Octopus Overlords

coopasonic wrote:I didn't get the expansion, but my understanding is it can be used to make the given scenarios suck more (harder). It's not the traditional sort of expansion.

This is the rulebook included with the expansion:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/file/downl ... _Rules.pdf

In my opinion you really don't need it, or based on my experience with the first two scenarios, even want it. This is not a game that needs to be MORE difficult.

Like Coop said, I wouldn't consider it an expansion, more like a "Hardcore Mode." Which would be like adding a hardcore mode to Ghost Stories - i.e. it certainly doesn't need it and would be overly punishing. The alien models are the same as the base models (only red), so you aren't getting anything new.

But... there will be all sorts of expansions coming out in the near future due to that second KS. I cancelled my pledge at the last minute, but they should be pretty easy to get later on.

Smoove_B wrote:Yeah, I suppose with time, skill and patience they'd be easy enough to make. He justified the purchase after reading she was a military wife on deployment with her husband and child. Either way, I can say they do make a difference in game play - at least they did for us. Not a big fan of plain wood blocks. Must be my strong Ameritrash preferences.

I'm intrigued by them, and I have a strong love of ameritrash as well, I love to pimp out all my games. But I'm not sure I can justify them right now. I haven't played the game in months and while I really, really like the game, it simply is not going to hit my normal rotation.

The inventions, weather, etc are of no interest to me. Neither are the character tokens. Looks like those would just make the game clumsy to me. The heart tokens I could pass on as well, the health tracker is already abstract, the type of marker used adds nothing to me. But the resource tokens are interesting.

Last night, I played Jenga for the first time in my life. Not bad!

AWS260 wrote:Last night, I played Jenga for the first time in my life. Not bad!

Jenga plays out the same way pretty much every time. Try Villa Paletti.

Picked up two games for my 5-year-old son for his birthday last weekend, based partially on some of the hilarity that goes on during Geekway to the West every year.

Toc Toc Woodman, aka Click Clack Lumberjack - a dexterity game that is sort of like Jenga, actually. Setup is a tree trunk made of about a dozen segments, each of which is a core (light wood) ringed with four pieces of bark. During a turn, players take two whacks with a big plastic axe. The object is to try to knock a segment far enough that a piece of bark falls off (+1 point), but not so far that the entire core falls out of the tree (-5 points). It's simple and yet surprisingly difficult at times. We played this a bunch with our kids and everyone had a blast.

Coconuts - had no idea about this game until I happened to read a review on NoHighScores.com, and it turned out to be a perfect idea. Another dexterity game where you're launching coconuts from monkey catapults into a center section filled with cups. Land a coconut in a cup, and you get the cup. Stack up 6 cups to win. Simple? Not when opponents can steal your cups by launching their own coconuts into them. Just to make things interesting, everyone has a couple of magic cards to use - force a player to shoot blind, give yourself an extra shot, etc. This one can go on just a tad long at times, but replays are even more requested than for Woodman.

I'd really like both of those games.

Boudreaux wrote:Coconuts - had no idea about this game until I happened to read a review on NoHighScores.com, and it turned out to be a perfect idea. Another dexterity game where you're launching coconuts from monkey catapults into a center section filled with cups. Land a coconut in a cup, and you get the cup. Stack up 6 cups to win. Simple? Not when opponents can steal your cups by launching their own coconuts into them. Just to make things interesting, everyone has a couple of magic cards to use - force a player to shoot blind, give yourself an extra shot, etc. This one can go on just a tad long at times, but replays are even more requested than for Woodman.

This sounds like it was designed to be a drinking game.

Every dexterity game sounds like a drinking game to me.

Dallas Games Marathon this weekend... and I think I can actually go this time! Bring on the games.

Chaz wrote:Every dexterity game sounds like a drinking game to me.

But this one comes with cups included.

Animal on Animal. Reverse Jenga, and it's also fun for drunk adults.

