OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Fri Feb 06, 2015 6:41 pm

A bit of OT good news, my wife and I played Hyperborea, a new civ-lite, cube/bag builder by Asmodee and we really liked it! It feels like a civ game but plays in an hour! There is also a euro-tableau and deck-building feel to it. It seems to be a very strong hybrid game. I would say a favorite so far this year (although I have yet to play Imperial Assault and Arcadia Quest is still my current champ).

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Fri Feb 06, 2015 8:25 pm

This time in Fallen...

An epic clash between Sythean the Devourer (the Dragon Dungeon Lord, played by Jacob) and Adren the Knight (the Hero, played by me).

Tough fight all the way. Sythean is interesting because he is actually one of the creatures that can be used to harass and attack the Hero. And he is the TOUGHEST creature in the game. Adren is interesting in that he does not gain extra dice when using his Ultimate Ability, but rather, blocks wounds (he also has a die for EACH skill).

What a clash...but in the end, Adren fell to the ferocious teeth of the dragon. Man, that makes me 1-4 against Jacob...I thought I had that one in the bag, but in the end, Sythean took apart the knight.

(NOTE: Both of these characters are only available in the kickstarter version)

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Sat Feb 07, 2015 11:31 am

Desire to purchase X-COM is rising. I for some reason desire a new cooperative game right now... not sure why... so for some reason X-COM is more and more on the radar... must resist.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sat Feb 07, 2015 12:14 pm

Played a full game of Up Front last night and I'm amazed at how it all works. I can honestly say I've never played another game quite like it. We're still learning the subtleties of strategy and only playing with standard infantry (no mechanized units, bazookas or flamethrowers), Americans vs Germans. I'm amazed at how intuitive it all is and I think it has an impressive balance between man-to-man combat mixed with some on the fly strategy (both in hand management and in responding to the changing game environment). There were actually a few times where I thought I was going to be knocked out quick, but the randomness of calculating the attack number and the ability to respond to attack with things like concealment cards help mitigate the chaos. Great, great game. This was our second full game, but we probably have about half a dozen other starts that ended prematurely. I won the first full game by occupying the territory on the map and holding it unpinned for a turn. Last night my buddy won by eliminating 50% of my forces. The MG 42 is no joke.

I also learned how to play Friday, a game that for some reason I couldn't get my mind around until I could watch someone else play it. Pretty nifty.

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Sat Feb 07, 2015 8:30 pm

Wooo Hooo!!! I finally won a game of Fallen against Jacob (only my 2nd win). This time, it was Seroth the Pit Fighter who ventured into the Dragon's Lair to hunt down Sythean.

Sythean is one of the "advanced characters" from the kickstarter, and Seroth is one of the base characters (that comes in the base retail game). The final roll that gave me the win was 10 successes to Jacob's 9 successes.

Another great game, even more so with me finally picking up a win!!

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Sun Feb 08, 2015 12:45 am

My mother-in-law was in town this weekend and she loves playing games so we played a lot of games. A lot. But as you will be able to tell, she mostly likes one game, so over a few days we played:
Jamaica (always a hit, she loved it of course and we played it a few times as a result)
Alhambra (she liked it, but she thought it was a bit taxing, but I love this game)
Ticket to Ride: Anniversary Edition
Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries (my favorite version as it is just intense especially with 3 players)
Ticket to Ride : Legendary Asia
Ticket to Ride: Switzerland
Ticket to Ride: India
Ticket to Ride: Heart of Africa
Ticket to Ride: Netherlands
Ticket to Ride: Deutschland

As you can tell, she loves Ticket to Ride, and it used to be my wife's favorite game, so we own every expansion and managed to get through almost all of them this weekend. All the same it was the same game over and over again but it was a lot of fun with enough variation with expansions to make it enjoyable.

Then tonight I gave in and went and purchased XCOM. And I am glad I did. Played just the tutorial, but wow was it ever intense. We lost badly. There is so much going on and so much you have to keep track of to really be good at the game. The app works really well as well and the timing is very intense. Can't wait to give it another go soon. The tutorial was a fun way to learn, but I must say I wish the game had a printed rule book. It doesn't have one, and that drives me crazy. You have to use the app to read the rules. Which works well now, but makes this game less likely to stand the test of time. But the implementation is solid.

