Octopus Overlords

Thinking of the sky is beyond your security clearance, citizen. Processing...

If the ceiling was Ultraviolet, you must have been in an Ultraviolet corridor. Thank you for your confession. Your admission of guilt improves the efficiency of the termination process by 200%. Do you have any last words, Traitor?

Sierra Club! Sierra Clu...

Going to the monthly Orange County CA game day. Bringing Gearworld the Borderlands, 3rd Edition Puzzle Strike, Rialto, Archipelago and New Amsterdam. Hope to even get a few played!

I dropped off about 8 games over at the Cat and Mouse garage sale today. I think I may have priced them too low.

How is Gearworld?

Yeah, looking forward to that expansion

Ice, what are the chances we'll ever be able to convince you to come to chicago for one of our gaming get togethers?

I would love to visit you guys, but suspect that until my son gets a bit older I might be assassinated if I should leave my wife alone while I went to the US to play games for the weekend Hopefully in 5 or 6 years, but GenCon will be first

You'll have to let us know what Gencon you go to then. Some of us go every year. We can all meet up at a brew pub for a beer and a game.

Sounds like a great plan

hepcat wrote:You'll have to let us know what Gencon you go to then. Some of us go every year. We can all meet up at a brew pub for a beer and a game.

We used to do that every year, back when Zaxxon lived in Indy and organized it. It was a regular OO meetup.

Amazon made me order a copy of Kemet. Jerks. How could I resist a good price on a middle-weight combat-heavy game featuring teleporting mummies and scorpion riders?

We played Chrononauts, Elder Sign, 7 Wonders, and some Tsuro to fill the gaps. Good times.

I got Yedo (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/117915/yedo" target="_blank) pre-ordered via coolstuffinc. They are saying it is due this month. I am hoping so...the game looks pretty awesome, especially if you liked Lords of Waterdeep.

MythicalMino wrote:How is Gearworld?

It is good, at least for us. Very back in the day multiplayer conflict negotiation game. And yes, you can be wiped off the map as well, although if people are playing well (for balance) that shouldn't happen. The map is awesome, and the spearhead rules that FFG added to the original game help it not become stalemated. Note though, this is not a Euro in any shape or form. It also has deterministic combat, meaning that you can look at the board and figure out what's going to happen if there is an attack. A little note to that, other people can support the attacker or defender, and that's not truly known til the attack actually goes down. One of the designers of the game is a designer of Cosmic Encounter.

Had a great weekend of gaming. My son and I started a Memoir 44 campaign and knocked out 2 battles. We like the vague sense of continuity you get between battles and the fact that you play the map once and then move on. I love Memoir 44 but I can rarely get him to play the same map twice, switching sides the way you're "supposed" to play. I beat him 5-2 the first battle, then he won a hard-fought battle 6-5... but he scored an objective on the last battle that's worth points at the end of the campaign so I think we're tied right now.

Then it was off to my in-laws for King of Tokyo and Ra. KoT was fun as always but Ra was a first-time play for everyone. Everyone wanted a 2nd round right away so that's always a good sign

Played Descent 2.0, and once again I had no fun at all. The overlord kicked our butts, and I had no sense that we even had a chance.

The scenario was one where we had to find an item to open a door. Meanwhile behind the door the bad guy was raising zombies and after he raised one they would walk off the board(one turn to do that) and he only had to do that for 4 zombies to 'win' the scenario.

Well the overlord picked some monsters that stunned us when they hit, so it took us forever to get to the items, and we opened the door in time to watch the last zombie walk off the board.

The overlord has to roll to 'raise' the zombies, and he rolled perfectly so 4 turns 4 raised zombies, and by turn 6 he had them all off the board.

Then we played a game of Battlestar Galactica, we had a 6 player game with one cylon leader and 5 players. It was fun, it ended in what can only be called a draw. The players(I reveled as a cylon) jumped for 8, but had to lose all the fuel they had. So the fuel indicator was zero, which I think means a loss for humans, but they were at 8 jumps with the last jump card.

Not sure what the rule is, we didn't find one other than you first resolve the card text first(Lose X fuel) and then jump. So if that is the case, they were at zero fuel prior to the jump card being 'applied' and the cylons won. But I thought that was cheap, so called it a draw, which of course made no one happy. But the game was fun until that part.

We completed the night with a game of Eclipse. Our one super aggressive player got the free tech that regenerates wounds and provides a -3 to hit. I personally think this is a broken tech, but with that in hand and something to buff his hull points, he was able to kill everyone by turn 7. I had a good position and defended myself okay, but when I could not do enough damage to destroy his cruisers and he had interceptors to soak, it was a forgone conclusion.

