Octopus Overlords

coopasonic wrote:

SpaceLord wrote:I’ve been working a lot lately, but I am taking precious vacation days for BGG.CON.

Coop, do you wanna play a game of Mage Wars, like last year?

The games I’m looking forward to are:

Kanban
Alchemists
Deus
Terra Mystica expansion
Zhanguo
Arkwright
Temporum
Aquasphere

Coop, if you want, I can teach you my favorite solo board game: Mage Knight. I’m 80% sure you’ll really like it. It’s the best solo game I’ve ever played, by a long shot.

I’d also like to get together with you and Isg(are you going?) for:

Kemet
Impulse
Netrunner(although I’m several sets behind in my deck-building)

I’m stoked!

I am in for Mage Wars. I will have my set with me, so just bring a spell book. There is a small group meeting up to play Mage Wars Friday at Noon, probably near the Arcane Wonders area in demoland if we can find space.

This may be hard to believe, but I am actually interested in playing both Kanban and Alchemists. Kanban's theme seems like it might work for me and the deduction element of alchemists has me curious.

As Isgrimnur said, I've sold all my Netrunner stuff in the VFM. I am not really equipped for that anymore. Mage Wars is way better anyway. On a kind of similar note have you tried any Dice Masters?

Other things I would like to play, off the top of my head:
Thunder Alley
Jamaica
Tash-Kalar (planning on getting the new edition and expansion from CGE at the con)

Mage Knight was the first game I played at my first BGG.CON. I hated it. I think that is because I didn't understand it. Knowing what I know now, I think I am ready to give it another try. I have watched some of Ricky Royal's videos.

Wednesday I am playing a full Arcadia Quest campaign with 4 players, 6 games, 6 -7 hours. Other than that and the Mage Wars thing for a bit Friday, I am wide open.

Yes, I have played Dice Masters 20 times or so, it's great. Bring yours, and we can play it. I've heard positive things about the 2v2 mode, as well.

I'll leave my Netrunner at home, I'm rusty.

SpaceLord wrote: Yes, I have played Dice Masters 20 times or so, it's great. Bring yours, and we can play it. I've heard positive things about the 2v2 mode, as well.

Now I'm going to have to build a... is deck the right word?

SpaceLord wrote:I’ve been working a lot lately, but I am taking precious vacation days for BGG.CON.



The games I’m looking forward to are:


Aquasphere

I actually backed this on Kickstarter so I might be able to give you some first hand impressions soon!

FFG's holiday sale is on.

I had $75 worth of games in my cart, then realized that buying them would've been silly, because I don't get to play any of the games I have now, so getting four more would be super silly.

Still, $20 for Gears of War, $25 for Fortress America, and two others would've been a pretty sweet deal.

That is a bit lackluster after getting Horus Heresy for something like $15 during last year’s sale.

Yeah, nothing there really knocked my socks off.

Fortress America, the only game I have never been able to finish because SOMEONE always flips the board. In college, my roommate flipped it after we woke him up from sleeping at 3 am -- and he said "I always hated this fucking game, I'll save you the time." He was right, too. All 4 or 5 other times we played, someone lost their temper.

we played Arcadia Quest for 9 hours straight today. We skipped the 5th scenario and went to the 6th so we could finish before we lost the room. It was fun, but that was too damn long to be playing one game. No, I didn't win.

For someone that doesn't like long games, that seems pretty epic.

coop bought Tash-Kalar and the expansion. We played the starter game with our decks not matching our pieces, but no matter. I managed to hand coop his first ever loss in the game, which he has played several times, with the help of a Legendary that game me an extra turn, letting me isolate one of his pieces for my last needed VP card.

We followed that up with him crushing me in Survive: Escape from Atlantis. He almost doubled my point total, having dropped about half of my guys into the jaws of a waiting monster.

Finally, I taught him Thunder Alley, and I managed to eke out a win on the last turn with a well-timed slingshot.

Isgrimnur wrote:coop bought Tash-Kalar and the expansion. We played the starter game with our decks not matching our pieces, but no matter. I managed to hand coop his first ever loss in the game, which he has played several times, with the help of a Legendary that game me an extra turn, letting me isolate one of his pieces for my last needed VP card.

We followed that up with him crushing me in Survive: Escape from Atlantis. He almost doubled my point total, having dropped about half of my guys into the jaws of a waiting monster.

Finally, I taught him Thunder Alley, and I managed to eke out a win on the last turn with a well-timed slingshot.

Love Survive. Lots of fun in that game.

In addition to those, SpaceLord beat me at a two player game of Roll for the Galaxy which were learned we were playing completely wrong. Now that I know the right way I want to play again. Earlier I won a 5 player game of Port Royal. Fun, light push your luck card game. I think I may have played something else today, but maybe not.

