OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Wed Sep 11, 2013 8:52 pm

That's actually a very good price for metal RPG coins.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Wed Sep 11, 2013 9:31 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:Coop, I will assume that you're a no-go for the DGM on the 21st, as you either recover from the trip and unpack all the things, or are lying in state.

Yeah, I'm going to be owing some family time after being away all week, plus 2 kids soccer games!

Pathfinder Card Game showed up today, yay.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sat Sep 14, 2013 11:13 am

Played the Lord of the Rings LCG last night for the first time, co-op. The first game was unbelievably slow (there's like 37 steps and sub-steps each turn), but by the last game I think we had it down pretty solid. That being said, we failed miserably at the introductory scenario twice before deciding to switch decks and try again - at which point we beat the adventure much easier. We were only playing with the stock "themed" decks and didn't engage in any type of construction whatsoever. I'm hoping we can continue to do so as I really don't have any interest in creating a deck of mixed heroes, but if that turns out to be the case I'm assuming there are readily made deck instructions out there if necessary.

Anyway, it's a solid game that oozes theme. The card art work is top-notch and it really does feel like you're in Middle Earth with all of the various heroes, lore and name-drops. I can see where it would be fun solo, but co-op was just as entertaining, trying to figure out the best strategy at any given time. The only downside is you really need to be on top of your cards - probably more so than any other deck building game I've ever played. Many cards have powers/abilities/reactions that are very specific and if you don't use them it's potentially damaging to your ability to successfully win a scenario.

The plan was actually to just play a round and then move on to the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, but we were having enough fun and wanted to really learn the rules so we continued along. For reference if anyone else is going to play the introductory scenario, we found the team of Tactics and Lore to be more effective than Tactics and Leadership.

I liked it - enough to order a bunch of adventure packs this morning. Hopefully that damn OO link works.

Octavious · Post by **Octavious** » Sat Sep 14, 2013 5:30 pm

Smoove_B wrote:I'm really looking to unload a bunch of boardgames too, but I don't think I have a LGS selling option...which means dealing with eBay...which doesn't really seem ideal. Once you start looking into the shipping costs for some of these games, I really do wonder how Amazon makes any money.

what are you selling? I might be interested. Or I might hate the whole pile who knows.

xwraith · Post by **xwraith** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 10:16 am

Blackhawk wrote: Castle Panic has really impressed me. I've only played three games, and the players won all three, but every time it was down to the wire. Every time we were at a point where we were convinced we were going to lose, and every time we pulled it back in the last few minutes. That's good design.

I played it at GenCon and enjoyed it so I picked it up. My wife and our friends have really enjoyed it! I also played and enjoyed Dead Panic as well, but they were all sold out by the time we got to their booth.

Speaking of Dead Panic, it looks like Fireside games posted a snapshot of our endgame (look for the picture entitled "GET TO THE VAN!")

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 3:52 pm

Castle Panic has really impressed me. I've only played three games, and the players won all three, but every time it was down to the wire. Every time we were at a point where we were convinced we were going to lose, and every time we pulled it back in the last few minutes. That's good design.

That's been the opposite of my experience. We've won every game and out of maybe 5 games only 1 was even remotely close. We even won games in which we were so obviously screwed from the start we thought it would be our first defeat and still pulled it out. I don't know if that's a function of playing with only two players or just dumb luck.

I've put it on the backburner until I pick up the expansion, because as it stands it's just too easy.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 11:50 pm

My "Royal Bonus" and leaders expansion for Small World from the kickstarter campaign arrived in the mail today. They look great (which is expected from Days of Wonder)! We busted out and played a quick game of small world putting the new races at the top of the stack to make sure we got to play them. They fit in well with the other races, pretty happy with them. Still a great game I just don't get around to playing very often.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Tue Sep 17, 2013 12:27 am

I finally had the chance to play a game of Fantasy Flight's Merchant of Venus with two gamers who were enthusiasts of the Classic edition. They wanted to play the updated Fantasy Flight version with its Revised rules, then spent the rest of the game talking about how they weren't impressed with the updated graphics and rule changes. Sigh. Sometimes it's nice to get into a game with no expectations.