Wasn't sure where to put this... but Fantasy Flight has announced some love coming for Battlelore 2.0! First up is the game on tablets/PC!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYfz3EEXyKQ

Plus news that 2 expansions to the board game are coming by the end of this year. Details seem a little sketchy, but it looks like there's one expansion for the Uthuk and one for the Daqan... 50pts worth of miniatures from 4 new unit types each, plus new lore and scenario cards. I think most were looking forward to brand new factions, but expanding the options (nearly doubling the unit types!) of the existing factions is a nice move too. Hopefully new factions are on the drawing board.

Busted out the D-Day Dice and had two out of three players reach the final bunker...before we lost. On whim (and because I love dice), I picked up Hunters of Arcfall and think it went over well. Similar to Zombie Dice, it's essentially a press your luck style game that involves a bit more strategy than trying to roll the highest number of brains each round. Very causal and quick, you can hammer out a round in 30 minutes, no problem - possibly faster with 2 players. Very tiny box. The only negative is that the card layout isn't the best in all cases. Sometimes the capture requirements are too subdued making it difficult to read. The card text is also ridiculously tiny. The game creator acknowledged it was a major oversight on his part, but with bright lights they're not completely unreadable. Your bounty hunter card with special abilities and random deck events is what makes it interesting. We didn't even touch the included expansion which allows you to buy gear or upgrade cards to help mitigate your awful die rolling (if you're like me). I'd recommend it.

Arkham Horror, All Hands on Deck (which should be on Kickstarter in the next month), and I finally punched and played my copy of Cutthroat Caverns.

Ogre, a few games of Eminent Domain, Race for the Galaxy (original set then with Alien Artifacts), and Star Realms. Not bad for missing out on GenCon. Missed an opportunity to play Roads and Boats or Eclipse, but we were all tired.

Played a game of Deadwood at the hotel before GenCon. That's about all I got.

Finished the night with several games of One Night Werewolf.

Isgrimnur wrote:Arkham Horror, All Hands on Deck (which should be on Kickstarter in the next month), and I finally punched and played my copy of Cutthroat Caverns.

I played a game of Writhing around in pain hoping my kidney stone would pass. Could have been worse, I could have been playing Arkham Horror all day. Actually it couldn't have, I wouldn't let that happen.

I did get to play a game of Flash Point with X(8). Perfect Victory 10/10 victims rescued. I figured out that I had been playing hot spots wrong. I was treating all hot spot rolls as explosions. The game should be easier now.

The wife and I broke out the new copy of Galaxy Defenders last night. It was really slow going since we had to read the instructions.

I think we mostly played it right. I suspect that there were some errors made (probably mostly in our favor). We each played two characters. Despite some amazing rolls, followed by some amazing bad rolls, we managed to beat the first scenario. We lost our biotech about a third of the way through when he got ganged up on. Though he did manage to hold out in a bleeding state for several rounds despite being attacked.

I can see the similarities to Ravenloft, but it definitely feels more complex. There just seems to be more choices and decisions to make.

Now we have to try it again with a better handle on the rules to see if we can still win.

Finished a game of Dead of Winter with my two youngest. They both had a great time, I thought the first scenario was a little easy. We played it without the betrayer option, and went Hardcore. We didn't lose a single survivor and finished out the game with 3 rounds left to go.

We'll have to ramp up the difficulty on the next go round.

Played a great 3-hour game of Mage Wars with my son over the weekend. It's a game I'd really like to dig deeper into with him, and help him beef up his tactics/strategy thinking a bit. He loves playing, but in the few games we've done he's always lost. I'd like to try to help him get better so our games are more competitive.

Got together with friends yesterday afternoon and played a few more. Pathfinder ACG has really dried up for me - It's a great concept, but ultimately you're looking at a number and rolling some dice. Over, and over, and over. It really needs something more to make it more interesting. Got in another game of Splendor, and then two games of Love Letter, which is getting better the more I play. Wrapped up the afternoon with the SdJ winner Camel Up. I get why it won, but I also get why some people don't care for it - the randomness is really, really random. A single die pull can make or break your entire game, so it's good that it's only about 30 minutes. It could be a decent family game with kids, but frustrating to take much more seriously than that.

