day events since we'll be out of town this weekend, but I am tempted to pick up the new expansion for Innovation: Figures in the Sand to take on our trip and play with family (a couple of whom are big Innovation fans). Anyone played it?

Innovation is one of those love-or-hate games. I found myself to be its only lover in our group, but I am a fiend for card games with crazy combos.

Smoove_B wrote:

hepcat wrote:Legendary is getting an expansion in June.. I'm still a big fan of the game and I'm looking forward to this one.

Am I losing my mind or did I read somewhere that these cards were a challenge to sleeve? Or was it that someone was coming out with sleeves just for Legendary? After sorting everything out, I'm afraid the cards are going to get mangled - they're rather thin and not nearly as durable as what I've become accustomed to for shuffle-builders.

I sleeved mine (mostly because it's the only game I can get my 10 year old to play with me and he's a bit rough on cards) and just used standard ProDeck sleeves. There's a bit of extra space at the top of the sleeve, but not much.

Taught the fiancee Dominion last night. She was of the opinion that it's a race game. She thought it was decent, but agreed that it was definitely different from Nightfall in the conflict department.

I did break down and got Zombicide (only 65 bucks, with free shipping via amazon). So, we played it. It is, actually, a pretty good game. My oldest boy absolutely loved it. My youngest boy liked Zpocalypse better. I like them both, but if it came down to it, I would choose Zpocalypse. BUT...they both are so different from the other, there is for sure room for both in my collection.

So, been playing that game a bit...and then Sentinels of the Multiverse. Came oh so close to defeating Ambuscade in the Final Wasteland with Unity, Argent Adept, Chrono-Ranger and The Visionary in a solo game. Just a great, great game, that one. Love it...one of those games that I kick myself for not getting into earlier.

Played Rolling Freight. Neat game good concept. Terrible color choices for design. Not distinctive enough. The cards used are very small, maybe half the size of the original Ticket to Ride cards. These are not show stoppers but separate the great from the good.

So went to a couple of the Chicagoland Tabletop Games Day events. First one was at an Irish pub/restaurant that the local boardgame meetup group uses, they had a nice affair with a $15 cover charge but that included all the soft drinks you wanted until 4 and a very nice breakfast brunch buffet. Biggest issue was that the oversold the event, and didn't have nearly enough tables to handle all of the people there. But I got lucky and found a table early on where they were looking for players for Walnut Grove, and that worked out great because I wanted to try this one out for some time now. It was a fun medium weight worker placement game, one that I would be happy to play at any time, but not enough that I need to rush out and buy it immediately.

Then I dragged out my crokinole board and taught about 8 different people how to play. Always get a lot of attention with that one.

Cut out of there around 1, and then hooked up with hepcat, zarathud and seppe at Chicagoland Games, and there just hung around with them and watched Seppe pull out a last minute victory in Glory to Rome, right before Zarathud was about to wrap up the game.

Headed out shortly after that was over and went home and watched some of the live streaming of the Tabletop events.

Before having my lunch eaten from under me with an instant-win by seppe in Glory to Rome, we pulled out the dice-placement game Kingsburg. With the expansion, it's a great straight-forward game with some great tactical options. An acquaintance at the game store squeaked out the win using the goldsmith.

We did not have a lot of time, so my Dad, wife, and I played 7 Wonders. I like it a lot better without the dummy player. I would love to try it with more players too! My wife and I also played the 2-player Agricola, which I like quite a bit. I hear the 2-player Le Havre is fun as well, so I might have to check it out.

It looks like my copy of Relic just shipped from Cardhaus, over a week later than the other major retailers got it in. I would not go with them again in the future.

Because it has taken so long to get it (and the reviews are slightly lackluster, talking about 3 hour playtimes), I'm wishing I had not gotten Relic and had instead gone for Kemet. Are people here really liking it? How about for 2-players? It looks simple enough that my wife might enjoy it (and I think she would enjoy the lack of dice). But maybe I have misread the complexity?

