Octopus Overlords

Jow wrote:not doing much in-person gaming lately due to incompatible schedules and/or being busy, but a friend and I have been playing an absolute ton of Neuroshima Hex using an online java app. This app includes all the original factions plus the two from Babel 13, using all the original art for the tiles and board. It's actually really solid and plays well. My only real complaint is that out of the nearly 40 or so games we've played, we've lost 7 or 8 of them due to one of us being disconnected from the server. Unfortunately, there's no savegame feature and when one player is disconnected, it unceremoniously dumps the other player back to the main lobby. For a game that involves a lot of jockeying and can result in some really close games, getting dumped with 2 or 3 turns left in an undecided game is really, really frustrating.

linky?

AWS260 wrote:

El Guapo wrote:Maybe 1989 is the better bet on that regard then (and the theme seems pretty cool), though I don't know when they're planning on releasing that.

It's currently scheduled for a July release.

They just announced today that it will have a mounted board. What exactly does that mean? It sounds good, in any event.

Giving some thought to pre-ordering this, though I usually dislike the idea of giving money now for nothing now.

El Guapo wrote:
They just announced today that it will have a mounted board. What exactly does that mean? It sounds good, in any event.

Giving some thought to pre-ordering this, though I usually dislike the idea of giving money now for nothing now.

The majority of GMT games were historically issued with paper boards/mats. In the last few years, they've established a precedent in which they change the board over to a cardboard stock (the thickness and weight of most boardgames you buy in a store these days) if a certain number of pre-orders is achieved prior to the game's production. This way they offset the cost of a mounted board before it has to go to the printer.

These days, unless the game is REALLY niche oriented, most new releases from GMT will eventually come with a mounted board...or at least the option to upgrade to one later. I think this shows that they're making a name for themselves with the general gaming populace finally.

El Guapo wrote:

AWS260 wrote:

El Guapo wrote:Maybe 1989 is the better bet on that regard then (and the theme seems pretty cool), though I don't know when they're planning on releasing that.

It's currently scheduled for a July release.

They just announced today that it will have a mounted board. What exactly does that mean? It sounds good, in any event.

I could explain, but it's NSFW.

hep: http://online.neuroshima.org/" target="_blank

Caveat: Even if you select English as the language, the download mirrors are .pl pages, all in Polish. You'll have to fight through that to get the app.

ouch...but I'm determined, dagnabit! Thanks for the link.

Got in another 2-player game of Defenders of the Realm on Monday with Tommy20. We contemplated both of us running two characters, to help improve our odds, but in the end decided to go with Royal Blessings variant that the game designer posted on BGG. Basically, for a 2 player game, you get 3 "do-overs". You can use them to re-roll all dice in a battle, to ignore the effects of a "Darkness Spreads" card, or to cleanse on region of land of all taint.

So for this game, Tommy chose the Eagle Rider, and I chose the Sorceress. Upon reading the card for the Eagle Rider, we found out that I have to put an asterisk next to the victory that I had with hepcat, seppe and Stuart over the weekend...we were playing the Eagle Rider wrong. Hepcat was re-rolling only the missed dice when the Eagle Rider chose the "Ground Attack" option, but you have to re-roll ALL of the dice. Hepcat, I'm ashamed of you! Such a cheater!

Minion placement to start the game didn't lead to any immediate hot spots, so we took care of the immediate groups around Monarch City. Tommy used his increased movement to knock off several quest quickly, and we started to gather a lot of red cards, which was a good thing, because Balazarg had already advanced two spaces towards Monarch City. Armed with about 13 red dice, we met Balazarg at Angel Tear Falls...and he had us for lunch. Completely destroyed us. We first rolled to get rid of dice (his special ability) and of us lost several dice. My first roll yielded a paltry one hit, leaving Tommy to deliver 5 hits with 7 dice, which he couldn't do. We used a Royal blessing token, and again the dice were against us. We were sent back to Monarach City, wounded and with no cards in our hands. We desperately tried to get some quick red cards into our hands to try and get back to finish off Balazarg before he could heal up to full again, but it was not to be.

We despaired at being able to rally back from this blow. The other generals started moving, even though Balazarg stayed quiet for the time being. Our card stacks we were gathering sent us towards Gorgutt, who we took out with ease. We hit mid-war phase, so the other generals started moving faster. Our red cards started to build up, so it was time to seek revenge on Balazarg. We advanced on him, and took him down easily. Now we were left with Sapphire and Varkolak, and our cards were leaning towards Sapphire. Black cards were noticeably absent from our hands, and both generals were one move from Monarch City. Soon we drew a card that allowed Sapphire to move into Monarch City. We used a Royal Blessing and kept him from entering, and knew we couldn't wait any longer. We launched our attack on Sapphire, and dealt with her easily. One general left!