SInce I moved to Hong Kong I've been buying a lot of games again, up to 31 now.
The problem was that I can't play as much as I want to, especially since our group of friends only play occasionally.

Then it hit me!
When we moved to HK, we met most of our friends through Meet Up, which is a site that makes it easier to meet people.
No, no, no, not a dating site! (Although some people probably treat it that way).
Meet Up allows you to create a group. People can then join your group and join the events you create.

In this case, I created the group : Gamers on Board -> http://www.meetup.com/Gamers-on-Board/
So, if you're ever in HK, feel free to join ^^. This site works everywhere btw, probably there are Meet Ups going on in your town or somewhere near you ^^.

I've organised 2 sessions so far.

For the first one, we played Jamaica and Tsuro Of The Seas. It kind of suited the group name ^^.

For the second one, which was tonight, we played Smash Up, King Of Tokyo and Quoridor.

For the third one, tomorrow, we'll be playing Seasons ^^.


So far so good with the people who join, they've all been great to play with .
The group is up to 46 members so.. so far so good ^^.

There was a poll on BGG asking what you thought you spent so far this year on games. The categories were pretty broad, but I picked $500-1000 which is a pretty safe guess. Last Year I spent a little over grand (and sold about the same, yay me) so by mid-August I figured I'd be in that neighborhood.

IU was very excited to check CSI and see that I am just a bit over $400 on the year. That would be a record low and I don't even have any open pre-orders. Woo! Go me!

Then someone mentioned Kickstarter. Uh-oh. Just shy of $800 on Kickstarter. Screw you Mercs Recon!

I guess the good news is I plan to eliminate about 60 games from my collection this year, getting actual money for many of them. I have GOT to stop buying games. After I get my hands on Sherlock Holmes, and Legendary Villains and Tash Kalar and Mage Knight and... crap.

Only $441 on Kickstarter for 2014. But I buy almost all of my games from FLGS...and I have no clue how much more I've spent there. I know I've spent way more than usual, because I've gotten sucked back into minis gaming and painting.

Huh. Only $188 on board games and board gaming accessories this year; another $355 on KickStarter board games - $300 of which is for Recon. That's much lower than I thought it would be, though if they ever release the pledge manager for Shadows of Brimstone, I might get crazy.

I think I'm finally slowing down with the board gaming purchases. Took me three years, but I think it's happening. I should probably go back and look at 2013 and 2012 to verify my gut feeling, but I'm afraid.

I think I'm only in for $50 on Dead of Winter this year. $70 if you include the RPG I backed on Kickstarter. Anything else I've gotten this year has been presents, though I think I'm headed to the FLGS on the way home to re-buy a copy of Bohnanza, because why the hell did I ever let my ex take that with her when she left?

So I guess I'm good at not buying games this year? I do want to re-acquire Chaos in the Old World though. That might be a thing.

Pretty cheap -- or new for $49, shipped with Prime.

Life's too short to want something worth $49 shipped.

Smoove_B wrote:I think I'm finally slowing down with the board gaming purchases. Took me three years, but I think it's happening. I should probably go back and look at 2013 and 2012 to verify my gut feeling, but I'm afraid.

$1385 from CSI in 2013
$753 on Kickstarter in 2013
So if I can hold back, Kickstarter will be close to flat year over year, but CSI is WAY down. Mostly because all that buying in 2013 stripped my wishlist clean and I stopped placing a $100 order every time a Netrunner pack was released.

I may have one more order left from CSI this year, but if I am good I will wait and see what comes for christmas.

Smoove_B wrote:Pretty cheap -- or new for $49, shipped with Prime.

Life's too short to want something worth $49 shipped.

Oh, I know I can get it, I just haven't convinced myself to actually get it. The main thing holding me back is that my current board gamin' life means it'll never get played. I haven't got a local, regular game group. My wife will play games, but our life schedule means that it can only happen on weekends, and those are usually booked, so it's infrequent, and since Chaos requires four, it's not a good candidate for wife play.

Still, it's one I'd like on my forever shelf for some point in the future when I get to play games regularly again. But since that's a hypothetical, convincing myself to get it with present-day dollars is tricky.

