OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

[AWS260]

True, but choosing sub-optimal upgrades in Legacy isn't the end of the world. It just means you're a bit more likely to lose, in which case you get a couple more useful cards in the deck for the next time around. It's a nice balancing mechanism.

Because we did a crappy job of [spoilered], my family has now lost three games in a row. I kind of want to lose the next one, so that we can open Box 8!

[YellowKing]

Well, we decided that we did want a warm-up before starting Legacy since nobody had played in awhile, but nobody really wanted to play vanilla Pandemic. So we broke out In the Lab, which three of the four of us had never played.

First game we lost by just two actions - we did a great job of keeping the board under control, but ultimately ran out of cards just before the final cure. We realized we were just not aggressive enough with the lab.

The second game we won handily by focusing on the lab early and often. While the outbreaks got a little hairy at times, wise use of the quarantine specialist kept us out of too much trouble and allowed us to get the cures knocked out quickly.

The best part about this warm-up session is that we learned the group dynamic, and I think it's going to be a very positive one. No alpha players, and every player contributed valuable ideas to the group conversations on what to do. One guy is a rules expert and knows the rules front and back, and another guy is a rules stickler who is quick to catch things we missed. So between the two of them they kept the game very honest and missteps were extremely rare.

Most importantly everyone had a lot of fun and were eager to do it again next week. Putting a bunch of people in a room together who have never played with each other before is always a gamble on how things will click, but in this case I think we have a strong, smart team who knows how to learn from strategic mistakes. Should be a terrific time.

[hepcat]

It friends on how familiar everyone is with pandemic.

Chris, can you send me your phone so I can turn off autocorrect?

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I recently got Clockwork Wars and my wife and I really enjoy it. We also like Arcadia Quest, and it is a fast and furious game when you put 3-5 people in (although it may cap at 4, I would check that). If you like "multiplayer solitaire" builders like Roll for the Galaxy, I have heard very good things about Orleans. That being said, the price I saw on Amazon was like $20 more than anywhere else, so be sure that you don't get suckered by that. I was a little confused - have you gotten Pandemic Legacy or not? If not, I would say go for that. Even with limited play throughs it was one of the best games my wife and I played and we were literally addicted to it for about a month (even with its average cap of 18-20 plays, it is still one of the most played games in our collection). I only got to play Blood Rage once, but we very much enjoyed the game. It really hits all cylinders with both deck drafting, dudes on a map, area control, and MONSTERS. Think of Cyclades meets Chaos in the Old World meets 7 Wonders.

If you have played Lords of Waterdeep but find it too formulaic and want some more luck, I have also heard great things about Champions of Midgard. A student of mine was very impressed (he is an avid gamer) and it should suport your player numbers well. Although a little long it the tooth (no longer the NEW HOTNESS it once was), Seasons is still a very good game.

Other than that, you could save your money for Star Wars Rebellion (although it is 2 and 4 players more than 3-5).

Thanks for the recommendations. I don't have Pandemic Legacy (yet?) but it is currently going for $90+ on Amazon which is ridiculous. I'm going to wait until that drops down to its normal price. Blood Rage is also currently at $80 and Marco Polo isn't too far behind. Why can't the games I'm really interested in be cheaper????

[hepcat]

I'm sure it will be back in stock soon enough. I know Coolstuff and Miniature Market restock games daily.

[Archinerd]

I saw it for $50-$60 on Amazon just a few weeks ago.

I considered buying a copy for my brother but then I decided he wasn't worth it. Now I regret that decision, because he certainly isn't worth $90.

[AWS260]

I don't have Pandemic Legacy (yet?) but it is currently going for $90+ on Amazon which is ridiculous.

If there's a Barnes & Noble near you, they may have it in stock at list price.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I think I've seen Pandemic Legacy for ~$45 on Amazon. List price is $69.99, I think. But Amazon isn't selling the game directly right now; those inflated prices are coming from the publisher (Z-Man) selling on Amazon. There must be a shortage now which is why its selling for more.

[hepcat]

You can play our copy once we're finished with it!

[hentzau]

There was a thread on BGG where somebody bought a used copy of P:L and was complaining about what a dumb-ass he was. I laughed.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

You can play our copy once we're finished with it!

