Octopus Overlords

I don't understand how you manage to play a game of cricket in just one day. I watched a match at the Charterhouse Schoo, for a few hours, they stopped for tea, played another few hours and then stopped indicating it would be resumed the next day. I've never been more confused in my whole life over a sportsball event.

If you were able to get your Texan co-workers to stop for tea, I guess having them play board games was much easier.

Smoove_B wrote:I don't understand how you manage to play a game of cricket in just one day. I watched a match at the Charterhouse Schoo, for a few hours, they stopped for tea, played another few hours and then stopped indicating it would be resumed the next day. I've never been more confused in my whole life over a sportsball event.

If you were able to get your Texan co-workers to stop for tea, I guess having them play board games was much easier.

Indeed, speaking as a Brit forced to play cricket at school, I also found it tedious and utterly inscrutable. But I suspect Texan cricket likely involves stopping for feats of marksmanship instead of tea, which would make it a whole lot more interesting.

The DFW tech industry has a good representation of those from the subcontinent.

Anonymous Bosch wrote:

coopasonic wrote:One Friday a month we schedule an outdoor sports day for our teams at work (soccer, volleyball, kickball, ultimate, cricket).

Texans playing cricket? Now that's throwing a googly.

I think one person on the team is actually from Texas and he adapted pretty well. Only 3 of the 15 or so are natural born citizens.

Smoove_B wrote:I don't understand how you manage to play a game of cricket in just one day. I watched a match at the Charterhouse Schoo, for a few hours, they stopped for tea, played another few hours and then stopped indicating it would be resumed the next day. I've never been more confused in my whole life over a sportsball event.

You can easily shrink or expand the length of a cricket match by decreasing or increasing the number of overs.

Isgrimnur wrote:The DFW tech industry has a good representation of those from the subcontinent.

Precisely.

Invited my daughter's friend and dad to join my daughter and myself at our FLGS where we played Terraforming Mars.

This was the second play through for me and I found it just as enjoyable as the first which was last week at the BGG convention.

I find it not very difficult to pick up, but still has enough complexity so that there appear to be a few viable strategies. I use the term viable loosely as I don't think I've played enough yet to test this idea.

I enjoy the theme for sure and I agree with the general criticism that I wish the components--the player card specifically--were a little higher quality. Having to measure multiple resource productions with one of your little cubes makes it easy to bump the table which would cause difficulty remembering where everything was.

May pick this one up though, overall a great time.

Smoove_B wrote:I don't understand how you manage to play a game of cricket in just one day. I watched a match at the Charterhouse Schoo, for a few hours, they stopped for tea, played another few hours and then stopped indicating it would be resumed the next day. I've never been more confused in my whole life over a sportsball event..

I think you need to know what a crumpet is to understand cricket...

Played Lotus and Paperback

In Lotus, all the players are trying to build flowers of different sizes (3-7 petals) using the cards in their hand. If you are the one to complete the flower, you get the points from that flower, but if you have the most pollinating insects on the flower (either from the cards you used to build the flower or by placing one of 3 insect pieces on to the flower) you can either unlock a power or get 5 victory points. It's a nice, simple game, that might appeal to someone who likes, say, splendor.

Paperback is a deck building game. You have a deck of cards with one or two letters on each or is a wild card. You draw 5 (or potentially more) cards, and try to form a work out of some or all of the cards. If you can form a word, you get money equal to the value of the cards you used, which you can buy new cards with, either new cards with letters (some of which may have a power on it, like double the value of the word, or allow you to take an extra card the following hand, etc), and some of which are victory point cards (which are worthless as cards, but are useful for end game scoring). There's also a common letter card that everyone can use in their word, and which they can win (it's worth 5 VP) if they use sufficiently long enough words (the length goes up by 1 as each of the 4 available common cards are taken). It's an interesting and different take on a deck building game, that was mostly fun except when the game slowed down when people were struggling to think up good words with a mediocre hand.

I was thinking of starting a new thread for OO Wargamers, but I don't know how many people here actually play war games?