Also played a game of Tiny Epic Kingdoms to teach my brother the game since he backed the kickstarter. Still fun.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Sun Feb 08, 2015 9:46 am

I picked up XCom:TBG yesterday at our FLGS and then Seppe, Lawbeef and I played through the tutorial.

It was frustrating at times. I, like you, wish there was a printed manual to refer to. Also, the tutorial is sometimes just a wall of text that's oftentimes badly worded. We finished the tutorial (losing quite badly) and in the car later, Seppe and I agreed there's a good game in there, but that we think it will take a few games to understand the tactics that the app's walk through just glosses over. Tactics I think are very, very important to enjoying the game.

By the way, the Shut Up and Sit Down video review is up. The opening had me laughing out loud, I must say.

Seppe and I played two games of Omen: Reign of War before Lawbeef showed up. I still love that game, and the new edition is absolutely beautiful. The typeset has been completely redone, which was my only real complaint about earlier versions. If you can grab it, I still say it's one of the best two players games around.

After Lawbeef arrived, we played Kingsport Festival. I was pleasantly surprised by this Lovecraft retheme of Kingsburg. It's light enough to learn in one turn, but has more than enough variability in the way you earn victory points (or Cultist Points, as they call it) that I never felt like I was completely out of the game at any point.

Then we played the aforementioned XCom before finishing off the day with a full, 5 player game of Roll for the Galaxy. I do love this game. It's definitely got a learning curve, but not as steep a one as Race for the Galaxy. I highly recommend it!

...even though I've never won it.

MonkeyFinger · Post by **MonkeyFinger** » Sun Feb 08, 2015 12:07 pm

Wow... that was indeed a great review.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Sun Feb 08, 2015 4:27 pm

Fire in the Lake be hard, yo. I've been hacking through a solo game trying to figure out the rules, and the questions are many. There's just a ton of options for each faction, the cards introduce even more wrinkles, and the victory conditions and long-term goals can be hard to suss out, at least right now. I'm spending a lot of time referencing the books and forums trying to figure out what's what.

This isn't a bad thing, but it's going to take a while to wrap my head around this one.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Mon Feb 09, 2015 12:00 am

On a bit of a whim I picked up The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. All too often my gaming group consists of just me and a buddy of mine, so I was looking for good 2-player games and this one kept coming up. I was also considering Twilight Struggle, but due to that game's length and theme I didn't think it would be as good a fit. The final straw was the fact I don't have very many card games at all, so this fit a gap in my collection.

After reading through the rulebook twice and checking out Fantasy Flight's tutorial on YouTube, I gave it a whirl solo. I wound up getting annihilated because I kept drawing location cards for the staging area, and had no way to clear them. Every round the disparity between my willpower and the staging area's threat got higher and higher, so I really had no options. I'll give it another whirl solo this week then break it out for game night this weekend.

Despite getting butt-whipped, I do like the game mechanics and think it could be great fun once I got a little more familiar with the cards. I'm also already eager to get an expansion, because the 30-card starter deck seems limiting at the moment. I'm an old Magic player, so that itch to build a custom tournament deck hit me immediately.

I also noticed that my local game shop finally has Dead of Winter readily available, so that one's high on my list to pick up. I only passed today because it seemed much better suited to 3 or more.

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Mon Feb 09, 2015 12:33 am

Played another game of Cthulhu Wars tonight. I started out with a really strong opening playing as the Yellow Sign. I pulled out the King in Yellow on my first turn and started building my zerg ball. The King in Yellow gets an ability that lets him summon undead pretty much for free. As a separate action, he is able to move all undead units currently in his space, with him, at no additional cost.

I quickly spread across the north Atlantic and tried to desecrate North America. Cthulhu flipped out at this point and convinced everyone in the game that I was the biggest threat. As everyone moved against me, I fled to South American and finally to Australia where I was able to claim my final spell book. This seemed to make Cthulhu even angrier over the fact that his attacks had failed to deter me and so he pushed harder to ravage my holdings in Europe. Realizing that I was quickly losing power, I decided to go all in against Cthulhu’s home city of R'lyeh, leading my entire army of undead in the attack. I somehow managed to pull off a victory, killing Cthulhu himself, but was driven out of the city. My attack successful, I slowly crept back across the Atlantic and reclaimed my homeland in Europe.

Unfortunately, while all of this had been going on, the Black Goat had completely infested most of Africa and Asia. Crawling Chaos had attempted to uproot her, but once Black Goat is firmly planted, it is nearly impossible remove her. At this point Cthuhlu continued a misguided war of vengeance against me while Crawling Chaos bashed his head against Black Goats endless hordes. The Black Goat, mostly unbothered by the rest of the world, slowly crept to victory by preforming rituals of annihilation.