Says the guy who asked for a copy of Fire in the Lake, which is in the same boat as Chaos.

Ahhh...that is different. I talk myself out of games all the time for similar reasons. Though if there was a game I wanted simply because I liked the components or the actual game had sentimental reasons, I'd totally get it and stick it on my shelf. I'm also slightly paranoid about stuff going out of print or becoming difficult to find, so sometimes that is a deciding factor.

On the other hand, it looks like it has some nice minis you could paint.

Yeah, I went through a phase a few years ago where I'd buy a bunch of stuff just because it looked cool. Then I split up with my ex, re-evaluated things, and realized moving and storing 125+ board games was silly given how rarely they got played, so I gutted my collection down to about 30. I've since built it back up to around 50, but now I'm super critical about only buying things that I think will actually see table time.

That's not to say I'm not hanging onto some things that I know won't get played, but I do know will be a pain to find later, so I keep them. Like, I've got both Bonaparte at Marengo and Napoleon's Triumph, since they're unique, cool looking, and will probably never be printed again. Here I Stand is in a similar boat, but I have this notion that one day when we're old, we'll finally be able to play this thing.

Things going out of print and not being available ever again is one of the things I hate about board games. If you know you'll want something in a few years, you have to buy it now and store it until then, or be willing to potentially pay through the nose to get it later. Of course, it may also be stupid cheap later, but it's a gamble. At least more old games are getting reprinted these days.

Oh, I forgot that my year's spending also includes $80 on a copy of The Mushroom Eaters that will hopefully be printed and shipped before Thanksgiving. This one's pretty much a poster child for "buying now because I'll never see it again."

I won't even go look at my KS amount. I'm sure it is depressing.

A FB friend of mine went to GenCon and, because he is a major video reviewer at BGG (Marco Arnaudo), he took home a copy of Shadows of Brimstone. Now he is spamming my FB wall with pictorial AARs of SoB and it looks fantastic! If he isn't careful, I'll drive over to Indiana and break into his house to take it!

Picked up the reprint of Dungeon! at barnes and nobles. Looks like a fun simple game that I can play with the family. They had an insane collection of top tier games there. Hell they had Mice and Mystics. I'm on vacation in VA. The one by me doesn't have anything near as good.

baelthazar wrote:I won't even go look at my KS amount. I'm sure it is depressing.

A FB friend of mine went to GenCon and, because he is a major video reviewer at BGG (Marco Arnaudo), he took home a copy of Shadows of Brimstone. Now he is spamming my FB wall with pictorial AARs of SoB and it looks fantastic! If he isn't careful, I'll drive over to Indiana and break into his house to take it!

I feel so nerdy when I recognized Marco's name. I love his reviews and he's cost me a lot of money after watching them.

I've spent way too much money, but less this year than last year by a long shot.

I went all in on 3 kickstarters this year- Zombicide season 3, Recon, and Galaxy Defenders. Only one of those do I regret, and that is Recon. I have a buyer who wants to buy my pledge, likely I will sell it to them. I just don't need that game, I won't play it enough, and I don't love the company.

Otherwise my game buying has really slowed down this year. I have only bought a very small number of games (like 2 maybe?) and otherwise I have bought a handful of expansions for games I already have. Actually looking over my purchases it appears I have bought 2 games and then more stuff for X-wing, and again more stuff for X-wing (you name it- ships, terrain, mats, to a laser level). The only other game I got into this year was a few ships for attack wing before I realized how terrible the game is compared to X-wing and am now preparing to unload what I have.

Last year I spent way more money, and a lot of that was on several huge kickstarters. I was on a bit of a kick for 2012-2013 where I pretty much just bought everything and anything that looked cool. I mean anything. On sale boom I bought it. It added up to close to a thousand no including kickstarters each year. Now I look at my collection and realize I don't even play a large number of them. It isn't that they are not good games, it is just that I don't have time to play that many good games. So starting in September (when I will have a little more free time) I am going to start unloading games. Myth, Recon, Memoir '44 (including all expansions, great game but I never play it), Attack wing, Agricola (Caverna replaced it), Star Wars LCG (never played it even), LOTR LCG (again never touched it) etc. I just have too many games, I don't play many of them very often and I figure some of them could bring in a little money back. I started realizing that when I have game sin shrink that I have owned for over 2 years it was time to downsize. I've already gotten over the spending and expanding bug, now it is time to downsize. I don't like having to learn game rules every time I bust out the game. It is just less fun for me that way.