Finally got to play a 4-player game of Starcraft Broodwar. It was everything I hoped it would be. Pure awesomeness. The best news was that everyone liked it, even the friend who generally dislikes everything from Fantasy Flight Games.

It just has sooo many levels...

It starts of simple: to win, you need to get victory points. To do this, you conquer regions. So you build your armies, choosing from 10 units per race, each with their own strength and weaknesses and costs. And you want to upgrade those units off course, by researching all the necessary technologies. Oh, and you need to get a good economic engine running so you'll have plenty of workers to get the resources from the areas you'll conquer. And upgrade your base, because every unit needs it's own building.

How do you conquer regions? Simple, just place some orders on the map during the planning phase. You'll need to think backwards though, because the first order you place will probably be the last one that's played. And others can place orders on top of your orders to keep the initiative themselves. Done? Great, let's get to fighting! No dice, just cards you need to manage. Oh sure, there are ways to gain cards, but you better thought of that during the planning phase!


So, it starts simple, but gets complicated fast. Not because of the rules themselves, but because EVERY step is a minigame in itself: building your base, mining your resources, getting ready for a battle, fighting the battle itself, invading areas... And there's a lot of knowledge required as well: what are the different technologies and units, and which one will you go for?

But my friends got the hang of it, and it turned out to be a rather elegant game actually. There's always pressure, because there's a lot of fighting (no chance for turtling in this game), and you want to do too much. Yes, you need to upgrade your base, win the arms race by building better units, conquer new regions, keep the pressure on your opponent, and you have 4 measly orders and about 10 resources to do it. Really great game, looking forward to playing it again!

Someday I really need to make it down to BGGcon.

My social anxiety was in full effect today. So I ended up playing Letters from Whitecastle with coop. He schooled my investigators with a quickness.

After that, a boisterous group from Austin took pity on me and brought me in as a 4th player for Moongha Invaders. I managed to sneak my way into a 2nd place finish despite being a favorite target of the owner/teacher.

Just got back from my biweekly 3.5 game. DM had been out of town, so our normal 5:00 PM game started at 10:30. It ran until 4:30. It is now five in the A of the M, and I'm still to hyped to fall asleep right away. Now I either get up at a reasonable time tomorrow and am exhausted all day, or else I get enough sleep and throw off my sleep schedule for the next week.

How did I do this five days a week in high school?

Yesterday was board game day at ROBA (moved it up a week this month cause of the holiday weekend next week).

Played a game I don't remember the name of (thing it started w/ an M?) - you get 2 dice, only roll 1 - until you unlock the option to roll the second with your train station. You start with a wheat field and a bakery. Wheat field is blue (anytime anybody rolls, you collect) - any time any one rolls a 1 - you get 1 coin. Bakery is a 2-3, green (you roll, you collect) - when you roll a 2 or 3, you get 1 coin. Red cards you get money when others roll something, purples cards get you money from others when you roll something. Blue/Green paid by bank. Red/Purple - other players. Goal is to unlock 4 buidings (Train Station, Shopping mall, forget the other two). You keep buying more building that you get money based on what's rolled by who to get the money to unlock your 4 buildings and each of the 4 buildings gives you another bonus (train is you can roll 2 dice if you want; shopping mall makes all your stores/restaurants get 1 extra when they get money; think third one made you get an extra turn on doubles and fourth allowed you to reroll once if you wanted). Fun enough relatively quick game. Figuring that was enough detail someone probably knows what it is.

Then I played a game of Love Letters w/ a friend who finally made it w/ his daughter for the first time. That's a fun/light/quick game. Think my wife could enjoy that even so might pick that up. Wife does not want to play long/difficult/challenging/heavy thinking games. Which tend to be more my favorite style.

Steam: Rails to riches was up next. Actually played this once before. Did much better this time (did not help someone win by virtue having to use their rails extensively due to bad choices on my part like the first game). Still only came in 3rd of 4 (by 2 points). 1st was WAY ahead. Needed a little more/better planning. Hopefully I can plan a little better if I ever play again.

Incognito after supper - never played that. Secret partners deductive game sort of like clue (gathering clues from other peoples cards to figure out who your partner was). Only one of the 4 of us had ever played. One girl who's husband (? boyfriend?) brought the game hadn't played, so she showed me wrong card on first turn. Erroneously thinking she had some idea what she was doing, I did the same to her (her's was more useful to me). But she did the same thing to the guy who was her partner so he know what the teams were on turn 1. Took me another question to get that far. Then I couldn't get my partner to pick me for questions until FOREVER. Soon as he did, passed him all 3 of my real cards - then he misread the mission (read the line above) and thought we'd completed it and we lost. Which was a real bummer cause my next turn we would likely have won. We had to get the ambassador back to his home. I was sitting on his home w/ one guy and he was positioned between 2 of my guys and nowhere near anyone else. This required a lot of thought/effort - OK game, not really my favorite.

