OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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hepcat
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

Had to work yesterday...but thankfully from home. During the down moments (waiting on data transfers, etc.), I set up a game of Navajo Wars. I really hope the AI mechanic they use in this game sees life in other GMT games. It's such a fantastic system.

Although it did seem to delight in having the Spanish kill off my women folk. Now my culture points are dangerously low. I think it's time to tackle one of the full scenarios as soon as I finish this smaller one. For such a deep game, it's surprisingly easy to play after the first game.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Chrisoc13 »

Well between family time and the weather which has kept us inside I managed to have a pretty big weekend of gaming. I also started working through a bunch of the games I received recently but have not had a chance to play yet.

Over the weekend I managed to play:
- Castle Panic (with expansion and without, with expansion is better). Good game, not my favorite co-op but I'm happy to have it in my collection.
- Forbidden Desert: umm... I didn't like forbidden Island... still own it for some reason (it was a gift) and this game is only slightly better for me. Again it was a gift, but I've only played it once, may need to give it a couple more tries before giving up on it. It shows more promise to me than forbidden island did but yeah... maybe not my type of game.
- Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation: I like the idea of this game, but certainly haven't figured it out yet. So far in the 3 plays I have had the light side (or whatever you want to call it) has lost pretty soundly. Seems like a cool game though, looking forward to more plays.
- Pathfinder card game: After getting the base set cheap last month on a black friday deal I decided to try a solo game of it to get a handle on it. I managed to beat the first scenario just barely, though I need to do some rule reading making sure I get it right.
- Small World: Always fun, played with the new royal bonus races too, rather enjoyed it as I always do. I always forget to suggest it on game nights, not sure why.
- Smash up: Gave this as a gift to a buddy after finding it cheap. He taught me how to play it and I really think it's a fun, quick, and easy to learn game. I won't mind playing this a few more times.
- Love letter, multiple times. Always a fun quick game.
- Munchkins... ugh. My sister in law is in love with this game. We played it probably ten times over the last week. I don't understand the love for it. But I played to spend time with people. But yeah... I still won't be picking this game up any time soon.
- Caverna: My copy came! So far I really enjoy this game a lot. More than agricola, which I rather enjoy. I haven't figured out the strategy that much yet, but I am looking forward to understanding it more.
- Lords of waterdeep: always good
And probably 50 games of Guess Who? With my nephew and niece :)
Made a real dent in my unplayed games, and now after Christmas I only have a small handful unplayed.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Daveman »

Played 2 more rounds of Battlelore 2nd Edition... still loving it. Already dreaming up expansion units :)

Anyone else following the Coin Age / Wallet Battles controversy going on?
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Shinjin »

Picked up Wizard's Tower for Castle Panic and Forbidden Desert, but didn't get a chance to play either one. Wish work was canceled like school is so that I can help keep my kids from driving their mother insane on Monday.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Moat_Man »

Daveman wrote:Anyone else following the Coin Age / Wallet Battles controversy going on?
I backed Coin Age. What's the controversy?
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Moat_Man »

Ok, I did my homework.
Coin Age
Wallet Battles

I don't see the problem. Other than the similar form factor and use of coins as tokens the games are different. Can Sorry sue Careers because they look the same from afar? Both are Monopoly style boards with pawns for your token and use dice to move around the board. Different rules = different game.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by MythicalMino »

I have purchased Rampage and Carnival Zombie, both from funagaingames.com....Carnival Zombie is a pre-order (due in today, from what their website says)...so I order both games...but then after I order, the message pops up that because one of the items is a pre-order item, a funagaingames representative will contact me about payment...what? That makes no sense...I clicked on the "payment" button...why do they need to contact me to make payment arrangements? And how long will it take for them to contact me?
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Isgrimnur »

I punched 1/4 of my Ogre tonight.

I'm trying to make it a thing where the nights that I'm doing bachelor living because my fiancee closes the store, that I actually do something to advance one of my many causes. It might be to do some pleasure reading that's not in the 20 minutes before I go to sleep, go out to dinner with a friend, or get some work accomplished in gaming or working toward a personal programming project.

The nights of mindlessly cycling between OO, GT, and reddit for four hours needs to come to an end.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Shinjin »

Woo - squeezed in some Castle Panic! with the Wizard's Tower expansion. Kids and I loved it. It was especially pleasing to hear my 5 year old coming up with some good strategies on his own.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by SpaceLord »

Played a 3-player game of Kemet last night, and was once again reminded how freaking awesome it is. I hope to play against my visiting friend tomorrow night. :horse:
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by MythicalMino »

Rampage and Carnival Zombie arrived yesterday. Rampage looks like it will just be FUN. Looking forward to playing that Saturday or Sunday with the kids.