[paulbaxter]

We played Smash Up here this week. It had been so long that I'd totally forgotten the rules and the kids had lost the rule book. Fortunately these days that just means looking it up in the interwebs.

Despite finding this game in every way inferior to King of Tokyo, the boys still like it. I think they just like the idea of picking the factions. We had fun. It isn't a terrible game, but it isn't really an especially good one either.

[hentzau]

On a whim, I picked up Cowboys: The Way of the Gun. It's a very rules light cowboy shoot em up game that is very scenario driven. We played about 4 games of it on Wednesday night. Well...I'm not sure I would call the first 3 of them "games". The way they were set up (as learning games) you pretty much just stand apart from each other and roll dice and whoever rolls better the other guy is dead. We moved on to some of the meatier scenarios and those got a bit more fun, but overall, it was kind of "meh".

I think the only way this game could get better would be to use all of the optional advanced rules.

[Chrisoc13]

It friends on how familiar everyone is with pandemic.

Chris, can you send me your phone so I can turn off autocorrect?

Yeah autocorrect is killing me lately!

Somehow I've gone on a splurge of gaming purchases again recently. I don't really know what happened, but it has gotten a little bit out of hand. Time to pump the breaks a bit.
I again have too many unpaved games sitting in my collection. I am still getting around to trying Time Stories after hearing so much about it. Haven't even tried it yet! But that needs to happen sooner than later. I also haven't done anything with Mercs Recon yet outside of punching out the cardboard. I haven't even assembled the miniatures that need assembly yet. And yet none of that stopped me from putting an order in at CSI.

An order that started with the simplest of things. I've been playing a decent amount of Imperial Assault recently, working through the campaign (I'm the imperial player). Side note- still a fantastic game that does so well with the Star Wars theme. Well for Christmas around all of the Star Wars excitement my wife got me the Return to Both expansion. I haven't even finished the base game yet, but the expansion looks awesome, and who doesn't want a little bit of Both in their Star wars gaming world. So then I picked up the few mini-expansion allies and villains etc. that I was missing. No big deal, until I saw the Bantha rider was released this week and I decided that I absolutely needed it. For my campaign of course. So I went to Amazon to buy it, and it was still only a pre-order. Hmm. So I went to CSI and found it. But they also had the Twin Suns expansion in stock (which recently has been hard to come by) so I added that to my cart, and then realized I wasn't that far off from free shipping... so I found Toikado the deluxe edition on a whim and ordered it without another though. Impulse buy, just for free shipping. I mean I enjoy Tokaido and I enjoy deluxe editions of games... but still... that was an impulse. Oh well!

[AWS260]

Return to Both

Many Bothans died to bring us this autocorrect.

[MonkeyFinger]

I again have too many unpaved games sitting in my collection.

Thankfully, all my games are still unpaved as well.

[Chrisoc13]

I again have too many unpaved games sitting in my collection.

Thankfully, all my games are still unpaved as well.

Autocorrect strikes again!

[wonderpug]

I again have too many unpaved games sitting in my collection.

Thankfully, all my games are still unpaved as well.

Autocorrect strikes again!

Airstrikes in Afghanistan?

[Zarathud]

Something tells me Chrisoc needs more sleep.

[hepcat]

Played a game of Talon last night. All I can say is that if you like tactical space games at the fleet level, and/or you were a fan of Starfleet Battles, this is the game for you. It's very intuitive and easy to learn, but good lord do you need to be on your toes for this one. Maneuvering around the map is more than just speed up, do a 180 and fire. This game makes you think about the next 4 or 5 turns because odds are, you're going to drain your weapons charges and have to turn your shielded side towards the enemy while you recharge. You actually write on the ship counters with a dry erase pen to mark your shields, your power, your speed, your weapon charges and your turn radius. And while that sounds like a lot, it really does make perfect sense while you play.

Two massive thumbs up for this one. It's the perfect compliment to my love of Star Trek Attack Wing.

[Zarathud]

Any chance of using the ship counters as character sheets and using the Star Trek Attack Wing miniatures on the table?