Final tally: Black Goat in the lead, Yellow Sign (me) tied victory points with Crawling Chaos and a very annoyed Cthulhu took last place.

Daveman · Post by **Daveman** » Mon Feb 09, 2015 11:08 am

Was a nice quiet weekend and we got to play a few games:

My son and I have played plenty of 2-player Roll for the Galaxy and love it, but we got to try 3 players and it was just as good. I gather some people don't like the random fake 3rd player you use in 2-player games but we haven't minded it, but having a live person to try and read was more interesting. My son is enamored with quickly-build-12-tiles strategies which paid off well once (he had a great starting setup and draw of developments) but he hasn't learned it's not always going to work. Game has been a big hit with the three of us now.

I picked up Sushi Go! on a whim and we played several 4-5 player games. It can vaguely be described as 7 Wonders-lite in that players are all dealt a hand of cards and choose one to keep, pass the remaining to the left, repeat. Depending on what you get and what other players are choosing, you're trying to collect certain cards for the most points. Some cards are purely competitive, whoever has the most at the end of the round earns points, while others score points based on how many you have and so on. Our almost 5-year old daughter enjoyed it... or at least she enjoyed collecting the pudding cards. After a learning round everyone knew what was going on and our games were all very close.

I tried out Mythotopia with my son. I'm not familiar with the other Martin Wallace games this is derived from but liked what I saw from reviewing the rules. Trying to teach it was a little difficult... there's lots of actions you can take on your turn, but you can only choose two, and what actions you can take are limited by the cards in your hand. It just felt like trying to come up with a plan is difficult and many turns you don't have the cards to do what you want, or to do anything helpful in some cases. You can remove cards from your deck to thin it out like you would in any deck builder but we didn't get a firm grasp on what cards are worth keeping or not. We played about a dozen turns each and deciced that having a better understanding now we'd just scrap it and try again. I do like the card-driven aspect of it and the combination of fixed and variable scoring objectives seems really neat.

ChaoZ · Post by **ChaoZ** » Mon Feb 09, 2015 12:49 pm

On the topic of Sushi Go, does anybody find it a little too simple? Maybe I just don't get it, but I've played with two different groups and while the game played smoothly enough and we got the concept of stopping your neighbour from getting certain cards while building your own deck, it played a little hollow. We got through 3-4 full games per group and neither found it all that fun.

I heard a lot of praise for the game, but maybe it's more for the kids.

SpaceLord · Post by **SpaceLord** » Mon Feb 09, 2015 12:52 pm

Daveman wrote:I tried out Mythotopia with my son. I'm not familiar with the other Martin Wallace games this is derived from but liked what I saw from reviewing the rules. Trying to teach it was a little difficult... there's lots of actions you can take on your turn, but you can only choose two, and what actions you can take are limited by the cards in your hand. It just felt like trying to come up with a plan is difficult and many turns you don't have the cards to do what you want, or to do anything helpful in some cases. You can remove cards from your deck to thin it out like you would in any deck builder but we didn't get a firm grasp on what cards are worth keeping or not. We played about a dozen turns each and deciced that having a better understanding now we'd just scrap it and try again. I do like the card-driven aspect of it and the combination of fixed and variable scoring objectives seems really neat.

I just got Mythotopia as well, and learned it by playing 2 players solo. It's a pretty neat take on A Few Acres of Snow(AfAoS). However, my friend Dan has designed Hands in the Sea, also inspired by AfAoS, and, while it's two-player only, I think it's a pretty significant improvement on the system. The subject matter is the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage, before Hannibal reached maturity. It's really, really good: As a disclaimer, I playtested it several times.

The Kickstarter should be launching in a few weeks.

Daveman · Post by **Daveman** » Mon Feb 09, 2015 2:25 pm

I wouldn't say Sushi Go! is for kids, but a lightweight filler kind of game. There's some notable decisions to make each hand though... figuring out if it's worth competing for most Maki Rolls, if there are enough Nigiri out there to make playing a Wasabi worthwhile, is taking a Pudding now for the end game scoring better than scoring points with another card, am I likely to get a 2nd Tempura, etc.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Mon Feb 09, 2015 6:04 pm

Lordnine wrote:Played another game of Cthulhu Wars tonight.