I'm also thinking about pre-ordering the Bioshock Infinite wargame from Plaid Hat Games. First, I don't own any PHG, but people seem to RAVE about City of Remnants (those that have it) and Mice & Mystics. And I am really eating up Bioshock Infinite. So it seems a natural fit for me. The minis also look fantastic, particular the Handy Men and the Songbird.

After hentzau introduced us to Railways of the World at octocon my wife decided we had to have it and it came in the mail last week. So we played the Mexico map last night. It is a great map for two players, lots of interaction and lots of mountains and water. Very few spaces were simply open land to build on. Thankfully we understand the game a lot better than the first time we played it. I didn't take out lots of bonds just because I blocked someone with no benefit for myself this time. That was an improvement. Looking forward to more games of it. Probably will play the Eastern US map next time.

I'm really liking Relic. I've so far played two solo games running two characters, and got most of the way through a game with the fiance on Friday night. She's no stranger to board games, but 40k is totally alien to her. We went from 8-10pm, including rules, and finally called it on account of tired. I'm pretty convinced that she could've made a run for the middle if she'd wanted, but she was being conservative because it was her first time.

In hindsight, I think I explained too many rules to start out. Really, most of what you need to do is explain how to set up your character, and then just start playing. Explain everything else as it comes up in the cards, since at its heart, it's basically "roll to see how far you go, decide where to land, flip cards and do what they say. If it's enemies, you roll for them and you, higher wins." There's other stuff built on top of that, but that can be explained as it comes out.

I think if you go into it with the right mindset, it's excellent fun. This ain't a strategy game, and a LOT of it comes down to the cards you flip and how well you roll. I lump it in with Dungeonquest in that it's less about who wins, and more about drinking and seeing what ridiculous things happen.

I think it works just fine with two. There are some "land on another player" effects that would be more fun with more potential targets, but that's minor. Don't despair, it's great. I think a lot of the BGG negativity is standard BGG forum bitching because they want it to be a deep strategy game where they can Proove Their Smartiness, when really it's a goofy, theme-heavy dicefest to play over beers.

I played Cranium with my 4yo daughter. She has been dying to play it because of all the cute pictures on the box. Of course, she's not actually old enough to play, so we pretty much just played it like Candyland, except you had to do (some semblance of) the appropriate activity each round.

Played several rounds of King of Tokyo on Easter... that game is still our favorite goto game. Standout rounds were a close game where my son and I were tied with 19 points and he squeaked out a win because I rolled garbage my last turn, and a game that ended in record time because I managed to roll 3-5 3s every single turn. Wasn't a very satisfying win since it was just dumb luck, but it was quite a streak!

Played through the first three D-Day scenarios with two other players and had a hell of a difficult time. We only won the first and last maps; Omaha Beach just wasn't going to happen. For whatever reason, this round of DDD was much harder than our previous co-op attempts. I'm guessing we were really hitting RWB bonuses or something because it was a fight the entire way up. Finished the night with a quick round of King of Tokyo - first time I played with more than two people and it makes a big difference. I have to believe with 4+ it's insane.

Actually got out and played with Remus and redrun this weekend. We played Spartacus and I am likely to always not just suck at it but be a bad player. And that's odd because I usually excel at games with an auction dynamic. Redrun is probably pretty annoyed with me because while I was only in one out three games, my attempts at preservation pretty much handed Remus all three games which made it look as if I was playing king maker. Again I didn't just suck at the game, I played it badly. I may or may not be better when it's 4 player game when there are more choices, so the winning and losing players can essentially be excluded from pressing their advantage/being the kicked cripple every single round. Still, even I don't care for the three player dynamic and for some reason I can't get the hang of maintaining the auction/betting system, I enjoyed the concept. I also think the combat system could use some more complexity. Without it, initiative is just way too important.

Boudreaux wrote:Hey, Ghost Stories doesn't have a reputation in my group for being a cast iron bitch for nothing.

Just to be sure I checked my rules, it says one of the ways the game ends is "A 4th location in the village is haunted." I always assumed that meant a 4th location anywhere on the board.

well that's lovely. Played this for the first time over the weekend and the dude who did the rulesmongering for us erroneously told us the THIRD location haunted ended the game. As if it needed to be any harder...

well that's lovely. Played this for the first time over the weekend and the dude who did the rulesmongering for us erroneously told us the THIRD location haunted ended the game. As if it needed to be any harder...