[hepcat]

Talon would be perfect for Heroclix figures (like those found in Star Trek: Fleet Captains) if they had hex bases. The Power Curve (the main conceit of the game) is 3 numbers that are always in the same group of 3. But you'd lose the visual data that other players can garner from just looking at the counters on the table. Arguably one of the best things about the game. However, they do provide a pad of ship papers you can substitute for writing on the ship counters. So that's already been thought of.

The game is great starting point for fan mods. The mechanics can easily be adopted to a number of different popular franchises. I could see a Battlestar Galactica version with little to no modification to the basic game whatsoever. I look forward to seeing what happens.

[baelthazar]

Hopefully they will actually send my copy to me. I had a P500 flub (they have you put credit cards in for something that releases two years later and your credit cards are out of date) so it did not get shipped with the rest. I decided to add a copy of Silent Victory to my order, and I *think* both are coming next week (I have a 7 pound box coming, so that sounds right). I am interesting in Talon, but likely will have to play it solo for a while. Did you solo play it Hep?

[hepcat]

Nah, I played with Seppe. The game is advertised as being highly solo-able, but it's not really. GMT just tacks that designation on any game that doesn't have hidden knowledge. It would be like playing Chess against yourself. Something I know some folks like, but I personally do not.

Now, the game IS crying out for a Doomsday AI scenario like that found in the original Star Fleet Battles. I hope someone recreates it.

[hentzau]

Went to the Kickstarter launch party for the game Paradox last night. I didn't back the game (heck, I didn't know anything about it) but our ex pastor had backed it and the venue for their launch party fell through so he offered up the church he's currently serving at as the venue, and he invited me. Imagine my surprise when one of the developers of the game recognized me...he's the creator of the game Quicksilver and has made it to OctoCon a couple of times. Small world.

Anyhow, I took over a position of someone that had to leave about halfway through the game and I have to say I really, really enjoyed this one. It's a set collecting game with a Bejeweled-type energy gathering mechanism. There are lots of scenarios along with the game to keep it fresh. I bought a copy after playing a couple of turns, I can't wait to get a few more plays under my belt.

[$iljanus]

Hopefully they will actually send my copy to me. I had a P500 flub (they have you put credit cards in for something that releases two years later and your credit cards are out of date) so it did not get shipped with the rest. I decided to add a copy of Silent Victory to my order, and I *think* both are coming next week (I have a 7 pound box coming, so that sounds right). I am interesting in Talon, but likely will have to play it solo for a while. Did you solo play it Hep?

I recently got Silent Victory and finished punching out the counters hoping to get it on the table. I liked that they included historical captains that you can play as and try to beat their war record.

[Chrisoc13]

Interesting night of gaming last night. I finally got a chance to try a handful of games I've really been looking forward to playing. Two which I own and are recent additions to my collection, one which my friend owns.

First up was Raptor. It's an asymmetrical 2 player only game. One player is the mother raptor who is trying to help her baby raptors escape. That player can win either by getting 3 babies raptors off the board, or by killing all of the scientists. The scientist player is trying to capture baby raptors. You win by either putting the mother raptor to sleep, or by capturing 3 babies. Both players have their own deck of cards which are different from each other, numbered 1-9. Each has a different card specific action on them. You have a hand of 3 cards and play 1 simultaneously as the other player. Whoever plays the lower number gets to do that specific action onto he card (ranging from starting fires to block raptors, putting baby raptors to sleep etc. for scientists, and disappearing off the board and reappearing wherever you want, calling babies close to you, or causing fear in scientists for the raptor player). The player with the higher card doesn't get to do their card action but instead gets a number of free actions equal to the difference between the two cards. These actions consist of moving, grabbing baby raptors, etc. for scientists and moving in a straight line as far as you want, and eating scientists or moving babies off the board for the mother raptor. The game is quick, each one lasting only about 20 minutes, but it really is quite fun. The production quality is top notch with little miniatures and nice tiles and cards. Great two player game, happy to have it in my collection.

Next up was Race for the Galaxy. I don't own it, and have never actually played it. I have Roll for the Galaxy but I've been itching to try Race. We played just the base game. My friend is very adept at the game, and we played two quick games, both of which he quickly destroyed me.