We were amazed about where we were at this point. We thought for sure we had no chance after losing to Balazarg the first time, and now we were within striking distance of taking him down. Taint was fine, the minions were fairly under control. We just needed some more black cards and a kind Darkness Spreads deck. We move about trying to gather black cards, while defeating as many minions as possible since we were now getting twice as many of them. We had about six black dice in our hands, and I was trying to complete a quest that would allow us to ignore a general's movement.

At this point Tommy pulled a darkness spreads card that moved Varkolak into Monarch City. We spent our last Royal Blessing token. I need to travel to two additional locations, and spend action points there to complete my quest. I look over all my options, all my cards, and I am one action point shy of being able to complete it in one turn. I can't see any other path to complete it. So I move to the second location, complete that part of the quest, and use a gate to get me over to the location to complete my quest on my next turn. We need that ability to keep the general from moving!

I pull my first darkness spreads card...minions are placed, no general movement. I pull the second darkness spreads...Orc Patrol, with Varkolak auto-moving to his next available location. Monarch City.

Game.
Over.

GODDAMMIT!!!

Current record: 2-9*

If this game wasn't so freaking fun, I'd be setting it aside for the forseeable future. But all I want to do is to play it again!

hentzau wrote:...we were playing the Eagle Rider wrong. Hepcat was re-rolling only the missed dice when the Eagle Rider chose the "Ground Attack" option, but you have to re-roll ALL of the dice. Hepcat, I'm ashamed of you! Such a cheater!

I honestly thought that I'd read something to the effect of "only the failed rolls" or something. the font on a lot of stuff in that game is so darn tiny though.

hepcat wrote:

hentzau wrote:...we were playing the Eagle Rider wrong. Hepcat was re-rolling only the missed dice when the Eagle Rider chose the "Ground Attack" option, but you have to re-roll ALL of the dice. Hepcat, I'm ashamed of you! Such a cheater!

I honestly thought that I'd read something to the effect of "only the failed rolls" or something. the font on a lot of stuff in that game is so darn tiny though.

Tricksy hobbitses!!!

wait...was I not drinking? when I'm not drinking, I tend to screw things up.

You know who to call if you want someone who reads the rules. hepcat cheats all the time but nobody notices it.

Zarathud wrote:You know who to call if you want someone who reads the rules. hepcat cheats all the time but nobody notices it.

Tommy20?

Only if I remember my reading glasses. Even with them I can barely read those cards...

What happened to Tommys 1 through 19?

Too many rules wrong. They were errattaed.

They were assimilated into the Over-Tommy.

I love Defenders of the Realm, but the rules needed a LOT of Faq'ing (hee hee, sounds dirty). I want to buy the expansion, but it is VERY expensive for an expansion, and the game itself wasn't cheap. I really wanted the updated rules and all the new variants.

baelthazar wrote:They were assimilated into the Over-Tommy.

I love Defenders of the Realm, but the rules needed a LOT of Faq'ing (hee hee, sounds dirty). I want to buy the expansion, but it is VERY expensive for an expansion, and the game itself wasn't cheap. I really wanted the updated rules and all the new variants.

The $60 price tag on the DotR:Dragons suppliment has kept me from pulling the trigger on it as well. It does seem a very steep price tag, even if the minis are painted. I like the idea of the new environment cards that they added to it though, as well as having different generals to fight against.

I have pre-ordered the new Heroes packs they are releasing, mostly because you get the painted minis for free with the pre-order.

El Guapo wrote:What happened to Tommys 1 through 19?

I'm not sayin'.




(But they was tasty)

Darn it, I think Borders must either be on to us, or they're getting stingy due to their financial troubles... the recent Borders Rewards coupon I received via email specifically (and quite visibly) excludes puzzles, toys and games

I played two rounds of Wrath of Ashardalon today and, other than getting the WAY underpowered Orc Shaman (Kraash) as the final boss, we had an amazing time! I'm wondering... if you were to use the chamber rules for Castle Ravenloft, grab the chamber from WoA, and pull a random final boss from CR - could you not play the chamber adventure using the CR monsters? I have to admit, I like the CR baddies better (just for looks and feel) but WoA's seems to have more interesting scenarios, heroes, and treasures. ATM, I'm confused at how I can fuse these products...

baelthazar wrote:I have to admit, I like the CR baddies better (just for looks and feel) but WoA's seems to have more interesting scenarios, heroes, and treasures. ATM, I'm confused at how I can fuse these products...