Worked through the tutorial (in the manual) of Thunderbolt Apache Leader by DVG over the weekend. I know it's not a new game, but believe the hype. It's the closest I think I've ever felt to playing a computer RTS game, though even that isn't quite right. Lots of comments on complexity but I don't find it to be complex at all. Yes, there are elements I'm still ironing out (the cannon attack angles), but everything flows quite nicely IMHO. Half the fun is coming up with your configurations (air craft, pilots, weapons) and then the rest is seeing how it all works out as the enemy rolls towards your base. Pilots can gain XP and level up, random variables can help or hurt you during missions. Replay is off the charts.

Not my photo, but a pretty good representation of what it looks like when you're all set up.



Anyway, like I said, I wasn't sure how many closet wargamers there were here but I'm going down a dark, dark path. The number of chit-based games I picked up over the last three months is not insignificant and after years of avoiding them, I'm finding I actually like playing them.

I have always been interested, but never had a guide. I game with some former military that are mini wargamers.

I think my buddy has secretly been grooming me for like 5 years to get me to this point. We've played Memoir '44, Bolt Action and Valor and Victory, but I've really come to appreciate what these games are trying to do in these last few months. Oddly enough, I think it was the purchase of Dawn of the Zeds that actually started me down this path.

I used to play war games but it has been years. Something I will play but not buy.

Last few times I was burned on Arcane Legions and Battle Tech. Bought a bunch of figures then everyone else lost interest.

With BattleTech at least it was one player proving melee combat was insanely munchkin.

I currently have way too much X-Wing. But they are models as much as battle units.

I was the same way (play, not buy) but in the last six months or so I've been so busy it's been hard to get together and game. I've had a few solo games kicking around but they're not really heavy. Fun, but not things I can do for hours or over the entire course of a weekend or several nights. So many of these war games seem like they're created with that type of game play in mind - old man, slow and piecemeal. I totally understand now why they're an entire subculture all their own.

When I was a kid my older brother used me as a target dummy in games like Tobruk, Panzer Leader, Luftwaffe, Squad Leader, etc.

I haven't played one in a long time but I have fond memories of rolling dice and perusing the charts to see if I hit or at least got some morale loss. I doubt that I would be able to get my kids to play anything like that.

At the very least I learned what an iron coffin and stuka were.

Conflict of Heroes, Tide of Iron and Shadows Over Normandie are my wargame loves. I still remember epic recreations of the Normandy Operation in Tide of Iron to this day. But my issue is that without cards of some type in a wargame, I lose interest. Pure chit and hex is tough for me to fall for.

Man, now I wanna play some shadows over normandie.

You guys get some Vassal or Boardgame Simulator stuff together, and I am game to learn.

Sweet. The Shadows of Brimstone scenario box I've been most looking forward to has been released. The Derelict Spaceship.

hepcat wrote:Sweet. The Shadows of Brimstone scenario box I've been most looking forward to has been released. The Derelict Spaceship.

What you aren't going to buy it for $20 more directly from FF?

actually, i believe i'll get it from Amazon when they get it in and use the OO link.

Isgrimnur wrote:You guys get some Vassal or Boardgame Simulator stuff together, and I am game to learn.

Heroes of Normandie is available on Steam and supports multiplayer. I know Hep prefers the Shadows of Normandie Weird War stuff, but I prefer the regular straight up WWII version. We're like a modern day Jack Sprat and his wife.

True, true. You add Cthulu...or even cultists...to a wargame and I'm on it like white on rice.

Shadows Over Normandie has 4 divisions, 3 of which are playable now with the 4th soon being upgraded. They all have psychics, monsters of some type, super science...hell, the british even have a Reanimator a la Herbert West.

I do love that game's insane backdrop.

I am pretty sure you can purchase Heroes of Normandie directly through Matrix and use the coupon (D-Day30) for 30% off (making it $21) and they give you a STEAM key. It'll also likely be on sale during the 6/22 Summer sale, so you have that going for you as well.

I own both the digital and hard copy of this game, but both were shelved last summer after trying to sort everything. There are...a lot of pieces.

Yeah, but it's a fun lot of pieces!

Back from vacation and another round of MANSIONS OF MADNESS 2ND EDITION.

This week we tried the shortest 4-star difficulty, and were prepared to get our asses handed to us. Like most scenarios we've played, this one came down to the wire.