I played another game of "trying to get my Cthulhu Wars Pledge" all week long!

I hate you!

I did get to see what Fief 1429 was like with my wife and father last night. The game is very interesting, although I would say that three-player is not the strongest. This is largely because the game is dependent upon diplomacy, faction dynamics, politics, voting (for bishops, pope, and king), and being able to balance the power of another faction through proximity and competition over land. A four or five player game would be much more exciting.

ChaoZ · Post by **ChaoZ** » Mon Feb 09, 2015 6:18 pm

Daveman wrote:I wouldn't say Sushi Go! is for kids, but a lightweight filler kind of game. There's some notable decisions to make each hand though... figuring out if it's worth competing for most Maki Rolls, if there are enough Nigiri out there to make playing a Wasabi worthwhile, is taking a Pudding now for the end game scoring better than scoring points with another card, am I likely to get a 2nd Tempura, etc.

I guess I expected a little bit more meat to the game. I've also played more than one game where the round had Wasabi, but no Nigiri, and vice versa.

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Mon Feb 09, 2015 7:13 pm

baelthazar wrote:
Lordnine wrote:Played another game of Cthulhu Wars tonight.
I played another game of "trying to get my Cthulhu Wars Pledge" all week long! I hate you!

The Black Goat loves you!

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Tue Feb 10, 2015 10:56 am

Saw a post from one of the designers of Labyrinth that they have announced an expansion to the game, covering events from the Arab Spring onward. I'm excited, and will definitely pick it up.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Tue Feb 10, 2015 5:07 pm

They also announced a sequel to Navajo Wars based on the Comanche Empire.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Feb 10, 2015 5:26 pm

Oh hells yeah!

Errr...on the news for Navajo Wars.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Tue Feb 10, 2015 7:43 pm

hepcat wrote:Oh hells yeah!

Errr...on the news for Navajo Wars.

The title is the impossible to say Comancheria (which sounds like an ill you get when you eat too many burritos). It is on P500 and has already almost made the cut. I'm very close to "backing" it since they don't charge until it is done. http://www.gmtgames.com/p-517-comancher ... mpire.aspx

I played another round of Hyperborea with my wife and we both really enjoy it. It burns the brain a little, but not too much and feels like a Civ game that only takes an hour. I really do recommend that people look into this one. I did notice that my copy was missing the green factions miniatures, so I ordered a second copy from Amazon with the intent to pilfer the green guys and then send that copy back (I already threw away the insert and sleeved the cards in my copy).

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Tue Feb 10, 2015 8:21 pm

Couldn't you have just contacted the publisher and ask for the missing bits?

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 12:49 am

Played a second game of XCOM, this time with my wife.

I actually love this game, and know it will be a hit for a while, all while knowing it could have been so much more. Funny to say. We lost badly, but I think we learned some good strategy. The cards are more useful than I thought initially and need to be played heavily. My wife wants to try again, but I think we will keep the same roles for a while till we learn them better. Then we will rotate around. Hopefully give it another go in a few days, so far it's aliens 2 XCOM 0.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 1:45 am

Chaz wrote:Couldn't you have just contacted the publisher and ask for the missing bits?

Since I have Amazon Prime, this method is actually faster! I did contact Asmodee, however, since they should know that this is a possible problem.

It is weird I am having all this bad boardgame luck lately (missing shipments, missing pieces, late arrivals, damaged boxes).

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 9:53 am

Got in a couple of games of Imperial Assault on Monday. It was with new players, so we played the tutorial mission and the first mission, Aftermath.

I really do like this game. It plays very fast, as evidenced by getting two games in in a 2.5 hour period. The rules are not overly complex, and everyone had the flow completely down by the end of the first game. The part that I don't have a great handle on is the campaign rule and how to build out all of the secondary decks. This game comes with a lot of extra cards, and I need to re-read how to proceed and move on to the next stage of the game.

I also have some concerns about the viability of only two rebels playing. The first time I played, there were 3 rebels, and they won the game on the last turn. In this game, with only two players, it was too easy for the Empire to achieve their victory condition (wounding all rebels.) If there would have been one more rebel, I'm sure they would have won. The game makes up for not having as many rebels by giving those rebels more actions per turn. But one extra rebel in this case to soak up damage probably would have been all the difference they needed.