Carnival Zombie is very impressive. I am in the process of learning how to play, but the rules really are not too difficult (other than the translation from Italian to English can be a bit confusing sometimes). Very fun (and very hard) game...one of the very coolest things from the game is each character plays so differently. The sniper type character is so different from the captain is so different from the engineer type character is so different from the...It is very cool, though.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by MonkeyFinger »

Since I know Hepcat and others play these: An interview with Volko Ruhnke and a discussion of his COIN series. I'll have to check them out one of these days. 8-)
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Boudreaux »

My wife has challenged us to play every game in my collection (really honey? Tide of Iron? I'll believe that when I see it...) in the next six months. Which, by my count, should work out to roughly 20 games a month. So far in January we have managed:

Colosseum - still a solid family game.
Attika - my wife really likes this one, and usually just beats me by a turn.
Railroad Tycoon - forgot to add in the Railroad Baron cards, this might have ended differently.
Tikal - my wife is completely boggled by this game. I almost always win.
Ra - she crushed us by about 20 points. I played terribly.
Alien Frontiers - my wife is not a sci-fi/fantasy fan, and this is the first game we played where that theme comes in. Had to do it eventually, considering there are games like Firefly, Eclipse, and Earth Reborn waiting in the wings.

A few of these have been with one or more of our kids, but several have just been 2-player. My prediction is that this will slow down somewhat by March, mostly because she will get increasingly tired of learning new rulesets for all of these games she's never played before. Still, it's fun while it lasts. Her 67% win record can't hurt.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hentzau »

Played a 2 player game of Flashpoint tonight. Won quite handily (but we also got really lucky with some deck gun rolls and some explosions that only took out false alarms.) Only lost one person before the house collapsed (taking out the fire chief trying to rescue the family cat.)

Then broke out my copy of Forbidden Desert to play, and upon unboxing it for the first time found that I was missing 2 tiles. :( We went ahead and played without the tiles, and won pretty easily, but I have a feeling missing those couple of tiles made it a bit easier. I really like this one (based on our incomplete play through) and think it's a good compliment to Forbidden Island.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Lorini »

Just played 2 player (didn't finish) Hegemonic. Very interesting 4x board game, lots of interaction/conflict but still streamlined. I would really like to play it with four, but that's hard to do as most of my gaming buddies don't like conflict games. Hopefully I cant at least get a three player going soon.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by wonderpug »

Is Takenoko as fun as Wil Wheaton makes it look? Does it play well with 2 players?
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

I'm about halfway through my first game of Cruel Necessity and it's a winner, imho. You play the Puritans and your enemies are the Royalists. It's a surprisingly simple game with a ton of depth and (at first glance, at least) some decent replayability. Victory in the game is attained by surviving to the final card in the three decks representing the three civil wars. At that point you count up your victory points and refer to a chart to see how you did. Defeat is met if the Royalists control London during the end phase, four or more political markers in their F zone on the political track, or you toss your drink onto the board and run screaming into the night because you pulled a card that marched everyone into your area of the map and you see no possible way in hell of winning.

The game is broken down into the following phases:

1) Event phase - Draw a card from the event deck. There are two types of cards in this deck. The event cards dictate the enemies action, manipulate the political track, etc.. There are also achievement cards in the deck though. These can be purchased during the player action phase if the meet the listed goals on the card. They usually give you some small immediate award, but are mainly in the game as victory points during the final scoring phase.

2) Action phase - The player uses Zeal points (gained by controlling the major cities - London, Hull, etc) to perform a myriad of actions. These include attacking approaching armies (campaign battles), manipulating the political track, fortifying your cities with fortresses, besieging city fortresses that have fallen to the Royalists, gaining zeal outside the final phase, and a few other actions that arise during the course of the game. Zeal goes fast! So while you have quite a few options, you always have to struggle to figure out which are the best ones.

3) End phase - Determine if you've met defeat (lost London, four or more markers in the F zone on the political track).

4) House cleaning phase - remove any DRM (dice roll modifiers) that have been assigned by event cards, etc. during this turn. Collect your zeal points by referring to the zeal bonuses afforded you by your controlled cities.

It's definitely a State of Siege game in that the enemy advances on you via a numbered track and triggered by card draws during an event phase that occurs each player turn. However, the number of changes to the system outside that add some significant value to the game play.

Battles are the biggest change to the core system, and the most fun. Combat in the game is split into two types: campaign and tactical battles.