To go into too much detail would be too spoilery, but basically our chances of winning relied on two of us basically sacrificing ourselves for the good of the other two players. Even then, we basically had one roll to determine whether we'd be able to trigger the condition that would allow us a winning end-game. We somehow pulled it off, with two players escaping while Terry and I nobly going down in defeat.

It was quite exciting to finally win a scenario after so many losses, particularly one this difficult. Whether it's improved skill or just plain dumb luck (most likely the latter), we really needed a victory to boost morale.

We'll probably continue to play MANSIONS until Terry's copy of First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet arrives.

Played another game of Terraforming Mars. Did pretty well, and managed to get second place, and lost by only a few points (and way ahead of the others). It helped to have played one game before and learn the cards and their usefulness.

That said, the one thing I don't like about the game is the randomness of the cards. Getting, for example, lots of endgame cards at the start, and lots of resource/production cards late game isn't fun, especially given the cost of the cards. I wish it had somehow implemented what 7 Wonders does, where earlier cards are more useful earlier in the game, and endgame cards come out later.

Defiant wrote:Played another game of Terraforming Mars. Did pretty well, and managed to get second place, and lost by only a few points (and way ahead of the others). It helped to have played one game before and learn the cards and their usefulness.

That said, the one thing I don't like about the game is the randomness of the cards. Getting, for example, lots of endgame cards at the start, and lots of resource/production cards late game isn't fun, especially given the cost of the cards. I wish it had somehow implemented what 7 Wonders does, where earlier cards are more useful earlier in the game, and endgame cards come out later.

I feel like this is somewhat mitigated using the drafting variant. You can still get a bad hand of cards on occasion initially, but I also like the choices in getting some good late game cards early and sitting on them awhile until the time is right.

Ænima wrote:
I feel like this is somewhat mitigated using the drafting variant. You can still get a bad hand of cards on occasion initially, but I also like the choices in getting some good late game cards early and sitting on them awhile until the time is right.

We were actually using the drafting variant, but given that people were trying to take out cards that were useful to other players, I think it made it more difficult (plus the luck wasn't with us anyway - in several of the later rounds, no one seemed to be particularly happy with the cards) Still, since I did were enough to finish a strong second, I guess it wasn't too bad.

If players draft to screw each other, being unhappy with the cards was the intended result.

Zarathud wrote:If players draft to screw each other, being unhappy with the cards was the intended result.

Well, sure, people would end up that weren't useful to them that might be useful to others, but I'm talking about stuff like most of the cards being resource/production cards in the late game, which isn't particularly useful to anyone at that point.

Got my copy of Perdition's Mouth: Abyssal Rift during a sale on Coolstuff (hey, you can't beat half off!). It's part of my current goal of buying every damn dungeon crawler I see.

Played the tutorial this weekend and while I think it's got some interesting concepts, I'm not sure if it has any real legs. The game employs two rondels that players and enemies use action points to move around. Each spoke on the rondels features an action that the players or enemies can take...and for the players, there's a limited number of spaces on each spoke. The game also employs a Mage Knight style card system that allows you to use cards for specific actions, or use any for a +1. You also choke your deck with wound cards, just like in Mage Knight.

The other conceit that I was interested in is that you don't get stronger as you play through a campaign, you get weaker. Wound cards are hard to get rid of and they stay with you from scenario to scenario. You also don't level up. You simply grow weaker from wounds and hope that you get treasures that can help you out. There are some healer classes, but they aren't as strong in that area as you would find in traditional RPGs.

I'll probably need to play through a few more scenarios, but I would give it a 6 out of 10 so far. I have Sword and Sorcery and Massive Darkness arriving soon though, and I'm still obsessed with Gloomhaven, so I'm not sure how much playtime this will get. However, it does take up to 6 players, so it might be a good choice when I have too many folks for the standard 2 to 4 player game nights.