3rd up is a brand new game to my collection- Fields of Arle by Uwe Rosenberg. It follows much the same path as many of his farming games, but I am a big fan of this line of games. Caverna is probably one of my top 3 favorite games of all time, I like it that much. I have always enjoyed Agricola too, but Caverna just straight up beats it for me. And Agricola all Creatures Big and Small is the bench mark for me for small light 2 player games. So when it comes to euro games I am a fan of Uwe's work. I've been on a kick of collecting some new 2-player only games. I play a lot of games 2-players and while many games scale very well, I find that when a game is created for 2 players I especially appreciate it. So knowing that this wasn't some condensed version of one of his games for 2 players I looked forward to trying it. And I have to say, it did not disappoint. It's a deep game, with some familiar mechanics to fans of his games, but it still manages to feel completely different from all of his other games. You play a farmer (surprise) but you have 4 actions each season, and you play 9 total seasons. Over that time you build a little engine, ship goods, clear farm land, build buildings, you know the typical Uwe type stuff. But for some reason it just clicks so well, and since it is made for 2 players I can't help but especially enjoy it. It might have just become one of my favorite two player games I own (behind the great X-wing of course...). It has countless strategies, many different options to pursue. This was my first play of it, so I will see how it holds up on future plays.

[LordMortis]

Got out and gamed on Saturday after I discovered that I didn't have enough paperwork to do my taxes.

I played a Pharaoh Yahtzee game that was sort of meh. I won but meh.

I played a game I forgot what it was... So it must not have left an impression on me.

I watched a game of Age of Empires, which I think I would enjoy.

I played a gem empire/auction game called Scepter of Svandor which I really enjoyed

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1388 ... r-zavandor

[hentzau]

Just got this for Colt Express...

[hepcat]

[hentzau]

Rules for the Time Travel Car:

Several Bandits can go in the Time Travel Car at the same time, but in order to trigger the action, your Bandit has to be alone in it at the end of a round (after applying the event, if the current round has one).

If this condition is met, all of the other players close their eyes. In the meantime, you must take your Bandit pawn and hide it below the Locomotive; below one of the Cars; or below the Stagecoach (if you are playing with the expansion). Then, the next Schemin’ phase is played and none of the other players know where your Bandit is. The Bandit’s location is disclosed at the beginning of the Stealin’ phase and the pawn is placed inside the Car where it was hiding. Then all of the actions are resolved.

At the end of the game, after the event is resolved, if one Bandit is alone inside the Time Travel Car, the player receives $500 and all of the loot that may be contained inside.

[Zarathud]

But you have to sing the theme song when everyone's eyes are closed.

[TheMix]

My best friend is up from Texas for a week.

Knocked out one of the Castle Ravenloft adventures. Ended up winning pretty easily. But the beginning was brutal. It's such an odd game. The games I've played have all been a struggle until the final battle... which ended up being pretty easy. But most of the time I feel like I'm one bad encounter away from losing. Looking at some of the later adventures, however, I suspect that losing will become pretty common.

We are planning on trying another adventure tomorrow. Then there are a number of other games on the list.

[YellowKing]

I'm going to post some non-spoiler AARs for Pandemic:Legacy since we've officially kicked things off.

So after reading through the rules and getting accustomed to any changes, it was time to pick roles and characters. We decided to play Generalist, Dispatcher, Medic, and Researcher. We gave our characters names, and the guy playing our Generalist got stuck with a lady that he - for some inexplicable reason - decided to name "Janet." He then got stuck with the pink token, which he was NOT happy about.

His obvious irritation was so hilarious, that it became a running joke throughout the game. "Dammit, Janet, pull yourself together!" was a common refrain. Our Medic was Winnie "Bones" Jackson. Our Dispatcher was "Johnny Wu," and our Researcher was "Esther" (who we called Esther the Molester most of the game).

The first game (January) came down to the wire. We had three of the four diseases cured, and cards in hand to cure the fourth. We needed to survive just two turns to cure and win. Alas, a bad Epidemic draw did us in - yellow broke out, cascaded, and we ran out of yellow cubes thus ending the game.

As we were bemoaning our luck, we realized - with horror - that we had neglected to read a very important card from the Legacy deck that could have changed the outcome had we followed the instructions at the appropriate time. Slight panic set in as we realized that only one game in we had already screwed something up.