Want to play it again. Even though I'm not a fan of Descent, this one really hits me in the sweet spot.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 11:10 am

Imperial Assault is really high on my list. It's finally becoming more widely available so I'm seeing it come down in price. I'm going to watch some play sessions and if it seems like it would be a good fit that will probably be my next purchase. Plus I really want to paint those miniatures!

I've continued playing some solo rounds of LOTR: The Card Game and have watched enough videos that I've got a good handle on the game flow now. I'm now to the point that I can beat or come really close to beating the first scenario pretty regularly, so I'm ready to get a partner and start tackling some of the harder scenarios.

Remus West · Post by **Remus West** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 11:25 am

Hentzau, you are no longer allowed to post in this forum unless you update the Town called Zenda thread with more buildings/art. I saw you listed as a recent post and got all excited to see what you had added. Excitement crushed by the reality of you having added nothing.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 12:54 pm

Yeah I've also really been enjoying Imperial Assault. Only had a chance to play it a couple of times but they grabbed me with the theme and once I started playing it I really have enjoyed the game itself. I've only played two players and only the campaign but I am looking forward to trying out the skirmish mode as well.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 3:03 pm

baelthazar wrote:They also announced a sequel to Navajo Wars based on the Comanche Empire.

Just ordered it. I thought it was going to be just an expansion, but it truly is a sequel and a full game in its own right. I really hope GMT continues to let Joel create games using his brilliant solo AI for Navajo Wars. I'd also love to see it applied to other periods and maybe with the assistance of other game designers, like they do with the COIN series.

Ralph-Wiggum · Post by **Ralph-Wiggum** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 3:59 pm

I just ordered King of New York. Looks like a fun game that's different than anything my group normally plays.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 4:57 pm

Remus West wrote:Hentzau, you are no longer allowed to post in this forum unless you update the Town called Zenda thread with more buildings/art. I saw you listed as a recent post and got all excited to see what you had added. Excitement crushed by the reality of you having added nothing.

Sorry, the bank is killing me. It's been the slowest kit to assemble I've come across yet. Getting close, though. Interiors are finished, just need to do the outside decorations and then the dreaded windows.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 6:20 pm

hentzau wrote:Sorry, the bank is killing me. It's been the slowest kit to assemble I've come across yet.

(•_•) Sounds like...

( •_•)>⌐■-■ You need to invest more time.

(⌐■_■)
YYYYEEEEEAAAAHHHH!!

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 6:50 pm

Smoove_B wrote:
hentzau wrote:Sorry, the bank is killing me. It's been the slowest kit to assemble I've come across yet.
(•_•) Sounds like...

( •_•)>⌐■-■ You need to invest more time.

(⌐■_■)
YYYYEEEEEAAAAHHHH!!

Took me a minute. How long have you been saving that one?

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 6:57 pm

That old chestnut? I've busted it out before. But this seemed like another good time and I couldn't resist.

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 7:05 pm

Kings of Israel just arrived...kickstarter edition. It is a game, based off, mechanically speaking, Pandemic. But there seems to be some twists.

The game does look pretty good, though. Haven't played it yet, but it is set up.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 7:14 pm

MythicalMino wrote:Kings of Israel just arrived...kickstarter edition. It is a game, based off, mechanically speaking, Pandemic. But there seems to be some twists.

The game does look pretty good, though. Haven't played it yet, but it is set up.

Anyone else think this was a dice game involving giant Biblical characters beating the snot out each other for control of Jerusalem?

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 7:25 pm

haha...there is a game in there somewhere!!

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 11:03 pm

MythicalMino wrote:Kings of Israel just arrived...kickstarter edition. It is a game, based off, mechanically speaking, Pandemic. But there seems to be some twists.

The game does look pretty good, though. Haven't played it yet, but it is set up.

I would like to hear your impression on how it might be used as a classroom tool for history and strategy. I heard the religious aspect of the game is more subtle than one would assume, which would be good for a history course.

ChaoZ · Post by **ChaoZ** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 1:40 am

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:I just ordered King of New York. Looks like a fun game that's different than anything my group normally plays.

Over Christmas, I bought my young relatives a copy of King of Tokyo and bought King of New York for me. I watched several playthroughs before buying it and it seemed to be the way to go.

King of New York has a bit more meat to the game and eliminates the turtleing strategy of KoT where players just tried to score victory points through rolls.

That being said, I've found that although the game plays six, it seems to quickly whittle the players down to four, at which time the game slows down and more strategy kicks in. I would like to hear your experience after you've played a few games.