Lately when I have time to play it seems like it falls into three categories:
1. I play with my brother or other people really into gaming and as a result it ends up being either X-wing or Galaxy Defenders. Let's be honest it is almost always X-wing, unless there are 3 of us, then Galaxy Defenders. (4 people and it is X-wing again...)
2. I play with my wife which means quick euro games or Days of Wonder games
3. I play with friends who just want to chat and play real casual which means either something from number 2 or commonly Zombicide

Not sure how that happened, but X-wing has started to devour most of my "hard-core" gaming time. I'm not complaining, I always want to play it. But it has made some of my games collect more and more dust.

Chrisoc13 wrote:Memoir '44 (including all expansions, great game but I never play it)

hentzau wrote:

Chrisoc13 wrote:Memoir '44 (including all expansions, great game but I never play it)

Yeah that is the hardest one for me to see go so far. It will likely be the last one I get rid of so if I lose my appetite for downsizing it sticks around. I just never get it to the table. The setup is a bear, and I have to relearn the rules every time. The different terrain etc. I really do enjoy the game though. But with all of the expansions it does take up a lot of space.

$iljanus wrote:

baelthazar wrote:I won't even go look at my KS amount. I'm sure it is depressing.

A FB friend of mine went to GenCon and, because he is a major video reviewer at BGG (Marco Arnaudo), he took home a copy of Shadows of Brimstone. Now he is spamming my FB wall with pictorial AARs of SoB and it looks fantastic! If he isn't careful, I'll drive over to Indiana and break into his house to take it!

I feel so nerdy when I recognized Marco's name. I love his reviews and he's cost me a lot of money after watching them.

I had a chance to go and play boardgames with him (we lived in the same town and he works at my Alma Mater), but we never actually made it happen before I moved. I regret that, because his boardgaming collection is huge and he apparently is quite a fearsome opponent!

Went to a friend's for dinner and some gaming.

Broke out a quick game of Timeline before heading out to pick up dinner. After some really close misses all around, I managed to win with the Invention of Navigation (which beat out the wheel).

After eating we fired up a game of Last Night on Earth. My friend and his wife were new to it, so we just played the first beginning scenario. My wife joined them as humans. She played two humans to their single characters. I got the zombies.

It started off with a bang. My wife had the sheriff and put down a deader on the first turn. It just got more ugly after that. They had really good luck getting weapons (revolvers all around). That mixed with some less than stellar rolling on my part, and some amazing rolls on my wife's part, put us at 14 dead zombies on turn 6. I had managed, miraculously, to take out the sheriff just prior. But only because he decided to charge into 4 zombies. He still managed to take two out before succumbing.

My wife had taken the nurse out into the open with a revolver. She also already had two wounds. She was lining up for a kill shot on a lone zombie. I drew 3 cards to give my zombies the chance to reach her. I rolled two 6s, but she nuked the movement of one of them. So I only brought one to bear. So... down to one roll for the game. I roll for the zombie and get a 1.

Right as she rolls, my friend says that the only way for them to lose is for her to roll double 1's. And she does... Victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.

The crazy thing is that earlier in the night she rolled double 5's. I played a card to make her re-roll. And she rolled double 5's again. Then a turn or so later she rolled them again. I think she ended up with four sets of double 5's. And one time I rolled a 5 and said she would have to roll double 6's to win and kill me... which she did.

I only hope she uses her power for good. And I've decided to avoid buying any of the dice rolling games.

My copy of Flash Point arrived earlier this week. It was part of the Amazon board game sale. It’s quite enjoyable if you like a somewhat chaotic experience. Things can go from perfectly safe to a raging inferno in just a couple turns because of how fire and shockwaves spread.

Also, the figures look nice painted.