Campaign battles are very simple affairs. The game starts with the four major armies of that period (Scottish, Irish, North and West) already on the map. They are the ones that advance during the event phase if their flag is at the top of the event card that is drawn. During your action phase you can spend a zeal and roll a die against any of the encroaching armies. If you roll higher than the number of the card, it retreats to a higher number on the map. If it's already at 5 (the highest it can go), it's turned over and is considered In Disorder.

The tactical battles are the more addictive of the two types of combat. You perform such a battle whenever a red soldier icon with a red cannon appears on your event card. At that point you assign Calvary and Pike/Musket infantry to your side of a combat chart and to the Royalist side. You draw these blindly from a face down pile of units (representing the random competence in soldiers that were often conscripted while on the way to a battle during those times), but you can also assign some named units to the battle but you run the risk of losing these pieces if you lose the engagement.

After assigning the units, you flip them over and then pull a combat card from a combat deck for every infantry unit with the word Event written over the strength of the unit. These cards are unique, historical events that either help or hinder you and they add a great amount of depth to the battles.

Compare the strength of the four engagements (arranged as a battle line) and then roll a die for each side. Add that roll to each side's strength and if you are over the opponent's value by 2 or more, place your unit in that engagement in a Victory box. If you are below that value by two or more, place your unit in the Defeat box. And if you are within 1 of that value, place it in the Draw box. After performing all four engagements, determine which box has the most of your units and read the results from that box.

It's a fast but very satisfying and engaging combat engine. You get a sense of history from each conflict that I rarely get from the abstracted combat in most games of this ilk.

The game also includes revolts, "deviltry" (little rewards you can get by confronting these markers when the appear as the result of events, and a lot of angry Irishman and Scots.

I give this game two thumbs way up so far. Can't wait to tackle the campaign game this weekend!
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Boudreaux »

wonderpug wrote:Is Takenoko as fun as Wil Wheaton makes it look? Does it play well with 2 players?
I'm not sure anything is actually as fun as Wil Wheaton makes it look. Takenoko is a pretty good, light strategy game though. It's designed by Antoine Bauza, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite game designers (he also did Ghost Stories, Tokaido, and Hanabi). The components are fantastic, it's easy to understand and there are enough interesting decisions to keep the game fun. Turns go pretty quickly and it's not too long.

There is at least one complaint I've heard about the game that is somewhat valid - the different "mission" cards you're given are not always balanced. You're either trying to get a specific combination of bamboo on a tile, a specific arrangement of tiles, or a specific set of bamboo pieces that the panda has eaten. The first two objectives can be much more difficult to complete as the game goes on, without a corresponding payoff in points. This hasn't really bothered me in game - it's not a big enough problem and the game isn't long/strategic enough that it's a huge issue.

I picked it up a couple of months ago when Amazon had it on sale for something like $20, and I'm pretty happy with it. It'll be staying in our collection. Also, I think it would work fine with 2 players, maybe even better than 3/4 since there would be less changing from turn to turn. That might help with some of the objectives and general chaos that more players can create.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hentzau »

Boudreaux wrote:
wonderpug wrote:Is Takenoko as fun as Wil Wheaton makes it look? Does it play well with 2 players?
I'm not sure anything is actually as fun as Wil Wheaton makes it look. Takenoko is a pretty good, light strategy game though. It's designed by Antoine Bauza, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite game designers (he also did Ghost Stories, Tokaido, and Hanabi). The components are fantastic, it's easy to understand and there are enough interesting decisions to keep the game fun. Turns go pretty quickly and it's not too long.

There is at least one complaint I've heard about the game that is somewhat valid - the different "mission" cards you're given are not always balanced. You're either trying to get a specific combination of bamboo on a tile, a specific arrangement of tiles, or a specific set of bamboo pieces that the panda has eaten. The first two objectives can be much more difficult to complete as the game goes on, without a corresponding payoff in points. This hasn't really bothered me in game - it's not a big enough problem and the game isn't long/strategic enough that it's a huge issue.

I picked it up a couple of months ago when Amazon had it on sale for something like $20, and I'm pretty happy with it. It'll be staying in our collection. Also, I think it would work fine with 2 players, maybe even better than 3/4 since there would be less changing from turn to turn. That might help with some of the objectives and general chaos that more players can create.
It's the general chaos of the game that I love. I've done 2 player and found it to be a little boring, but really enjoyed my four player games.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Isgrimnur »

So far today, it's been Firefly and Nations.