One other player got the free tech that allowed a move of 4(I think, but it was fast). But he is not an aggressive player, so did not strike the more aggressive player when he could have. And actually allied with him, so that just sealed the game.

Overall, a great board game day, and we all had a ton of fun. This was the last board game day for a little bit, as I go on vacation to disney on Thursday for 2 weeks.

RMC wrote:Played Descent 2.0, and once again I had no fun at all. The overlord kicked our butts, and I had no sense that we even had a chance.

There was someone on BGG that was putting together some statistics based on user feedback based on scenarios and the number of players. I thought I remember reading the basic discovery (based on the samples provided) was that in games where there are two heroes, it's weighted towards the players. With three heroes, the advantage goes to the Overlord and with 4 or more heroes, it seemed to be balanced or maybe slightly weighted towards the Overlord. I might be off on those numbers, but based on our experience with about 4 games, that seems to be true. No idea how many heroes you were playing with, but I'd be curious if that was the case.

Smoove_B wrote:

RMC wrote:Played Descent 2.0, and once again I had no fun at all. The overlord kicked our butts, and I had no sense that we even had a chance.

There was someone on BGG that was putting together some statistics based on user feedback based on scenarios and the number of players. I thought I remember reading the basic discovery (based on the samples provided) was that in games where there are two heroes, it's weighted towards the players. With three heroes, the advantage goes to the Overlord and with 4 or more heroes, it seemed to be balanced or maybe slightly weighted towards the Overlord. I might be off on those numbers, but based on our experience with about 4 games, that seems to be true. No idea how many heroes you were playing with, but I'd be curious if that was the case.

So far every game I have played has been with 4 heroes. I don't know if it is just our overlord always picks the best monsters to kill us or what. But we have never even come close to winning. My theory is that the game might not be completely balanced with all the monsters for Descent 1.0. I had all the expansions, so bought the conversion kit. So the overlord literally has a zillion monsters to choose from, as the heroes have a zillion to choose from as well.

But like in the scenario we were playing, the monsters in the scenario could actually heal other monsters(only the red one). So he was able to keep his other red monster from his 'selected' group alive one turn longer than he should have been able to. So with that in mind, he actually pinned us down for 2 turns longer, and that meant two turns to raise zombies and have them move off the board.

<shrug> I am almost ready to just sell the whole mess, but I have so much invested into it that I hate to get rid of it. <sigh>

I will most likely try it one more time, and see if I still hate the silly thing.

A friend of mine I have not seen since New Year's Eve came by yesterday...we played a game of Blood Bowl: Team Manager. I won as the Orcs. Then, we pulled out Sentinels of the Multiverse...we won our first game (his first game of Sentinels) vs. Baron Blade in Megalopolis (I always intro ppl with that particular scenario). Then, we set up another game (randomly chosen via this: http://www.fecundity.com/pmagnus/sentinels/" target="_blank ...and, this site works great on a cell phone, also). We lost the second game (Nightmist, Argent Adept, The Scholar, Tachyon vs. Matriarch in Ruins of Atlantis). Damn those damnable birds!! Damn them all to hell!!

After my kids got home, I taught my two boys (ages 11 & 10) how to play Blood Bowl: Team Manager. I was not sure that they would really pick it up due to all the little upgrades (Staff & Team upgrades) and keeping track of them. But we played two games, and I never won one game, while they each won a game. This was surprisingly a big hit with them...so that makes me happy.

In fact, there was a moment where I had to grin, because Christian (my 11 year old) had some upgrade that gave him 2 more fans if he injured someone. So, he brings in this character that had 2 tackles, and proceeded to injure one of my players, giving him the two fans, then let me know he was also going to exhaust one of his other upgrades to move the ball to his tackling player. Made me proud!!

RMC wrote:

Smoove_B wrote:

RMC wrote:Played Descent 2.0, and once again I had no fun at all. The overlord kicked our butts, and I had no sense that we even had a chance.

There was someone on BGG that was putting together some statistics based on user feedback based on scenarios and the number of players. I thought I remember reading the basic discovery (based on the samples provided) was that in games where there are two heroes, it's weighted towards the players. With three heroes, the advantage goes to the Overlord and with 4 or more heroes, it seemed to be balanced or maybe slightly weighted towards the Overlord. I might be off on those numbers, but based on our experience with about 4 games, that seems to be true. No idea how many heroes you were playing with, but I'd be curious if that was the case.