Samuri Swords (sort of like Bang I was advised, though I've never played Bang) - guessed wrong on the ronin, taking out one of my fellow ninjas, allowing the ronin to win. Choice #2 for who the ronin was would have been the right guy. Best part is my guy was someone who gets to play an extra weapon. Kept getting blue cards that would also let me play an extra weapon card every turn. At one point I could have played 4 weapon cards! I had no cards of course. Only twice did I managed to get 2 weapons at a time. Fun game, would play again.

Fun day overall, loved it!

Saw a post in their facebook thread (ROBA if you want to see the pics) where some said that first game was Machi Koro, which sounds right.

I didn't participate, but a guy ran a 12 person Meior 44 D-Day event. Lots of pics of that in the ROBA group on facebook. I had to go look at it - very cool looking if you like stuff like that.

Mage Knight Board Game.

I have had this game for quite some time (first printing, even). Tried to play so many times, but ended up in complete frustration. Was even getting close to selling it (plus, each of the expansions). But, I pulled it out and set up and tried again...and this time...it clicked!!

Not sure why this time I "got it", but I did. Very much, enjoying the game.

Tapatalk pics working by any chance?

My collection has been pruned from close to 200 games last summer down to about 60. Now what do I do with all the extra shelf space?

coopasonic wrote:Now what do I do with all the extra shelf space?

Buy more pith helmets.

Started yesterday off with a game of Dreaming spires, a university-building, scholar-hiring, subject-researching Euro. followed that with Edo, which took some time for the group to learn and get the hang of, but was decently fun. I helped coop teach a newbie how to play Letters from Whitecastle, then finished off the day with a game of Race to the Rhie, where coop stole all the medals, and we let the Axis sweep across the river and end the game with little action from us to slow them down.

Zenn7 wrote:
Played a game I don't remember the name of (thing it started w/ an M?) - you get 2 dice, only roll 1 - until you unlock the option to roll the second with your train station. You start with a wheat field and a bakery. Wheat field is blue (anytime anybody rolls, you collect) - any time any one rolls a 1 - you get 1 coin. Bakery is a 2-3, green (you roll, you collect) - when you roll a 2 or 3, you get 1 coin. Red cards you get money when others roll something, purples cards get you money from others when you roll something. Blue/Green paid by bank. Red/Purple - other players. Goal is to unlock 4 buidings (Train Station, Shopping mall, forget the other two). You keep buying more building that you get money based on what's rolled by who to get the money to unlock your 4 buildings and each of the 4 buildings gives you another bonus (train is you can roll 2 dice if you want; shopping mall makes all your stores/restaurants get 1 extra when they get money; think third one made you get an extra turn on doubles and fourth allowed you to reroll once if you wanted). Fun enough relatively quick game. Figuring that was enough detail someone probably knows what it is.

Machi Koro. Fun game, but really want the expansion to give it a bit more interaction.

hentzau wrote:Machi Koro. Fun game, but really want the expansion to give it a bit more interaction.

Thanks hentzau. I could not say if we used an expansion or not, but I believe they commented that he had a custom mat we used for organizing the various card piles on (not our individual cards, but the cards you buy). That was nice. Seemed to impress some of the folks hanging around who knew much more than I.

coopasonic wrote:

Tapatalk pics working by any chance?

My collection has been pruned from close to 200 games last summer down to about 60. Now what do I do with all the extra shelf space?

Fill it up with more boob-shaped light fixtures?

Played Munchkin for the first time this weekend. Fun game, but I can see why there are so many expansion packs available; I played one game with two other people and we probably went through 3/4 of the cards.

Went to the Chicago Toy and Game fair with my family over the weekend, and picked up a little game called Traps and Treasures. It's basically a Munchkin clone. And a painful one at that. I pretty much instantly disliked the game, whereas my son loved it. Of course.

Played 3 games of it over the weekend. The last one was 4 players. I wanted to set the game on fire by the time someone had won.

We were at the Chicago Toy and Game Fair today. We bought a sweet doll house and looked around. The kids both read their My Little Pony comic books from Graham Cracker Comics while waiting for the Frozen parade.

Treasures & Traps looked interesting, but I spent some time looking for Roll for the Galaxy in the Rio Grande booth instead (but couldn't find it). Looks like I didn't miss out on anything. I see how Jumping Jack would make a great drinking game.

Zarathud wrote:Treasures & Traps looked interesting, but I spent some time looking for Roll for the Galaxy in the Rio Grande booth instead (but couldn't find it). Looks like I didn't miss out on anything. I see how Jumping Jack would make a great drinking game.