Nations is very deep, strategically.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

I've been eyeing Nations, but the high price has kept me from jumping on it.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Lorini »

It's a simplified and streamlined version of Through the Ages. I like it much better because it's easier to explain and play. Also more randomization than TtA.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Isgrimnur »

Played a game of Letters from Whitechapel that got screwed up on night 2. I let the two more experienced players dictate a few things, including not having Jack in charge of the turn track, which led to a screwup that basically killed the game. The moves got out of sync, and the more experienced players were more into their deep, perfect information analysis, which led to things getting out of sync. One other thing that annoyed me was one of them dropping yellow markers on the board as part of their analysis.

In the future, I will be quite adamant that, as per the rules, the turn track and the clue tokens are strictly Jack's purview. Jack either needs to be a quarterback for the game, or if an inexperienced player, then one of the other players making damned sure that things are run exactly to his needs. I let myself get steamrolled tonight, and it screwed up the game. I won't be making the same mistakes again.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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We played Pandemic again last night and won fairly handily. Moat_Girl and I love the game but Moat_Boy is starting to lose interest. Time to switch things up a bit.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Isgrimnur wrote:So far today, it's been Firefly and Nations.

Nations is very deep, strategically.
My wife was on call yesterday so I couldn't make it out. Not going to make it next month either. Maybe March. :P

I did get a first play of Forbidden Desert with my son. I like it better than Island. My son enjoyed putting the flying ship together more than anything.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Isgrimnur »

Firefly, while thematically appropriate, still came across to me as competitive solitaire. The opportunities for player interaction were few and far between.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

I can understand that criticism. I will say that the scenario based gameplay allows the makers to mix things up and release new ones that might address that.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Isgrimnur »

True, but I see that coming at the cost of the theme. Having the different ships all attack the same goal achievement turns it into Ronin rather than Firefly.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

Conflict isn't the only way to engender interaction though. They could work on fostering a coop theme with new scenarios.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Isgrimnur »

That would change the whole face of the game, but seeing as I just had a couple players screw up a coop game by marginalizing two players and breaking the game for everyone else, that's not exactly much of a sell at the moment, either. :)
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by LordMortis »

Isgrimnur wrote:Firefly, while thematically appropriate, still came across to me as competitive solitaire. The opportunities for player interaction were few and far between.
I apply that concept to games like Dominion so I know where you're coming from. Firefly seems more like a race than solitaire to me, though I must admit I'm still not a fan. I don't dislike the game but it's not a game I'd ever jump at playing. "Come on out, we'll get in a few good games of Firefly." Is not a way to get me excited about a day of gaming.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hentzau »

I thought that playing Firefly with different story cards for each Captain would be more fun, but balancing the story cards would be pretty tough, since they have wildly different goals.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

Friday night I spent a few hours building a terraclips terrain configuration for a Saturday game of Malifaux. I have zero talent as an architect, but it still turned out better than I expected. It was a lot of fun navigating through the buildings and other terrain features. Our three player game went from around noon to about 5. Now I'm eying the third set for terraclips that I don't have yet (streets of malifaux). It was also cool to play on the 4x4 wooden table that my father made for me for Christmas. It worked out perfectly for our game.

Image

Afterwards, one player stuck around for a game of Eldritch Horror...which we lost just as we were about ready to solve the third and final mystery. :(

Yesterday I broke out Cruel Necessity for another run. That game is still hella fun.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by triggercut »

Head over heels for my first boardgame in 15-16 years. Having a blast with Pathfinder ACG. Took a bunch of different spins with it (probably playing that first scenario to absolute death) just to really nail down the rules. Honestly, the rules themselves are fairly simple, the thing I needed to get down to something of a habit is "look at this thing before you do that, then remember to check this other deal." Stuff like remembering when a character closes down a certain location, it triggers a special opportunity to do something (like recharge a discard, for instance).

Now that I've gotten that down and settled on my first adventure path party. Really having a blast.

USPS tells me that Darkest Night will be delivered tomorrow, too.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hentzau »

triggercut wrote:Head over heels for my first boardgame in 15-16 years. Having a blast with Pathfinder ACG. Took a bunch of different spins with it (probably playing that first scenario to absolute death) just to really nail down the rules. Honestly, the rules themselves are fairly simple, the thing I needed to get down to something of a habit is "look at this thing before you do that, then remember to check this other deal." Stuff like remembering when a character closes down a certain location, it triggers a special opportunity to do something (like recharge a discard, for instance).

Now that I've gotten that down and settled on my first adventure path party. Really having a blast.