So far every game I have played has been with 4 heroes. I don't know if it is just our overlord always picks the best monsters to kill us or what. But we have never even come close to winning. My theory is that the game might not be completely balanced with all the monsters for Descent 1.0. I had all the expansions, so bought the conversion kit. So the overlord literally has a zillion monsters to choose from, as the heroes have a zillion to choose from as well.

But like in the scenario we were playing, the monsters in the scenario could actually heal other monsters(only the red one). So he was able to keep his other red monster from his 'selected' group alive one turn longer than he should have been able to. So with that in mind, he actually pinned us down for 2 turns longer, and that meant two turns to raise zombies and have them move off the board.

<shrug> I am almost ready to just sell the whole mess, but I have so much invested into it that I hate to get rid of it. <sigh>

I will most likely try it one more time, and see if I still hate the silly thing.

I really enjoy the game myself, and have played quite a few rounds. I have mostly played as a campaign, which allows the heroes to grow stronger as the game progresses. Some quests are definitely skewed towards the overlord, but others are done so towards the player.

Keep in mind that getting caught up killing monsters isn't typically the best strategy. Understand the quest objective and do your best to get to it quickly. I have been looking to get a new campaign going via Vassal. Maybe some of us here can get together for a game or two?

-Ertic

I'd like to shill for Civility, a very cool-looking civ-style game using dice. It's 75% funded, and only has 5 days left. Kickstarter link here.

Although it's 200% funded, I'd also like to show everyone Xia:Legends of a Drift System, which has been described as Merchants and Marauders in space. It has 9 days left on KS, linked here.

SpaceLord wrote:]Although it's 200% funded, I'd also like to show everyone Xia:Legends of a Drift System, which has been described as Merchants and Marauders in space. It has 9 days left on KS, linked here.

Damn you!

Looks neat, but $75 is a lot of scratch.

Damn. I was hoping the xia kickstarter would end while i'm at origins. Looks awesome but the price tag is hefty.

Yeah, I love Merchants & Marauders and Xia looks pretty nice but...I'm tapped out. I'll have to suggest this to a friend and see if they'll spring for it.

Yeah, I went in on Xia about 10 days ago. So Zarathud, I'll take the hit for the Chicago crew if you want to sit this one out and spend your lucre at Origins.

Sweet. When Ogre arrives, I'm out of gaming space anyway. And I predict Origins is going to tempt me.

The Ogre guys were here in Dallas a couple months back for the Games Marathon. Unfortunately, I was swamped under with moving and job worries to make it.

Well fate conspired to make it so I can't go to Origins or Gencon. *Sigh*

But I did get my HUGE copy of Duel of Ages II in the mail today! Now THAT'S A LOT OF CARBOARD! Also, no apparent warping of the tiles! I'm optimistic!

baelthazar wrote:Well fate conspired to make it so I can't go to Origins or Gencon. *Sigh*

BGGCon!

Taught my 8-year-old son Mage Wars yesterday, and we played through an entire game with very few hiccups. He tends to get easily put on the defensive, and forgets the old "best defense is a good offense" adage, but I was surprised at how well he picked it up. This morning he came down and insisted on teaching his 11-year-old brother. They were flinging spells and trash talking each other as I walked out the door. These are the days when it's really hard to go to work...

Civility on Kickstarter is less than 3k short of its goal with less than 10 hours to go. I found out today that the designer is a friend of a gaming buddy of mine, and my friend said he'd playtested the game and liked it a lot.

How fun is Agricola 1-player?

wonderpug wrote:How fun is Agricola 1-player?

Not really that good, IMHO. I like Le Havre better for solo, but still not my favorite solo game. They just released an iOS version of Agricola, so you can play with an AI on that.

Played a 2 player game of Star Trek:TOS DBG last night. Man, I like that game.

SpaceLord wrote:Civility on Kickstarter is less than 3k short of its goal with less than 10 hours to go. I found out today that the designer is a friend of a gaming buddy of mine, and my friend said he'd playtested the game and liked it a lot.

It doesn't get much closer than that. Made it by $358.

X-wing miniatures...

2xCore
1xY-Wing
1xA-Wing
1xX-Wing
1xTie Fighter
1xTie Advanced
1xTie Interceptor
1xSlave I
1xMilennium Falcon

8 Imperial Ships
6 Rebel Ships

The two big ships were given to me for my birthday along with two of the smaller expansions so that helps a bit. Hopefully Isgrimnur is interested in playing Saturday.

I saw demos of Star Trek: Attack Wing at Origins this past weekend. It looks fantastic. I'll probably buy into that one as I'm much more of a Star Trek fan than I am a Star Wars one.