I thought it was an interesting take on the pick-up and deliver game. After discovering a series of worlds, you end up trying to maximize cash flow on trade routes. While the Classic edition had a well-known runaway mechanism (if you have money, you can make more money), the Revised edition allows for players to run missions, get rewards and fight/evade pirates to get prestige that convert into cash at the end of the game ($10 per prestige, unless you roll doubles and have the "Fuzzy Dice" gear). That adds more adventure/press-your-luck style of Skill Check Rolls which definitely gives it the feel of a Fantasy Flight game. It's also a departure from the more euro-focused "Pay X Credits" to pass this hazard space in the Classic rules.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Sep 17, 2013 8:04 am

Isn't the new Firefly board game supposed to be similar to Merchant of Venus? Having played neither (amazingly), I couldn't say.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Tue Sep 17, 2013 10:32 pm

Firefly is a also a pick-up and deliver game but the theme is much richer and the adventures are central to winning the game. The Classic rules for Merchant of Venus is a space themed pick-up and deliver. The Revised rules from Fantasy Flight adds some more adventures for those who fall behind in the space freight business.

From our play at GenCon, Firefly takes makes the adventure and its theme central to the endgame. Not surprisingly, hepcat ordered his copy online about 30 minutes into the game. He loves theme as much as his hair product.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 9:43 am

The lack of concrete news on the reprint of Robinson Crusoe is killing me. I want that game, have $55 in credit on Amazon, but no reasonably-priced copies to be had. I just want to play your game, Zman. Let me.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 9:50 am

Taking my copy (along with Pathfinder card game and a hatchback full of others) down to Ft. Wayne to play with RedWarlord and his wife this weekend. If I see a copy on the shelves of any of the 200 game stores in that area (seriously, that city has a lot of game stores), should I shoot you a PM?

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 10:14 am

hepcat wrote:Taking my copy (along with Pathfinder card game and a hatchback full of others) down to Ft. Wayne to play with RedWarlord and his wife this weekend. If I see a copy on the shelves of any of the 200 game stores in that area (seriously, that city has a lot of game stores), should I shoot you a PM?

Thanks, but no. The only way I get to justify picking this up at all is that I'm mostly paying for it with an Amazon credit, so I basically have to wait for it to show up there.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 10:56 am

Zarathud wrote:
From our play at GenCon, Firefly takes makes the adventure and its theme central to the endgame. Not surprisingly, hepcat ordered his copy online about 30 minutes into the game. He loves theme as much as his hair product.

It doesn't hurt that that theme just happens to be derived from one of my top 5 favorite tv shows of all time.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 11:03 am

Zarathud,

I was mulling over the difference in gameplay between Classic Merchant of Venus and the revised FFG rules. I think the revised rules offer a lot of neat stuff, but I also wonder if it makes the game longer and harder to learn (lots more to keep track of and do). I intend to test out the classic rules and see how I feel.

I'm intrigued by Firefly, but I wonder if it will play as well with 2 as Merchant. I was very disappointed that the indie Xia game did not have 2-player rules.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 11:41 am

Firefly is 1 to 4 (5 with promo ship from trade magazine), so I would imagine it would be fun for two.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 3:23 pm

hepcat wrote:Firefly is 1 to 4 (5 with promo ship from trade magazine), so I would imagine it would be fun for two.

Solo play! I'm definitely in then. I was not a fan of the show (as in I did not watch it, not that I did not like it), but I was a HUGE fan of the movie.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 3:26 pm

I feel sorry for anyone who hasn't watched the entire Firefly tv run.

Boudreaux · Post by **Boudreaux** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 4:02 pm

baelthazar wrote:
hepcat wrote:Firefly is 1 to 4 (5 with promo ship from trade magazine), so I would imagine it would be fun for two.
Solo play! I'm definitely in then. I was not a fan of the show (as in I did not watch it, not that I did not like it), but I was a HUGE fan of the movie.

Just FYI, I played a solo game using the rules as written and was underwhelmed. The solo scenario has three different objectives (get $15000, get solid with 5 contacts, or (I forget the third) ) which you pick ahead of time to try to accomplish. You have 20 turns, during which you can take any of the actions once, and a turn ends whenever you take the Fly action (travel across the map).

The problem is that they give you $1000 to start with to hire up to 4 crew, and unless you intentionally nerf yourself it's very easy to get a pretty strong crew to start. With $900 you can hire Kaylee, Inara, Zoe, and Shepherd Book. This gives you not only a lot of good starting skills, but with the three ladies you can re-roll any skill check, which is HUGE. Makes the game too easy. I chose the "get $15k" mission and not only did I never fail a job attempt, I had over $23k with about 7-8 turns left.

A big part of the game is finding a good crew, and the solo rules take that away. Like I said, you could remove that step but then you'd need to balance the number of turns available, and you'd also increase the solo game length.