USPS tells me that Darkest Night will be delivered tomorrow, too.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Chrisoc13 »

Didn't actually get a chance to game much even though it was a 3 day weekend for me. I did however manage to finally play a game of Claustrophobia! I was given it as a gift around 1 year ago and finally I found a chance to play it. My wife (my normal gaming partner) has absolutely no interest in it so I had to find someone else to play it with and the time finally presented itself. I really like it so far. It is nice and simple, yet there are lots of decisions to make. We had to play on the floor because honestly it spreads out so much and I simply don't have a table big enough otherwise. We played the first scenario and really felt like we started getting a handle on the game. I had a few friends over so we followed that up with a game of zombicide. We won at the last second (one of the game night scenarios) but not without three of us turning into zombivors. So not completely successful. But still lots of fun.

My brother and I did manage to go to the game store and try out a game of Rampage though. Fun little dexterity game, one I will probably never own but all the same I would play it again. Certainly people watching thought it was funny. But nobody really wanted to join in...

My wife got me Robinson Crusoe for my Birthday which was this last week but it is still on the way here, so I'm hoping to get into that soon. I also have eclipse sitting unplayed from Christmas. Too many new games to get into.
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baelthazar
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by baelthazar »

My wife and I have played like 5 games of Caverna over the past few days. The bad thing - I keep winning, which is going to make her basically stop playing. For me, there is a certain engine building joy that comes from planning ahead and constructing the perfect way to maximize VPs with chambers and storages. I think she tries to do everything, which means that no particular path is strong. It isn't that the scores are vastly different, but I always manage to pull ahead by the end. I think I'm going to have to throw the game at least once!

I've been sitting on Cruel Necessity and Darkest Night to give them a shot. Do the expansions for Darkest Night really improve the game and should they be acquired and used from the get-go or only after I have exhausted the stock game? What I mean is, are these expansions "patches" or add-ons?

I also found two old iPhone boxes tucked away in my closet. So I think I am going to start a project to construct a dice tower from one of them.
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triggercut
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by triggercut »

baelthazar wrote:Do the expansions for Darkest Night really improve the game and should they be acquired and used from the get-go or only after I have exhausted the stock game? What I mean is, are these expansions "patches" or add-ons?
The reviews I've read at BGG make the expansions (there's two now!) sound as if they're add-ons that sort of "open-end" the game a bit. I haven't played yet (Mr. Postman has his work cut out for him with the snow tomorrow, but we'll see), but from video playthroughs I've seen of Darkest Night, it sounds like the base game is four heroes against a Necromancer who is trying to blight the land, with the player and heroes basically running up against the clock.

The expansions seem like they add more open-ended gameplay, with the heroes doing different sorts of quests or events in the same mechanics and universe. I guess.

I'm going to see how the main game grabs me before I jump in on the expansions.
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hepcat
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

I own Darkest Night and all of the expansions (including the promo characters you can get from the boardgamegeek.com web store...yes, I'm that much of a completist dork). Personally, I recommend at least the first expansion right off the bat. It adds the quest system, which really fills out some of the issues I had with just the base game, which is that it can be a bit...well...bland. It also throws in some much needed relic variety as the base game only includes a few.

If you do get the expansions, don't bother ordering the boxed editions, just get the polybag editions and save a few bucks.
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Boudreaux
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Boudreaux »

Lots of games over the long weekend. The challenge with my wife continues, and it's been a ton of fun to go back to all these older games in my collection that haven't been played in so long. We played Cleopatra & the Society of Architects, Manila (I finally won after at least a dozen games), and a monster three hour, 4-player game of Vinhos. Something about that game really clicks with me, and I want to try it with only 2 players to see how well it works there. Seems like it would do fine.

Yesterday my son picked up the Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug board game which is a continuation of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey which he also owns. He got the latter over Christmas while browsing at a game store, and I was skeptical of his purchase (8-year-olds are hard to educate about reviews, ratings, etc.). Turns out it's a Reiner Knizia game, a remake of his older Lord of the Rings co-op game. The card hand management has been replaced with dice, but otherwise it's very similar. One of the things I like about the original LOTR was how hard it was, you really had to work together and think about each turn. Playing The Hobbit had me worried, it's not that difficult, but adding in The Desolation of Smaug (two additional boards) ramps up the difficulty quite a bit. We played our first game using both games together this morning and were crushed by Smaug on the final 4th board.

Also been playing a bunch of Marvel Legendary with the Dark City expansion (I'm still lukewarm on the whole Legendary system) as well as a few games of Sentinels of the Multiverse (which I find far more interesting).
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