I'm pretty sure you can mix and match to your heart's desire. On boardgamegeek, they've got some interesting some creatures, treasures and encounters to add to the mix.

Megacorps on sale at Tanga for $17 including shipping. Looks interesting - sounds a lot like Imperial 2030, which I've also had my eye on. Anyone know anything about the game?

Never even heard of Megacorps, but apparently it's a second edition or remake. Has a solid 6 on bgg, so it might be good.

I bought an ipad 2 last week because seeing people talking about neuroshima hex, bang and kingsburg on iOS devices was driving me nuts. I'm friggin' lovin' it so far. They even have Battle Line, which i've been playing the hell out of.

Interesting. I notice that it's still a solid 2 points below the average score for Imperial 2030, which has essentially the same theme. So I think I'll take a pass and hold out for finding a good deal on Imperial 2030.

We got in a game and a screwed up half of a game of Stronghold this weekend and there's a lot to it and it's a pretty deep on the strategic side of things. It's definitely not light board gaming and even when once we get the game down it looks like four hours of intense strategy to play a game.

I really enjoyed it but it's not a game we'll just break out for fun, any more than a game of Axis and Allies would be. Future games will be planned evenings around just playing a round of Stronghold.

The rules are a bit ambiguous in their writing, which lead to look online where the FAQs from the publisher sometimes directly contradict very explicit rules in the manual (which is thick).

It's going to take a while to get into.

Hep C, I can bring it to OctoCon but I'm not likely to play. It's not a social game and playing it will take most of a day. It's (probably... after one play) a great game but not for the OctoCon setting IMO.

Nah, if it's that much of a time sink, don't bother. I was under the impression it was a far lighter game than it apparently is.

Did you get a chance to play 51st State yet?

hepcat wrote:Nah, if it's that much of a time sink, don't bother. I was under the impression it was a far lighter game than it apparently is.

Did you get a chance to play 51st State yet?

Nope. I brought it over in Sunday but we chose Stronghold instead. Reading the rules, playing a false start, and then completing a game with a few breaks to look stuff up on BGG took from 13:30 until 22:30. Maybe next weekend if anyone is available. The only thing is we've tended to play at Remus' and he's game off for the next few weeks, so it may be right up unto OctoCon before we get another gaming day in.

El Guapo wrote:Interesting. I notice that it's still a solid 2 points below the average score for Imperial 2030, which has essentially the same theme. So I think I'll take a pass and hold out for finding a good deal on Imperial 2030.

Imperial 2030 is a masterpiece, IMHO. Although I've heard that Imperial is equally as good if not better. Many people really just have aesthetic or preferences of one over the other and I'm too cheap to buy both for comparison. One thing I suggest, buy some poker chips to use for the money rather than the card stock money they give you. Much more satisfying and easy to see the treasuries of different nations at a glance.

I really liked Stronghold but agree with LM that it doesn't lend itself to the social aspect of Octocon very well.

This was the weekend for Tommy20 to kick my butt.

We started off Friday at a local con, and he brought his copy of Memoir '44 with him. We had always wanted to try out the linked campaign rules in the Memoir Campaigns book, but could never find the time. We did the first campaign, the Battle of Normandy. Tommy was the Brits, and I was the Gumermans. The first battle, Securing the Flank, started off with me taking an early VP lead but with a well placed air strike on his part, he turned the tide and beat me fairly decisively, 5-3. Second battle, Capturing the Crossing, went exactly the opposite way, with him to an early lead and me sneaking in a victory at the last moment, 6-5. Third battle, Withdrawl from Hill 112, I was on the offensive this time, and my center assault to capture the town collapsed around my ears as I got bogged down in hedgerows and my cards dried up. Tommy had to beat me by at least 2 VPs for it to be considered a victory for the allies, so I only had to get to 5 VPs and the game was mine, where he needed to get to six and insure that I didn't get to five. It was a tough battle, but ultimately, I couldn't get that 5th VP, and he beat me, 6-4, securing the overall campaign victory for the Brits. (If I would have won in that battle, we would have had to fight one more battle to determine overall victory.

Last night we did some old school crayon train gaming with North American Rails. We hadn't broken out the rail games for several years, but it was like falling off a bike. In the end, Tommy ended up squeaking out a victory about 2 turns before I would have, and I blame a derailment near Kansas City that lost me my load of copper, and a snowstorm near Buffalo that kept me pinned down. Oh, and not following through on my plan to grab nickel on spec in Sudbury, which made me backtrack to pick it up from Duluth. Stuart was never even really in the running...he was chasing the pipe dream of the $51 million dollar payout on the coffee to Montreal run.

hentzau wrote:he was chasing the pipe dream of the $51 million dollar payout on the coffee to Montreal run.