So I got to play Secrets of the Lost Tomb. It's a cross between Betrayal and Arkham Horror. You're building the tomb along the lines of Betrayal - although there was a specific layout for the third floor of the tomb that was set, in which we had to go through a whole lot of locked, trapped rooms to reach the final chamber where we had to rescue someone (before escaping from the tomb). There were monsters that would appear, move around and attack on their turns, sort of like Arkham. Because of the way the game system worked, we were mostly spending the first half of the room exploring (to get the keys to the locked room on the third floors) and trying to stick together so that one of us would fight a monster, the rest of the people in the room would get the courage gained from the monster being defeated. We maybe spent too much time on that, because we did have to reach the rescue chamber before a certain time. Although at some point someone started heading down there. While I was going to join them, to try to trip off some of the traps that I could do easily, it turned out that they decided to just run through the trapped room, set them off (and, in some cases, get hurt, but then just heal up, rather than be prepared to defeat each trap) but reach the rescue chamber before the time limit we had expired. Meanwhile, I managed to be able to get an item that would allow me and everyone in a room to be transported to a room near the exit. So when the guy that had headed to the rescue room got there, me and a bunch of others headed to a portal room that could send everyone to any chamber already explored, we all killed the monsters there, and then once we rescued the prisoner, I brought us back towards the entrance of the tomb. We fought the boss monster trying to stop us from exiting, and managed to get out of the tomb. Oh, and someone tuned traitor towards the end, but I killed him.

Overall, it's a good game. However, the game seemed to have a few issues that required house rules (apparently, the game rules makes it very likely for there to be multiple traitors, or even all traitors. And the search room rules also required altering). There were also a few typos. And the game lasted like twice the amount of time that was stated.

I think I prefer Betrayal, simply because it's a similar experience (even if not as structured) in a lot less time.

I love Secrets of the Lost Tomb - it's the theme and all the writing and flavor the authors added. One minute you're fighting skeletons then you're up against giant spiders or a Mummy. It's total pulpy B-movie horror. I've never played with the traitor elements and only ever as a 2 player game. Not sure I'd want to play with a traitor or even with a large group. It's very beer-and-pretzels to me - a nice change of pace. There was a 2nd edition of the rules that were recently published - were you playing with the older rules? I believe corrections and clarifications were part of the changes.

Not sure which edition we were playing, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was the older edition. I like pulp, and the writing was good, but I didn't prefer the scarabs followed by a sea pirate followed by whatever else there was - I prefer it if the monsters keep to a certain theme rather than feel random. Of course, that might be inevitable in games like this where some monsters are randomly brought in (apart from whichever were specific to the scenario, I guess).

No, there's definitely a wild and unpredictable nature to the monsters spawned - which follows the general theme of what the Tomb represents (a vault of lost knowledge, filled with mythical creatures and legendary artifacts). I can definitely see where that wouldn't have appeal if you're looking for a focused theme, but for me it was so different as to not know what to expect. They're working on Secrets of the Lost Station - a sci-fi follow up to this game, going to KS next month. Allegedly you'll be able to combine sets as the main story is linked. It's far from perfect but it scores big point for me based on the writing and story elements. It just oozes theme.

AWS260 wrote:With my better half and kid out of town, I had the time and space to get High Frontier on the table. I had run through an initial learning game a few weeks ago, but this is the first time that I've tried to play through a full game proper. To keep things simple, I'm playing as both India and the European Space Agency, and avoiding competitive auctions for research cards.

My main lesson learned so far: leaving Mars is hard. After building a factory there, I had to bring my crew back to Earth. The crew module's thruster was (barely) strong enough to lift itself into Mars orbit, but way too fuel-hungry for the engine burns required to return home. Eventually I was able to build a solar sail at the factory, and use that for propulsion on the journey to Earth.

The game ends after four factories are produced, so I'm still only halfway there. Fingers crossed that the cats don't mess up the board too much overnight.

Well after picking this game up a couple of months ago I finally had a chance to sit down and try and digest the rules. Needless to say this game is complicated. I started out just doing the basic rules, playing just trying to figure out the general flow of the game. I decided to aim straight for Mars on my first attempt, which was quite ambitious. Turns out you are correct, and Mars in general is hard. First attempt to land on it my ship burned up on descent and I had to start over again from earth. It was... quite the set back for my NASA team. But on second attempt... I burned up again on descent. Bad luck? Yep. Maybe I need new dice for aerobraking rolls. But back to the drawing board, and by third attempt I was able to land on Mars! I couldn't do a powered land because my thruster wasn't powerful enough. And I had to leave my thruster in low Mars orbit as an outpost and drop into mars with just a refinery, robonaut, and my crew. Then I prospected,built a factory, and was able to take off (once engaging the after burner) and make it back up. But... now I had a problem, if I picked up my thruster I left in orbit I was too heavy and would be out of fuel. Needless to say, it was difficult and eventually I solved it by producing on the planet and slowly over the course of years making my way back to earth.