I'll have a full write-up later this week, but I got Roll For the Galaxy at BGG.con. I played it 6 times in 3 days, if that tells you anything.

I hear it's like Race for the Galaxy, but with dice.

I am ahead of my times, but still get no respect. I feel like Rodney Dangerfield.

I've been waiting for Roll for the Galaxy, but it seems the release at BGGcon showed a fair percentage of errors in the packing process (punchboards missing, too small a draw bag included) anad they've recalled it back to the warehouse. Looking at a mid-December release now

Daveman wrote:I've been waiting for Roll for the Galaxy, but it seems the release at BGGcon showed a fair percentage of errors in the packing process (punchboards missing, too small a draw bag included) anad they've recalled it back to the warehouse. Looking at a mid-December release now

The bag is definitely too small.

The game, however was fun.

Coop's games played at BGG.CON 2014:
Roll For the Galaxy
Tash-Kalar (x2)
Planes
Mage Wars (x2)
Letters from Whitechapel (x2)
Race to the Rhine
Knockout (Victory Point Games 2014)
Kemet
Arcadia Quest (x5)
Survive: Escape from Atlantis
Hearts of AttrAction
Timeline: Inventions
Port Royal
Thunder Alley

I might be forgetting a game or two, but not a bad run.

I also sold around 60 games and only bought 3 (not counting the 2 additional copies of Mage Wars purchased for extra cards).

I did not take the time to play Alchemists or Kanban. I also didn't demo XCOM since I lost my voice early on and that game requires clear communication. I watched some Alchemists and XCOM being played and my interest remains high though I will try before I consider the buy.

Rain all weekend, so got a lot of gaming in. We had a game day planned with some friends that stomach flu put an end to, so just family gaming. Played another game of Black Fleet. My wife has some complaints about the pirate ship and its general usefulness, but most of her arguments seem to be countered if you look a little deeper at the tactical options in the game. I think there might be more to it than it first appears.

My son and I hauled out a few oldies-but-goodies: Attika, Summoner Wars, and a great game of Tales of the Arabian Nights. It was pretty comical, he kept getting cursed no matter what he tried to do. Attack someone? Cursed. Help someone? Cursed. Avoid the encounter completely? Cursed. In the end I made it back to Baghdad first with the required points, but he was able to follow me on his very next turn and won with a better collection of statuses/treasures. It's worth noting that this is one of the few games I own where by the end I honestly don't care who won, because it's all about the journey.

We also played a game of Duel in the Dark, which I keep going back and forth on. There are some really interesting ideas, and some mechanics that are just hard to get your mind around. I think my biggest complaint is that the end of the game always feels very anti-climactic. You can usually tell who is going to win by the time the bombers hit their target, particularly if the German player is still in the lead. At that point they can disengage completely and the game's basically over since the British player has very few (if any) chances to score points beyond that. I've debated getting rid of it, except that these days it's all but being given away. I don't think I could sell it if I wanted to.

Next game on the list is the annual "What to take along for Thanksgiving?!" game. I hate that one, I never win.

coopasonic wrote: Coop's games played at BGG.CON 2014:
Roll For the Galaxy
Tash-Kalar (x2)
Planes
Mage Wars (x2)
Letters from Whitechapel (x2)
Race to the Rhine
Knockout (Victory Point Games 2014)
Kemet
Arcadia Quest (x5)
Survive: Escape from Atlantis
Hearts of AttrAction
Timeline: Inventions
Port Royal
Thunder Alley

Forgot Evolution.

Also, I was checking pricing and Race to the Rhine, which is actually 1944: Race to the Rhine is going for $70 on CSI. WTF.

It was nice meeting Isgrimnur and coopasonic at BGG Con. (I met another OO'er but forgot his name). Didn't play much. Loved Fields of Arle. Kanban was very hard to understand. Played it again when I got back but still don't completely get it. I played Medieval Academy and thought it was awful. I bought Fields, Kanban, The Staufer Dynasty, and Kings Pouch. I also had Waggle Dance and Sheriff of Nottingham waiting for me when I got home, and Orleans will be here tomorrow. I have a lot of games to get through!

I'm interesting in hearing about how Sheriff of Nottingham plays. It sounds like it depends on having a fun table talk to make the game work.

Lorini wrote:It was nice meeting Isgrimnur and coopasonic at BGG Con. (I met another OO'er but forgot his name). !

On the third year of looking I finally found her! I assume the other OOer was SpaceLord as I am not aware of any other OOer in attendance.

One thing I forgot to mention, I played a rough prototype of the forthcoming Steve Jackson Car Wars game with the designer. It was very much X-Wing with cars. It's still very rough, but I'm in!

As long as I can have my armored beer refrigerator, I'll be happy.

Not my picture, but this is what I was playing: