Octopus Overlords

Played a game of Myth. Fortunately, hepcat over-prepared in explaining the rules. The biggest issue is that they could have used an outside playtester to redesign the rules and layout -- some terms are confusingly used and the card layout/icons could have been much better.

I like that it's basically a Descent dungeon crawl where the players set up the difficulty and story, and can continue the game as desired. We played a 5-player "rescue the captive" game on a 5-turn timer. Our thief slipped around the enemy to rescue eliminate the rescue timer, while my warrior charged into the thick of things. The mage did a sweet job of area control, while the archer and cleric were underutilized. Each character ended up playing very differently. After I cranked up the warrior's threat, I found myself surrounded but desperate to avoid fighting back to avoid hitting the deadly 10-threat level. As the other players stepped up, I found myself barely able to keep alive and triggered some mini-bosses that should have killed us. Now we know how the endgame plays, I would have rushed in much more slowly.

Also played a game of Ghost Stories. It went as expected -- a horrible loss after a promising start. Once we extended ourselves out to get on top of the ghosts during a few easy turns, we didn't rebuild fast enough and ended up in horrible position to fight off the upcoming pain. We tempted fate when another player noticed how well we were doing, and I picked up two green tokens to fight off the toughest green ghost in play instead of listening to another player suggesting that we'd be screwed if the black ghosts started to show up. The next 3 of 4 ghosts were black. And he was right, we were screwed.

my son and I played a game of Mage Wars. He was the Johktari Beastmaster and I was the Druid (playing the starter spellbooks for both mages). Lots of fun, such a great game. He did decent, considering he had not played the game in quite some time...but he still lost

The Druid is pretty awesome, especially with all the vines she can spread across the board...

I played a solo game of Myth after spending way too long on the manual and the PDFs and the BGG forums. I think I have the gameplay itself down pretty well. The writing in the manual is bad and the quest documentation is worse, but the gameplay is promising. I played with 3 heroes, Soldier, Acolyte and Archer playing the first Act of the second Story quest in the manual and it took a LONG time. It would definitely be quicker if I had 3 people operating the characters... though tactical discussion might drag on a bit.

The only real challenge was rolling a 9 to unlock the door to get the thief out. I had to leave behind 3 treasure tokens because there was no way to get it out with 3 crawlers spawning every refresh. That was OK because I already have 6 greens and 1 blue from the first Act. Two more acts then I have to throw most of it away. That's a little annoying.

I want wave two so I can have some enemy variety.

I sold Quarriors without ever playing it. I am now thinking about order Marvel Dice Masters.

I guess theme is that important to me.

Boardgaming bonanza this past week!

My 3.5-year-old daughter showed more interest than ever in exploring our Chutes & Ladders game board (though actually playing the game hasn't caught on yet) so I figured that was my green light to start hurling kid-friendly board games at her to see what sticks.

Hungry Hungry Hippos - I always wanted this as a kid, so I figured I'd get it for mine. I never realized how quickly all the marbles get eaten. Ah well, she's getting a kick out of it.

Zingo! - Huge hit, and with some educational merit to boot. It's basically Bingo on a 3x3 board with a snazzy chip dispenser and illustrations & simple words for the chips. My daughter can actually play this as intended and seems to love it. Adorably, if we both need the same chip that appears, she's more interested in helping me complete my board than her own.

Hisss - Simple tile laying game where you try to build snakes by laying down head/body/tail parts with colors that match. If you complete a snake, it's yours and you get to say "hisssss!" Seemed to go over okay, but she was mostly interested in "building a little snake" consisting of just a head and a tail. Has potential.

On deck to try are The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game and Hi Ho Cherry-O.

If Hisss is working, you might want to check out Monster Factory. It's Hisss++.

Zarathud wrote:Played a game of Myth. Fortunately, hepcat over-prepared in explaining the rules. The biggest issue is that they could have used an outside playtester to redesign the rules and layout -- some terms are confusingly used and the card layout/icons could have been much better.

I like that it's basically a Descent dungeon crawl where the players set up the difficulty and story, and can continue the game as desired. We played a 5-player "rescue the captive" game on a 5-turn timer. Our thief slipped around the enemy to rescue eliminate the rescue timer, while my warrior charged into the thick of things. The mage did a sweet job of area control, while the archer and cleric were underutilized. Each character ended up playing very differently. After I cranked up the warrior's threat, I found myself surrounded but desperate to avoid fighting back to avoid hitting the deadly 10-threat level. As the other players stepped up, I found myself barely able to keep alive and triggered some mini-bosses that should have killed us. Now we know how the endgame plays, I would have rushed in much more slowly.

Will they eventually do a campaign like Descent? I think the best shine from Descent came from the campaign even though it was flawed in a lot of ways.

Remus picked this up but we haven't been able to play. Scheduling has been difficult for all of us and work has been kicking my ass making me too broken to go out an do much.

LordMortis wrote:Will they eventually do a campaign like Descent? I think the best shine from Descent came from the campaign even though it was flawed in a lot of ways.

According to Undead Viking's review, they didn't even want to include the story stuff they did include. They were much more interested in a free from game. On the other hand, especially with expansion content (needs more mob variety), you have all the tools you need to do a pretty in depth campaign.

I played a practice game of Myth on Saturday, just trying to wrap my head around it. I think I have the basic flow down, and I'll try a proper session with my wife next weekend. She has already called dibs on the Brigand.

You could treat multiple sessions as the players electing to turn over new tiles and keep going. I like how that lets players extend or end the game as desired.

I finally got around to trying Suburbia on the ipad. Holy hell, that game is about as Euro as they come. I initially has some trouble wrapping my head around it (partially due to how they show you a preview of your resources after a tile placement and all the turn maintenance, but before you finalize it, and that could be done better), but I think I got it. I don't know how much I'll be playing it though. It was perfectly fine, just absolutely dry as dirt. I guess I don't have the stomach for strict Euros anymore. I need theme!

Thanks to Coop, I am currently preparing for a game of Myth by reading the rules. Holy Hand Grenade, those rules are long and confusing!! Anyone have any nice links to reference sheets or edited rules compilations?

Yeah, the rules kinda suck. Megacon is supposedly working on them. There is a ton of discussion on BGG but not much in the way of helpful docs just yet. Still too many questions I guess. They are not good at writing quests.

baelthazar wrote:Thanks to Coop, I am currently preparing for a game of Myth by reading the rules. Holy Hand Grenade, those rules are long and confusing!! Anyone have any nice links to reference sheets or edited rules compilations?

Best bet (outside of the BGG FAQ) is to go here for updated sheets.

Smoove_B wrote:

baelthazar wrote:Thanks to Coop, I am currently preparing for a game of Myth by reading the rules. Holy Hand Grenade, those rules are long and confusing!! Anyone have any nice links to reference sheets or edited rules compilations?

Best bet (outside of the BGG FAQ) is to go here for updated sheets.

A video blogger, Joel Eddy, has released an hour's worth of walk-through here. Personally, I probably won't get the game, despite wanting it, because half the stuff that's referenced in the box isn't in the retail copy. Less than half the minis available are in the box. Someone on BGG estimated the cost to get everything available now would be north of 500 dollars, while all that was 100 dollars via Kickstarter.

I think what's truly confusing people is that it's not a boardgame as much as it is a system. Reading through the rules is almost like...reading through an explanation of how a computer game would be programmed to create a sandbox RPG simulation. Its not something you can just open the box and start playing, that's for sure. I do think once updates are released and people really start to crank out videos and guides, it's going to be something people will come back to. While my board gaming experience is rather limited, I can honestly say I've never read a set of rules like what I'm seeing now.

Smoove_B wrote:I think what's truly confusing people is that it's not a boardgame as much as it is a system. Reading through the rules is almost like...reading through an explanation of how a computer game would be programmed to create a sandbox RPG simulation. Its not something you can just open the box and start playing, that's for sure. I do think once updates are released and people really start to crank out videos and guides, it's going to be something people will come back to. While my board gaming experience is rather limited, I can honestly say I've never read a set of rules like what I'm seeing now.

Interesting. I did not read the rules, but when Hepcat explained them i had no problem with them. I assumed he did a great job explaining them. but since he is so down on them maybe it is more because of what you said. There are certainly improvements that could be made, and clarifications, and other stuff; hopefully they get it addressed.

Whatever you do, don't watch the undead Viking review. I am not sure he got any rules RIGHT.

Played a game of Sergeants again last night. A five on five fight, and I thought for sure I was toast, because my object was to hold a landmark that was an open field. No cover whatsoever, matter of fact it had a firing bonus for people firing into it. I deployed my paras in the center of this landmark in a circle, facing every direction. Humphreys was injured in the landing, so I was in a bad spot.

Stuart entered the field, and was moving through some rough terrain. Despite the terrain modifiers, in the first round I was able to spot all of his figures on the board, but he spotted several of my troops too. He continued to move towards my troops, and I got off a few ineffective shots, only pinning a couple of guys.

Second round, there was a move action in each phase, but a shoot action in the last two. Stuart (who had initiative) moved, and then I moved, bringing all of my troops into a firing position on the encroaching Germans. Stuart was obviously wanting to close to hand to hand range, because he chose to move in the second phase instead of shoot. However, because of the pins on his troops and the terrain modifier, none of his troops could close to hand to hand. They were all about a half inch short.

And then I rained hell down upon him in gunfire. When the smoke cleared at the end of the last phase, he had one troop left, who was easily dispatched during the first phase of the last turn. It was a crushing defeat for the Germans.

I really do feel bad for Stuart, he hasn't won a single game of Sergeants that we've played. Tommy and I are scratching our heads over it, we both thought for sure that I was going to be completely rolled over by the Germans.

Got my game in of Myth last night. My son and I played the intro mission posted on the Megacon website. Our first session took north of 4 hours, and we both died horribly. I played the soldier, and my son was the acolyte. We had tons of questions while playing, and relied heavily on the BGG unofficial FAQ, and the hero card reference guides.

Much was learned, and our second play through went much smoother. We were able to finish the same adventure in approximately an hour, and really had no issues. In saying that I have been reviewing more rules questions, and discovered we erred up movement card order. From what I understand now, once you play a card and take its bonus for movement or lack of movement, then you cannot play another card exceeding said movement.

Tonight I am going to look more into the quest cards to determine how easy/difficult it is to put together a random quest utilizing said cards. It seems very convoluted, but it is one of the areas that drew me to backing the game in the first place.

In the end we both had a good time, and I look forward to presenting it to our game group once we have a complete grasp of the game. I went from being disappointed during the first play through, and thinking no way do I back another Megacon game, to telling myself "this is decent, and I will probably go through with backing Recon".

Seppe wrote:

Smoove_B wrote:I think what's truly confusing people is that it's not a boardgame as much as it is a system. Reading through the rules is almost like...reading through an explanation of how a computer game would be programmed to create a sandbox RPG simulation. Its not something you can just open the box and start playing, that's for sure. I do think once updates are released and people really start to crank out videos and guides, it's going to be something people will come back to. While my board gaming experience is rather limited, I can honestly say I've never read a set of rules like what I'm seeing now.

Interesting. I did not read the rules, but when Hepcat explained them i had no problem with them. I assumed he did a great job explaining them. but since he is so down on them maybe it is more because of what you said. There are certainly improvements that could be made, and clarifications, and other stuff; hopefully they get it addressed.

I think they are getting it fixed based on updates they have posted, but in reading the rules it becomes really obvious they never blind tested the rulebook. As in they never gave it to someone and simply said "learn this game" without being there to teach them or help them.

Hepcat did you a huge favor by learning the rules, because the game is actually pretty fun once you understand how to play.

Due to the state of Myth though I am pretty sure I am pulling my Recon pledge. Or maybe just to myth stuff so I still have a complete collection of Myth. The rulebook has been that much of an issue for me. It isn't impossible to get around, but there are thousands of great games out there I don't need to waste unnecessary time learning rules for games from companies who can't be bothered to put out a reasonable rulebook. I only stuck it out with Myth because I backed the kickstarter. If I had tried it at a board game store I would have never picked it up. Unless someone had taught me of course. So Recon... I'm probably out on.

I've played myth a couple times this week. I haven't done a story quest yet, just random exploring. I tend to get myself in over my head though pretty quick. I like the big tiles and I keep choosing to spawn lots of creatures on them... because it is cool... but then I die. I need to control myself a bit on that front! Enjoying the game now that I have actually learned it.

Smoove_B wrote:I think what's truly confusing people is that it's not a boardgame as much as it is a system. Reading through the rules is almost like...reading through an explanation of how a computer game would be programmed to create a sandbox RPG simulation. Its not something you can just open the box and start playing, that's for sure. I do think once updates are released and people really start to crank out videos and guides, it's going to be something people will come back to. While my board gaming experience is rather limited, I can honestly say I've never read a set of rules like what I'm seeing now.

I don't know if that is it for me. I'm seriously bogged down in the fact that entire key procedures are completely absent from the manual. How exactly do I set up a lair? In a hero cycle, how many moves can I do and cards can I play (other than the one action card limit)? What do the defining attributes on the character token do (nothing or provide me with an automatic "resource" when I roll my fate die, and if so how many times can I use this resource)?

I think there is a brilliant role-playing system under the mess of the rules, so I am willing to give Megacon a chance to straighten everything out and issue updated rules and FAQs. I love what is there, but I would like to know how to play it. If I like how it plays, I will likely back an expansion.

I have started to get a little into the spellbook making in Mage Wars. Actualy, I found 2 spellbook lists, and changed out a few spells here and there. Got a game set up for tomorrow vs. my son. He will be playing as the Johktari Beastmaster and I will be an Air Wizard. Both spell books are at 120 points.

I ordered an additional copy of both spell tomes (1 & 2), and I think I am going to want to get a couple more books, so I can have a number of different mages set up....

We both really enjoy this game, and I am hoping that my son can get a handle on how putting together a spell book works (and I am hoping that I am understanding the ins and outs, also...)

Played through two games of Robinson Crusoe last night -- very enjoyable game. I think having games like Eldritch Horror and Merchants and Marauders under my belt made understanding the flow much easier, but the amount of stuff going on each turn is pretty crazy. That being said, we won the first scenario ("Castaways") in the second to last turn after much suffering playing as the Cook and the Carpenter. Confident, we decided to take on the second scenario ("Cursed Island") and it was a completely different experience. Pretty much after the first round, every turn was punishment. It ended in round 8 when the event card had us fighting...and I died. The overall theme is what makes this game awesome - I felt like we could play the starting scenario 10 different times and have completely different stories. I'd definitely recommend it, though I'd imagine for most the initial learning curve might be a bit steep. But if you're looking for a game where you have to really strategize on your decisions each turn, you can really go off the deep end with Robinson Crusoe.

Played a few games this weekend. My wife is out of town, so I am in charge of the kids, so one of my friends that has 5 kids, brought over 3 of his kids, and we played boardgames while our wives had a break and we had the kids. Also, one of our kid-less friend stopped over as well. Oh, and my sister dropped off one of her kids so we had 7 kids running around, with almost all of them in single digits. (12,9,7,6,6,5, and 5).