It works, but I wouldn't buy Firefly for the solo rules alone.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 11:16 pm

If you know Classic Merchant of Venus, I would think that it's easy to calculate the cost of movement. But I don't think the Revised FFG rules really slow it down. It comes down to what is going to slow down your gaming group more -- calculating an optimal route through hazards by taking into account credit loss or by the risk of rolling a d6 skill check/random event.

I think the rolls are easier -- you decide when and where to press your luck. Unless you know the board, the math is generally going to be slower. We spent a lot of time on the first 10 of 30 turns discussing the rules and changes, but the last 10 turns went by very quickly. The time we spent on encounter cards were pretty minimal, and the encounter cards usually refresh goods from a market.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Sun Sep 22, 2013 11:24 am

Well I got to play some x wing this week. 3 games with the new ships. The b wing is awesome! Sure it isn't terribly mobile but it sure does pack a punch. The tie bomber can be ridiculous with the load outs it can carry but you better protect it then.

The hwk is much better than I expected. I have 2 which is probably too many but I really like its support abilities and its turret is great too. Haven't used the lambda as much yet. It's a good support ship but that big base makes it an easy target. The cards that come with it are good enough I'm considering getting another one.

Just pre ordered the imperial aces. Looking forward to them. Hoping they give some repaints of the a wings. Mostly to make them a bit more powerful. I love the a wing but it just doesn't seem to pack enough of a punch.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:12 am

Headed down to Redwarlord's place for a weekend of gaming. I went armed with about a dozen games, but as it usually happens we ended up fixated on one or two while playing a few others once.

This time around the fixation happened to be on Robinson Crusoe. I honestly thought Pathfinder would be the go to game that weekend, but after one play two of the four players announced they weren't that impressed with it. I think it probably has more to do with theme, though. They're not big on fantasy games (nor am I, to be honest...but Pathfinder is just a solid game all around in my opinion) though.

Robinson Crusoe was a huge hit however. We played it about 7 times this weekend. And we never even won the first scenario. I think that was what had us so obsessed with it. We noticed we were getting better each time, so we wanted to keep trying to see if we could master it.

In the single play games arena, we had a blast (as we always do) with Tales of the Arabian Nights on Saturday night. I don't think I've ever played a game of TotAN that didn't include a lot of laughing and teasing about the circumstances that arise during the encounters. Admittedly, it's not for every gamer. It's more of a social game like Werewolf than anything else. But I only bring it out with groups that I know love that sort of thing.

We also played some Alien Frontiers, which is always fun too.

I wanted to get Duel of Ages II on the table, but everyone was so enamored with Robinson Crusoe that we didn't get a chance. Plus, we were short on table space and DoAII requires quite a bit of acreage to play.

Hopefully this week or next I'll see my copy of Cuba Libre ship from Coolstuff, as well as my copy of Navajo Wars from GMT.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 1:11 pm

I, too, am looking forward to Navajo Wars (and will like buy Cuba Libre). Both are games, as a historian, I feel I can legitimately play during my lunch hours at the office.

I have been mulling over Pathfinder. I like it a lot, but I am not sure it offers a much different experience than A Touch of Evil or even Relic. Yes, there are more player decisions in hand play, but overall it is still a random card draw encounter game. What saves it is the campaign and level up system - the persistent characters are the hallmark of the game.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 3:27 pm

Played the Bard in pathfinder card game, got to play King of Tokyo, and a game of BSG

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 5:33 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:Played the Bard in pathfinder card game

Thoughts?

I just counted. I just placed my 11th $100 order at CSI...

Spoiler:

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 7:50 pm

The fighter kept turning up ghosts that had to get re-shuffled in. I managed to break a barrier before I started getting curb-stomped by all the baddies. My other contribution was that I was able to shut down a location so that we knew exactly where Big Bad would have to run to, and we managed to squeak out a victory.

Perhaps if I'd been more effective, I might have enjoyed it more, but it's not something I'm going to be champing at the bit to get back into.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:06 pm

As a one off game, Pathfinder can be...underwhelming. That's the problem I faced this weekend with a group who hadn't heard of it. But if you can get a group to commit to playing through the campaign I think it's great. Though to be honest, I think I like it best as a solo game right now due to that.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:15 pm

Confess, isg. You were looking for the killer combo so you could wrap up the game by turn 3, but couldn't find it. Nightfall has just ruined you.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:17 pm

hepcat wrote:Though to be honest, I think I like it best as a solo game right now due to that.

And that no one feels uncomfortable when you sit down to play, cosplaying as Amiri.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:21 pm

I had the breastplate and loincloth from my Burlesque days so why wouldn't I pull them out?