"pipe dream"
"coffee to Montreal"

See what he did there?

Zarathud wrote:

baelthazar wrote:I have to admit, I like the CR baddies better (just for looks and feel) but WoA's seems to have more interesting scenarios, heroes, and treasures. ATM, I'm confused at how I can fuse these products...

I'm pretty sure you can mix and match to your heart's desire. On boardgamegeek, they've got some interesting some creatures, treasures and encounters to add to the mix.

Wizards just released the first official set of 3 adventures mixing Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashbardalon.

Zarathud wrote:

Zarathud wrote:

baelthazar wrote:I have to admit, I like the CR baddies better (just for looks and feel) but WoA's seems to have more interesting scenarios, heroes, and treasures. ATM, I'm confused at how I can fuse these products...

I'm pretty sure you can mix and match to your heart's desire. On boardgamegeek, they've got some interesting some creatures, treasures and encounters to add to the mix.

Wizards just released the first official set of 3 adventures mixing Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashbardalon.

Right after I was asking for this! Thanks!

Midgard for 9.99 and 6.99 shipping on tanga today.

My order for the Second Edition of Alien Frontiers arrived today! This weekend is packed with family events, but that just gives me time to read the rules for next week.

I watched Remus play AF a few weeks ago. It looked quality. I've already gone all hepcat on new games so I'm holding off for the moment.

Zarathud wrote:My order for the Second Edition of Alien Frontiers arrived today! This weekend is packed with family events, but that just gives me time to read the rules for next week.

I'm quite fond of this game. And it is pretty newbie friendly as well, much like Kingsburg. However, I feel it is less "random" feeling than Kingsburg, which is a huge plus.

I'm hoping to play a game of Merchants & Marauders soon for a review I need to write. I've had the game for months now, but no time to play it.

Why do games advertise their numbers of pieces? I keep seeing game boxes with something like "234 plastic figures inside!" splashed prominently on the box. Does anyone buy games based on that? I can't think of a single time where I thought "hey, that game has a lot of pieces - it must be good!" or "Hmmm...the description sounds good, but that's not a lot of plastic figures inside."

I'm a little behind posting this, but last Friday over at Cat and Mouse games they had a rep from Eagle games there, and he had previews of the new characters for Defenders of the Realm. Unfortunately my old brain can't remember the details of any of the characters but they all looked really fun, so I can't wait for those sets to be released (sometime in June, he said.) I wanted to get in a game with some of the new characters, but unfortunately the other folks there wanted to try Pastiche, so we played that.

Pastiche is an interesting game, where you are attempting to re-create masterpieces by gathering up the appropriate colors needed to create them. Using hexagonal tiles with red, blue and yellow blobs on them, you place them on the board to get a swatch of color. Matching up the blobs gets you different colors (a red and a yellow gets you orange, red and blue gets you violet, etc.) While it is an interesting game, theres a whole hell of a lot to keep your brain wrapped around, keeping track of what colors you have, what colors you need, the layout of the board, where to make the best move to get you the colors you need, etc.) While interesting, it didn't keep me entertained.

While down at my parents for a mini-vacation, we got in a lot of games of Uno with my kids. Lots of shouting and yelling was involved. I also got in another game of Defenders of the Realm with my buddy Joe and his son. We went with an all-chick team, the Rogue, the Cleric, and the Sorceress. It was during this game that I realized just how important the Rogue can be in taking down the generals. Get the other players over at the general, and have the rogue initiate the attack. But before he starts, have the rogue start her turn at the Inn, and spend two actions scouting for cards of the appropriate color for that general. The rogue would then draw two cards, and keep any that match that color, and can hang onto cards in excess of the 10 that you normally have, because you don't discard your excess cards until the evening phase, so this lets the rogue "Tank Up" on appropriate cards...if you're lucky with your draw.

Anyway, we ended up winning this particular game quite handily, bringing my total to 3-9*.

Yes, I really do like this game that much.

I have been playing lots of Defenders of the Realm. Mostly solo games, though, but I have had 2 actaul multi-player games. Even my wife likes this one!!

I also got the Dragons Expansion. I am really liking just about everything about it, though.

One thing about the expansion though: Why didn't they put an expansion symbol on the cards to make it easier to separate the cards if and when they get mixed?

Anyone in the southwest Michigan area that wants to play this? (heck, I have several others too). I am even on vacation next week!!

Chris