Anyway, we played, Quarriors twice, and that is a fun quick game.
Sentinels of the multiverse, which we had to open and read the rules. A very fun game, that I like better than Legendary, in this first play. We had our butts handed too us. We had Citizen Dawn as the Villain, and Metropolis(or thatever the city environment was). We were doing fairly well against the Villain, but man the environment just killed us.
We had Ra(I played that one), The Wraith, and The Fanatic as the hero's. Loved the game, and the powers and the way the decks all worked.

Finally, got in a game of Seasons without the expansion, but with all the cards. Great game, and I won pretty easily. However, it was the first time that the other two had played, and I had been schooled by Zarathud and the Chicago crew on this game.

So a fun time was had, and the kids all had a great time. Always like it when I can give the wife a break, and I still get in some gaming time.

The kids stopped in a watched us play some, so hopefully one of them will pick up the hobby when they get older. I keep trying, but with three girls, I am always looking for a theme that will attract them. One of my daughters loves superheros...She even wore her Super girl shirt to school today.

While I definitely want Myth at some point, today I bought Galaxy Defenders. It's essentially X-Com the board game: fully cooperative, AI-driven aliens. I've heard nothing but good buzz, and the videos I've seen look great. It also has custom, very cool, ten-sized dice, and some good looking miniatures. It also has a campaign mode, and an Android/iPad tracking app. It sort of reminds me of the D&D board games, where each player controls 1 or more of the bad guys, who have a scripted behavior flowchart.

I've been loving galaxy defenders. Myth is great too but galaxy defenders is a much more polished product. The campaign is extremely hard but I have really been enjoying it.

Chrisoc13 wrote:I've been loving galaxy defenders. Myth is great too but galaxy defenders is a much more polished product. The campaign is extremely hard but I have really been enjoying it.

I liked reading your review of the game over at BGG. Someday I might pick it up but I need to play more of the games I have. Then again, that rationale never did stop me before. And it looks like you can have fun playing it solitaire as well as co-op. And with my 7 yr old enjoying D&D Legend of Drizzt perhaps she'd like to go defend the galaxy with me.

Do it and let me know how it works out Silj, both solo and with the kiddo. I have my own 7 year old wingman to entertain.

coopasonic wrote:Do it and let me know how it works out Silj, both solo and with the kiddo. I have my own 7 year old wingman to entertain.

Arrgh. Must resist till tax refund comes in. But I do have to put in a nice recommendation for D&D Legend of Drizzt with its fairly easy rule set. My daughter likes playing the female archer but she sometimes wants her character to stay right next to me because she's afraid and I have to patiently explain why it's better for your ranged combat character to be a little farther back while I handle melee. Gotta start them early!

We have all 3 of the D&D board games, though Ashardalon is the only one we have played so far. He is definitely a fan.

I played Mansions of Madness this weekend. This was our second campaign. I drove one of the investigators insane near the start of the game and gave a second kleptomania which made both of them a liability to have anywhere near the rest of the group. The best moment was that I lost on a rather hilarious respawn event. I killed off one of the characters and he chose to come back as this old dude who had a weird special ability that reduced the amount of damage he could take in combat.

The end of the game played out as such:

A stubborn 60+ year old historian arrives at the scene of a grisly cult. Realizing that the youngsters inside have no idea what they are doing he decides to act. The old man walks through the front door and promptly punches the cult leader in the face before stealing his cultist robes. The robes allow him to pass through the halls undetected. The old dude walks right into the sacrificial chamber, picks up the damsel in distress and heads for the exit. Shoggoths and zombies take swings at him but he doesn’t give a damn. And just as fast as he arrived, the old man exits the chapel with the young woman safely in his arms.

My favorite deck-builder, Core Worlds, is nowgoing digital. There will be online play, AI, a tournament format, and will include a 2nd expansion.

I'm. Very. Excited.

I've been kind of peripherally aware of Dead of Winter, the new game Plaid Hat's putting out. According to a recent podcast, it sounds like the first print run is already sold out from their end, even though the game's still a few months out.

If so, this may be another one of those "pre-order months in advance, or wait for a reprint way down the line" situations.