Finally set up on Mars. Two rockets lost just getting here.

I have to admit, I love this game so far, and I've only been playing the basic rules. My goal over the next couple of nights is to take the time to learn the colonization rules and try a full on solo scenario. Should be interesting. Really glad your post made me want to pick this up. What a fantastic game.

Otherwise gaming-wise I've had a few new games out and to the table, and some old favorites. I have finally played most of the big releases from last year, and I think it was a fantastic year for gaming.

A Feast for Odin- Played this twice in the last couple of weeks. I had heard so many good things about it, and I have to say it mostly lives up to them. But... it mostly just felt like another Uwe Rosenberg game. I enjoyed it, but I certainly don't need to own it. And, like most of his games, I didn't feel that there really were that many paths to victory. I found that if you avoid raiding/pillaging/plundering or whaling you couldn't be competitive. So ultimately it came down to two types of actions you HAD to do to be competitive. Good game, but too bad it doesn't have more paths to victory. I'm happy to play other people's copies, but basically this game is just another Uwe game, now with more VIkings! Maybe I'm just tired of this type of game... not sure. But it is very well designed.

Yokohama- Received this kickstarter. I have to say... this game... is fantastic. It's worker movement, with assistants being placed down and careful planning to fulfill orders, and send exports through customs, etc. I have the deluxe version which... is awesome. Really it was a great value on kickstarter. I'm very happy I picked this one up. It might actually be an early favorite for my favorite game this year. It's just fantastic. I highly recommend it. I've played it at all player counts now and it is just amazing. I actually wrote a quick review on BGG I liked it so much. My final thoughts on it were:

I didn’t know much about the game prior to backing the kickstarter, but after receiving it and playing it I am glad to have the deluxe version, as I think this game will have a place in my collection for quite a long time. The game offers a wide variety of options to score points, and there are many paths to victory. The multiple areas of variable setup ensure that every single game will be slightly different, and the path to success should be reassessed each time. It’s a game that requires planning for multiple turns in a row, all while hoping your opponents don’t step into your way. It’s a very tight and well designed game, and if you can get ahold of the deluxe version grab it. The game is good enough that even if everything were cardboard I would want to play it, but the deluxe version certainly doesn’t hurt.

I highly recommend trying it out. I have to say Hisashi Hayashi is really a designer I enjoy, at least between this and Trains I have enjoyed his games. I'll have to keep an eye out for more.

Also played an absolutely brutal game of Food Chain Magnate. Prices dropped to $0. Yes that's right, $0. It was a few turns of multiple corporations just bleeding out. In the end a huge marketing push by 2 players broke the stalemate and suddenly prices rose to $40 per item with luxury managers with gardens attached to houses. The game ended in one huge turn then. It was insane. I love this game, it's just brutal fun. Which reminds me, Splotter has officially announced what was well known- that a reprint for one of my grail games, Antiquity. Should be out later this year, can't wait to get my grubby hands on the new updated edition.

I've also played a bit more Great Western Trail which I have to say is possibly my favorite game of last year now. Really enjoyed it, this time at 3 players. I need it to hit the table even more.

Lastly I received my kickstarter version of Outlive. It's essentially a worker placement game set in a post-apocalyptic world where you are building your own personal shelter and trying to survive. It's a very tight game with lots of competitiveness between the different players. Your workers have a power assigned to them, and unlike other worker placement games you can select spots opponents are already in. When you do, if your worker is more powerful than an opponent you pressure them to give you supplies. It's a very cool mechanism, and I love the theme. Of course as a kickstarter the components are high quality, I'm pretty happy with it overall.



Sorry, I couldn't help but add pictures. I just like the way these games look on the table quite a bit.

Played a game of Feast for Odin at Origins. I enjoyed it more than the other Uwe Rosenberg games. After thinking about how gameplay worked last night, I think I agree that the players seem to be limited to raiding and whaling.