The rulebook, however, does address this scenario. The rules clearly state that if you do mistakenly miss a rule or event, and the consensus is that it would have made the game easier, you may increase your funding for the next game by two to make up for it. Likewise, if the consensus is that it would have made the game harder, you can voluntarily decrease your funding by two. In our case, we agreed that had we not missed the event, our game would have been harder than it was, and we still would have lost - just quicker. So we elected to take no bonus or penalty, and just continue status quo.

The second game went much better. Learning from our mistakes, we corrected our strategy and stayed on top of trouble for most of the game. While I wouldn't say we exactly "cruised" to a victory, we did win quite definitively setting us up for a bonus for February's game. Right now we're in pretty good shape, but this game is difficult so we're not resting on our laurels.

The game was a total blast, and we've only scratched the surface. Really fun to play with a solid group that know what they're doing, and make smart decisions.

[TheMix]

Got in another adventure for Castle Ravenloft. I'm starting to like the game better. Moving into some of the harder adventures, I'm seeing more strategy. However... we lost. It actually came pretty close. Well, at first it wasn't close at all, but then I realized that I missed something in the setup that would have changed the game a lot in our favor. Don't know if it would have made enough of a difference to let us win in the long run.

My friend didn't want to try again, so we tabled the game for now.

Next we broke out Legendary Encounters: Alien. What a mess to sort. Not sure who came up with that packing scheme. We did eventually get the cards sorted and the first scenario set up. Then proceeded to get destroyed. We actually did pretty well (mostly due to luck) on the objectives, quickly getting to the 3rd objective. But we made some errors in our deck building that resulted in us being unable to kill the aliens (left over from objective 2). And looking at what was coming up in the last objective deck for enemies, we wouldn't have been able to make a dent. Going to have to put some more thought into this one. It definitely is not easy.

[Archinerd]

Played 2 games of Wir Sind Das Volk! with my wife over the weekend. We've now played 3 times and I think we've finally played it correctly on this last one, which officially means I've lost every game that we've played by the rules.

[Zenn7]

Monthly board game day - got to try Twilight Imperium for the first time. That is a very epic game. We used a couple expansions. I forget my race name, but I was someone who specialized in Infantry/cloning. We used several optional rules from 2 expansions, including something that put hidden encounter tokens on every planet and in every open space. Also racial techs. My racial tech that I bought let me get a free ground unit every time I built something. My flagship let me use ground troops as fighters. Should have pushed to get that flag ship sooner, but never had the resources to buy it. Some bad decision making on my part.

Thing that really killed me, I get this great planet that gives me 2 shock troops when I exhaust it. The mystery encounter was "settled". I rolled... enemy. So I had to take that right away as it bordered my home world. And I did promptly on turn 2. But that used all my resources/efforts for turn 2. Fortunately I'd gotten a trade station on turn 1 or I might not have been able to do that even. I had some minimal good luck in other areas and some bad luck, messed up choices and flat out bad decisions at a few points. And a LOT of bad rolls (there seemed to be plenty of those to go around). Lousy secret objective (capture someone else's homeworld). Made good use of action cards and managed to make sure I never had a political vote hurt me. Even stole ministry of war (kicking myself now as I forgot to use it) from the guy who was sure he'd win it (+10 influence action card!). Course I ended up fighting him a lot and he had MANY combat action cards. He was playing Naau? Fighter specialist with special retreat ability.

Failed miesably (we had to quit 1-2 turns before the game would have ended), but had a great time with it.

[hentzau]

Game of Paradox with the family. Very fun.

[hepcat]

Sheesh, stopped in my FLGS for a couple of paint pots, walked out with almost 100 bucks in expansions. But I really needed that Atlantean expansion for Imperial Settlers, that new Klingon ship for Star Trek Attack Wing and the latest D&D Dice Master starter, dang it.

Of course, the clerk forgot to put my paint pots in my damn bag and called me later to let me know it.

One thing that caught my eye and that I need to look into was Richard Launius' latest work, Legends of the American Frontier. It looks insanely cool. But I've had my issues with some of Richard's previous games, so I'm wary.

[baelthazar]

Zenn7, I almost never use the planetary encounters because they swing the luck dramatically for a game that is so long and luck-based already. Also, I find that it is just too many extra rules to worry about.

How many players did you have and how long was the game? With 4-5 players, we regularly take 7-8 hours.