Stuff like this is really driving me away from the current board game market. I prefer to wait until reviews and impressions are available before I decide if I want to buy something, and I hate how consistently that means that I have to wait 6-12 months after a game comes out before it's really available without sniping a retailer's preorder page. I think my new rule should be "wait until a game's been out at least a year before I even consider buying it."

Chaz wrote: Stuff like this is really driving me away from the current board game market. I prefer to wait until reviews and impressions are available before I decide if I want to buy something, and I hate how consistently that means that I have to wait 6-12 months after a game comes out before it's really available without sniping a retailer's preorder page. I think my new rule should be "wait until a game's been out at least a year before I even consider buying it."

TimeWellSpentGames, a online retailer in Colorado, doesn't take pre-orders at all. I'll let Dave, the owner, know what games I'm expecting, and he'll let me know when they arrive and will set one aside for me.

Chaz wrote:I've been kind of peripherally aware of Dead of Winter, the new game Plaid Hat's putting out. According to a recent podcast, it sounds like the first print run is already sold out from their end, even though the game's still a few months out.

If so, this may be another one of those "pre-order months in advance, or wait for a reprint way down the line" situations.

Stuff like this is really driving me away from the current board game market. I prefer to wait until reviews and impressions are available before I decide if I want to buy something, and I hate how consistently that means that I have to wait 6-12 months after a game comes out before it's really available without sniping a retailer's preorder page. I think my new rule should be "wait until a game's been out at least a year before I even consider buying it."

Move to Texas and you can just buy all your games from me after I buy them and realize I never get to play them so I sell them and buy something else.

coopasonic wrote:

Chaz wrote:I've been kind of peripherally aware of Dead of Winter, the new game Plaid Hat's putting out. According to a recent podcast, it sounds like the first print run is already sold out from their end, even though the game's still a few months out.

If so, this may be another one of those "pre-order months in advance, or wait for a reprint way down the line" situations.

Stuff like this is really driving me away from the current board game market. I prefer to wait until reviews and impressions are available before I decide if I want to buy something, and I hate how consistently that means that I have to wait 6-12 months after a game comes out before it's really available without sniping a retailer's preorder page. I think my new rule should be "wait until a game's been out at least a year before I even consider buying it."

Move to Texas and you can just buy all your games from me after I buy them and realize I never get to play them so I sell them and buy something else.

Oh, just go ahead and ship them straight to me whenever you're done. That'll be easier on everyone involved (mostly easier for me).

coopasonic wrote:Do it and let me know how it works out Silj, both solo and with the kiddo. I have my own 7 year old wingman to entertain.

Tax refund from the state came in and my daughter and I were watching a gameplay video (of Galaxy Defenders) and she was pretty excited by it so I pulled the trigger. I have a growing pile of games and should start a neighborhood gaming club. But it did look like a lot of fun and my daughter said she wanted to be the spy (infiltrator) because she looked cool.

Played through our first game of Firefly last night. While enjoyable, there is some potential for some serious down time between turns. I know you should be looking through the various discards in anticipation of your turn, but at some point acquiring assets and jobs is secondary to completing the main goals (at least for the scenario we tried). What I find hilarious is the suggested play time of two hours. Maybe two hours per person as it took us about 5.5 hours to finish a game. While that was our first attempt, I am not sure how we could somehow shave off another 3+ hours of play time. The other issue is that one my buddy becomes paralyzed in games that have too many options and things to keep track of at once. Games like Smash Up where you need to keep track of ongoing abilities as well as the cards in your hand completely overwhelm his brain. The idea that he's now in charge of six crew members, their gear and various associated missions makes for very laborious turns. I also lost track of the number of times his turn would pass (after failing a mission or a misbehave card) and he'd then cry out "I should have played [Card] to fix that problem!" -- usually halfway through the turn of the next person.

Regardless, it oozes theme and the cards are all 100% fan service. But no way in hell is that a two hour game.

Today is International Tabletop Day.