Two of us fought over raiding, while the third (winner) went whaling. I took a quick lead after exploring, but losing first player and getting blocked from any raiding for 2 turns killed me. The exploration really bit me in the ass. I did have a sweet engine that allowed me to put professions into play easily but that only offset the -16 points from the exploration. I ended up with unused wood and stone, and 1 gold short of immigrating. Very helpful to get that done early, not the last turn.

I'll look for Yokohama today. I passed on the kickstarter mainly because Tasty Minstrel seems to have expanded too fast lately, and I didn't feel comfortable not knowing the gameplay.

Zarathud wrote:Played a game of Feast for Odin at Origins. I enjoyed it more than the other Uwe Rosenberg games. After thinking about how gameplay worked last night, I think I agree that the players seem to be limited to raiding and whaling.

Two of us fought over raiding, while the third (winner) went whaling. I took a quick lead after exploring, but losing first player and getting blocked from any raiding for 2 turns killed me. The exploration really bit me in the ass. I did have a sweet engine that allowed me to put professions into play easily but that only offset the -16 points from the exploration. I ended up with unused wood and stone, and 1 gold short of immigrating. Very helpful to get that done early, not the last turn.

I'll look for Yokohama today. I passed on the kickstarter mainly because Tasty Minstrel seems to have expanded too fast lately, and I didn't feel comfortable not knowing the gameplay.

I've only played it twice, so I recognize that I could be way off but yeah I agree you need one of those two actions. The first game I played I was the only one that went for raiding (it was everyone's first game) and my score nearly doubled the next player. The next game I purposely decided to avoid whaling or raids and I was playing well building an economy and I managed to get things covered and even took Iceland but I still was outscored by almost double by the other players who all raided. Asking my game group about other plays of the game they all agreed that they had only seen someone win by heavily whaling or raiding. That doesn't mean I think it's over powered, it's available to everyone so it can't be overpowered really. But it does mean competitive options seem limited. Again fatigue with Uwe designs and how similar they are to each other might be playing a role here though. I've played every single one of his worker placement style games multiple times and they aren't that different from each other. It's probably not the game it's probably me.

That being said I finally got around to playing Le Havre this week and I loved it.

Le Havre is a classic.

This week being the PREDATOR 30th anniversary, we were excited to break out LEGENDARY ENCOUNTERS: PREDATOR which Terry still had in the shrink wrap. We even all watched the movie the night before to prep.

Get it to the table, pop it open, start sorting cards, and........ we're missing a deck. That's right, an entire deck gone, something close to 100 cards missing. Unplayable. Apparently this isn't an uncommon issue with Upper Deck games.

Because we had our minds set on Legendary, I ran home and grabbed my copy of LE: ALIEN, and we had a great time teaching the game to a newbie. Played through the first scenario a couple of times, winning on the second game.

Terry will hit the FLGS at lunch and try to get an exchange. Managed to salvage the night in the end, but it's a bummer we didn't get to try it out.

YellowKing wrote:we're missing a deck. That's right, an entire deck gone, something close to 100 cards missing. Unplayable. Apparently this isn't an uncommon issue with Upper Deck games.

Really? How quickly do they make it right? I'm way too much of an impulse gamer to have patience with a slow QA. Asmodee are still on my shitlist for their blasé attitude to QA and making things right. I haven't bought another one of their games since they fubared 7 Wonders and flat out refused to exchange a few German boards for English boards and had to wait months for cards whose backs weren't all different shades

LordMortis wrote:Really? How quickly do they make it right?

I'll let you know. The local game shop wasn't much help since Terry didn't have a receipt (he received the game as a Christmas gift last year). They suggested he contact the publisher.

So he's got to get a list of cards together and contact them. Best case scenario if the decks are consistently packed, they may be able to tell which deck he's missing and just ship that. Worst case, he may have to identify all 100 cards individually.

It's not like we're hurting for stuff to play - we'll be playing Mansions until Adventures on the Red Planet arrives, which will take us right into Gloomhaven. It's just unfortunate he has to jump through these hoops. You'd think for a game that relies on hundreds of cards, the QA would be a lot higher. I only say that because there are several threads on BGG complaining about the same scenario.