Boardgames

[DragonOfSilverLies]

Only boardgame I own. I never play it cause people are impatient assholes.

i would play a game of this in a heartbeat. kinda wanna get it myself now...

 

A really good board game is net runner. Its 2 player and based around sci-fi. one player is a rich company trying to defend their servers, and the other player is a hacker trying to break into said companys servers. its worth a game or two

[deanb]

Discworld: Ankh Morpork

 

Played it last week, only just getting around to the write up. I quite enjoyed it. We'd played Lords of Waterdeep a few days before and it felt quite a bit like that at it's core. You're each different characters with different win conditions (actually 3 of them are the same win conditions) and the aim is to meet those conditions while trying to stop others. For the most part though you'll mainly be focused on your own win conditions because those are hard enough to line up all the dominoes on without having to think of screwing over others (and many of the win conditions are parallel so screwing others is hard to do without screwing yourself). A fair bit of the charm is in the Discworld lore and how that relates to the cards you play, so wizzards tend to have "Random Events" and members of Assassins's Guild have "Assassination" options. Oh yeah, cards you draw, along with a name and a picture, have several icons at the top. 

You usually only play one card per turn, except where you have the green "play another" icon. They usually let you remove or add pieces(minions, houses and "trouble") to the board, except for the scrolls which are special conditions written on the card or Random Events (the star icon) which is a case of flip a random event card and follow instructions (usually roll the dice, destroy items in those zones)

 

You each get a sort of mat too which has quick play rules on them, the rule book is really just for setting up, expanding upon the win conditions and a FAQ for a couple of the cards such as the Fools Guild (can't remove it from your hand no matter what). It's quite a nice thing to have since it means you don't really need the rulebook after the first turn and between goes you can consult the win conditions (it's in the rules that you all have to explicitly know the win conditions of all the cards to avoid a "oh I didn't know they could win that way" issue which'd ruin the mood).I'd say only major issue with it is I have no idea how Vimes is meant to win except by luck (he only wins if all the main draw deck has ran out. Since you can only play one card per turn unless you have cards that way otherwise, it's hard to force the deck to get lower, compared to being able to place specific amount of minions on the board).

[P4: Gritty Reboot]

Discworld is great! I played Vimes and managed to win. Vimes has to concentrate on setting everyone against each other so no one reaches a victory condition, plus obviously playing as many cards as possible.

[deanb]

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/27940.html

 

Bunch of licensed board games coming which includes Archer, Portal, Walking Dead and Adventure Time.

[Hot Heart]

Got to play a proper game of Smash Up last night (i.e. not one with 6 players) and it was as fun as I remember. I really like the mash-up of factions that creates interesting tactics and situations, though in some cases it can get a bit 'math-y' for my poor dumb brain. Especially when I was playing Robots and Killer Plants who seem to benefit from massive chains and surprise points boosts.

 

One of the guys actually used an Adventure Time variant designed by someone on BGG, except he's pretty talented with design stuff so he made much better artwork for the cards and another friend used a site to get them printed on nice stock. At first glance, they might seem a little overpowered, but I think my friends' experience with it hasn't borne that out, nor did they win last night...though, they were very close.

 

The teams were Adventure Time-osaurs, Steampirates, Ghizards (Ghost Wizards, obviously!) and...Robo-Crop (my Robots and Killer Plants).

 

Things started OK for me, as I went for the 'minions = victory points' base fairly unchallenged, since the others were fighting over another. I was all set to score the base with 7 (possibly 8 depending on luck) minions on my next go...until the other base scoring allowed the steampirates guy to jump a couple of his minions onto mine, triggering it and netting me just 4 points instead. After that I used an action to kill off his annoying base-jumping pirate, but he had another one ready on his next turn. Still...the Adventure Time-osaurs started targetting his minions for destruction after that, which worked in my favour, and he only earned himself a measly 2 points.

 

The Adventure Time-osaurs then started pulling away a bit and I was looking to use up some actions to clear my hand and delay any further scoring occurring for a bit. Things were starting to align for me on a base I'd merely been delaying and so I went for it, and was all ready for another big chain to steal the full 5 points...when the steampirate went and ruined everything again. Oh, well, can't blame him, that sudden minion-shifting strategy is obviously the best one he has with those factions (the jerk!). Anyway, I get 3 points for 2nd, bringing me up to a total of 7.