Don't feel bad - we played this game at least 6 or 7 times incorrectly - with the rules misconceptions we were under making the game exponentially harder. What is sad is that we still almost beat it using these Hell rules of our own devise.

After figuring out our mistakes it only took us a couple more tries to beat it.

I do think that one of the higher difficulty levels does (legitimately) use the third location haunted as an end point.

Actually, there were a couple of rules changed in the 2nd printing. This same discussion just came up elsewhere today. In the first printing, the rules state that the game ends after the FOUR locations are haunted. In the 2nd printing, it was changed to be THREE locations. Your friend likely has this version.

Also, in the first edition for the Initiation level, during setup each player gets their Yin/Yang token and one Tao token of their color. In the 2nd printing, each player also gets a black Tao token.

that's interesting - wonder why they lowered the haunting requirement.

Jow wrote:that's interesting - wonder why they lowered the haunting requirement.

Too many people were winning. Those five people were ruining it for the rest of us.

Had to make an emergency trip down to central IL to go to a funeral for a great aunt, and was able to hook up with my buddy Joe Monday night. Had dinner with his family and then introduced them to Wings of War (which I had in the trunk of my car, left over from OctoCon. Had a great time teaching it to everyone, even if the Allies got crushed by the Germans.

Then Joe and I went back to my parent's place and we got in a game of Agents of SMERSH (also a leftover from OctoCon still in my trunk. Squeaked out a victory against Dr. Lobo, despite Joe having the WORST spy in the history of spying.

I played Tales of the Arabian Nights for the first time last night with my wife. As Ma'aruf, I eked out a win as the respected vizier of Adrianople, married with two children, wounded but a master of enduring hardship.

I think this is close to the perfect "light" game for me -- little-to-no thought required, tons of theme, and plenty of humor. I may even try to get the in-laws to play it with us.

Unless you really, really enjoy listening to other peoples' adventures, don't play with more than 3-4. I played a six player game of this once...ONCE. After 3 hours we were maybe 1/3 of the way through the game. It was taking probably 15-20 minutes to get around the table one time.

Couple games of Talisman last night (which for the first time ever in owning the FFG version, I won).

Trying out the Alternate endings, having played the Dragonic Lords numerous times, only to have the first game be... The Dragon King. Won as the Leprechaun by sneaking through the Dungeon and discovered a 33% chance of winning, 33% of handing the game to my son, and the remainder me dying. Lucked out.

So the second game (Crown and Scepter) made a concerted effort with the Tinkerer to make it through the dungeon board while my son tromped around the city board with the Minotaur (and our friend wandered the main board). Ended up making it on the third try (just after my son failed on his second).

We play with the deck of Warlock Quests, the Quest Rewards, and the Treasure rewards variant.

Then stayed up playing 1vs1 edh MtG with my friend while the young'n napped.

Boudreaux wrote:Unless you really, really enjoy listening to other peoples' adventures, don't play with more than 3-4. I played a six player game of this once...ONCE. After 3 hours we were maybe 1/3 of the way through the game. It was taking probably 15-20 minutes to get around the table one time.

Can't you just lower the Story/Destiny point total? The manual suggest using a combined total of 10 or 15 is you want shorter games.

That's what we do. Granted, we rarely play more than 4 players ever, but it's easy enough to take the game from Twilight Imperium lengths to a more manageable one.

EzeKieL wrote:

Boudreaux wrote:Unless you really, really enjoy listening to other peoples' adventures, don't play with more than 3-4. I played a six player game of this once...ONCE. After 3 hours we were maybe 1/3 of the way through the game. It was taking probably 15-20 minutes to get around the table one time.

Can't you just lower the Story/Destiny point total? The manual suggest using a combined total of 10 or 15 is you want shorter games.

Yeah this was WITH a lowered endgame point total. It just takes so long to get through everyone's turn that by the time it gets back around, I forget what I was doing.

Arabian Nights with 2 or 3 is great, it's just a high player count that I don't like. I think 4 is the most I'd ever do, and even then rarely.