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:57 pm

Zarathud wrote:Confess, isg. You were looking for the killer combo so you could wrap up the game by turn 3, but couldn't find it. Nightfall has just ruined you.

If Nightfall ruined me, playing Seekrieg 5 with a former Naval aviator has long repaired my need for a quick, elegant solution.

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Wed Sep 25, 2013 8:48 am

This past weekend I had a games day at the house, and had around 12 people at different times come and go. I guess it helps, that I feed everyone.

Anyway, we started off the day with Seasons with expansion. Everyone that played loved it. The combo's were really going wild, and I lost badly. I had the most cards out, but no points until the last few turns. None of my combos would fire..<sigh>

Then a friend brought The fellowship of the ring the dice game?? It was like Quarriors but a lot more rules heavy, and had some of the worst rules ever. But we got through it, and kinda enjoyed it. I would just play quarriors and throw this game away, but it wasn't mine so no bigiee.

Then we played Relic, and I hated it. But I hate Talisman even though I own every expansion. <sigh>

Then we broke out Eclipse w/ expansion. I still love this game, Thanks Zarathud for getting me addicted! It was a 5 player game, and this game we actually had someone completely destroyed. He over extended himself in an attempt to get the center, and lost most of his fleet. And then our hyper aggressive player used a wormhole to attack him and wipe him out.

I took the center, but was low on resources and VP's. So on the turn before last, I broke my fleet up and attacked a ton of spaces of the highest points leader that had no protection. I took over a ton of things, and just really burned his planets. Then I consolidated my fleet, and exposed him for the other two players. He was ticked at me, so attacked me relentlessly, and of course the other two jumped on him.

He still won, but barely. Very fun game.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Wed Sep 25, 2013 9:13 am

My goal of having a solo game running on my kitchen table every week so that I can unwind with a beer and some strategy when I get home from work is continuing. This week it's Dawn of the Zeds 2nd edition.

So far things are going well...of course, I've only taken two turns and the zombie horde is still one space away from one of my towns. But I'm hopeful that with the help of the Sheriff, the Mayor, the town doctor and a scientist researching a cure, we'll live for a few more turns.

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Wed Sep 25, 2013 10:31 am

hepcat wrote:My goal of having a solo game running on my kitchen table every week so that I can unwind with a beer and some strategy when I get home from work is continuing. This week it's Dawn of the Zeds 2nd edition.

So far things are going well...of course, I've only taken two turns and the zombie horde is still one space away from one of my towns. But I'm hopeful that with the help of the Sheriff, the Mayer, the town doctor and a scientist researching a cure, we'll live for a few more turns.

That's a admirable goal. By the time I get some time to myself the only energy I have is just falling asleep to the TV nowadays.

Going to have to speed up my daughter Katie's reading comprehension skills so she can go on adventures with me in Pathfinder. And graduate her from dice roller to actual player in X-Wing miniatures someday.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:04 pm

hepcat wrote:I'm hopeful that with the help of the Sheriff, the Mayer, the town doctor and a scientist researching a cure, we'll live for a few more turns.

John or Oscar?

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Wed Sep 25, 2013 6:15 pm

D'oh!

That was NOT a Freudian slip, by the way!

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Fri Sep 27, 2013 11:21 am

Anyone played the new expansion to BSG? Daybreak is the name. I am considering buying it, so I will have all the expansions. My gaming group plays this about once every 2 months or so. Every loves it when we airlock someone, well except the guy we all love to airlock that is.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Fri Sep 27, 2013 9:09 pm

I have Daybreak but haven't unboxed yet. Tax season and unreasonable client demands make for a dull time.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Sep 27, 2013 9:22 pm

...and my game of Dawn of the Zeds ends with every hero dead, all but one civilian group in the hospital and an irriadated zombie who picked up that condition at a nearby nuclear plant stumbling into the town center and thus winning the day for the undead.

Sigh...time for a new plan.

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Mon Sep 30, 2013 8:00 am

hepcat wrote:My goal of having a solo game running on my kitchen table every week so that I can unwind with a beer and some strategy when I get home from work is continuing. This week it's Dawn of the Zeds 2nd edition.

So far things are going well...of course, I've only taken two turns and the zombie horde is still one space away from one of my towns. But I'm hopeful that with the help of the Sheriff, the Mayor, the town doctor and a scientist researching a cure, we'll live for a few more turns.

we have stupid cats that don't want to stay off the table...so leaving games on my table is not an easy task to accomplish anymore. My toddler kids never bothered them, but these damnable cats...