 

Then comes another fight for a base and I had to take a good while just to figure out what order I would play my cards. Basically, I was looking to play a minion, which then gives me the ability to play another minion on that turn, plus that particular base also awards an extra minion play for every minion played there (see where this is going?). And, of course, in my hand I had minions that increase their value depending on what other minions are out, plus I had to get the order right so I could use an action to search my deck for a copy of a minion already out...and also had to keep in mind that one minion gave me the option to destroy someone else's of a lesser value than the number of minions I had on the base...but still keep the value enough to score the base. Bit of a headache, but with a double-check of the calculations thanks to the friend who had to sit things out to finish an essay (poor guy), I had it right, managing a fairly decent chain and scoring the base for...4 whole points, putting me tied with the Adventure Time-osaurs on 11.

 

Out comes a base where players have the option of destroying a minion at the start of their turn to earn 1VP. There were genuine concerns that the Adventure Time-osaurs will go this route, but in hindsight I could see how that might be too slow a method. Anyway, he makes a strong play for the base but then the Ghizards pull off something pretty amazing. Early on, the guy had grumbled that the decks don't go too well together since they seem to rely on completely different setups; lots of cards in hand for wizards, and a reliance on a dea®th of cards for ghosts. However, he managed some pretty complicated card-wrangling to get some of the ghost's trickier abilities working so he messed up the Adventure Time-osaurs' plans and stole the base from them. Still, they got 3 points for 2nd place and were sitting at 14 of the winning 15 VP.

 

Then it comes to me, having patiently been trying to build towards another epic chain but nearing my hand limit. Now was the time to start doing something and hopefully push towards the win so I can secure it on my next turn. I've been eyeing up a base worth 4VP to the highest victor there, that needs 23 points to score and already has 5 points on it. I've forgotten the exact order of things from there but I know I get lucky with a hoverbot draw (reveal top card, if it's a minion, play it) and wind up doing some massive chain of minion-playing that allows more minion-playing (with some deck searching) and so on while everyone looks on in despair...until I get the base total to 20 with one more minion-play allowed. So I lay down the last one I have in-hand, which is the Microbot Alpha. It's worth just 1 point, but gets its value increased by 1 for each Microbot in play. I shrug, "But none of my other minions are Microbots". I'll get it on my next turn, I'm sure, I think to myself.

 

The Adventure Time-osaur guy, obviously more versed in the game than I am, annoyedly declares, "Gregg's won." I look confused. He points out the bit of text on the Microbot Alpha card that I'd forgotten about: All of your minions are considered Microbots. So the little guy jumps up to a worth of something like 5 or 6 points, meaning the base went over the limit by 2-3 points (making my chain an epic 20-21 points)

 

I had won. And I was the only one who wasn't aware at first. That annoyed everyone just that little bit more.

 

So much for Adventure Time being overpowered. I get the sense Robo-Crop is...

 

After that we played Alhambra, but I've told you about that before and also I'm clearly terrible at it and it's kinda boring, so we'll skip that.

[Hot Heart]

Had a game day yesterday. In other words...EPIC POST INCOMING.

 

First up, the group started learning my new purchase, Space Alert, before another friend joined us. If you don't know what it is, I'd recommend reading Quintin Smith's entertaining article on it. Otherwise, it's basically a co-operative game in which you are a crew on the worst spaceship ever built who get teleported into extremely hostile territory to survive while the ship scans the environment. It's a game of two halves (ho ho!) where you plan everything and then go through the resolution to discover what catastrophe your plan has wrought. So during the first phase, your task is to listen to a ten-minute soundtrack (or use a fan-created Flash player) that functions as the ship computer telling you what will be happening and when. During this ten minutes, you also have to sort out your 12 actions by placing action cards along your track (numbered 1-12) to do something each turn (move left/right/up/down, press the A/B/C button, etc.). You need to move around to get to other weapons, recharge shields, refuel or transfer energy to other reactors, etc. Depending on where you are on the ship, different buttons do different things...and you also have to factor in the order in which players perform them. Since you only have 12 actions and even a simple movement left uses a whole turn, you will need to coordinate with your team in order to have everything (or as much as possible) covered.

 

In terms of what happens on a mission (shit happens), there will be various threats that attack the ship along different trajectories, or even saboteurs or ship malfunctions that happen internally. So, as time goes on, the computer might announce 'T+3. Threat. Blue zone.' which means that something will appear on the right side of the ship, approaching along whichever trajectory track is placed there. You'll randomly draw the threat (and use a '3' counter to remind you) and then try and suss out where it will be on which turn. This is because the trajectory track it is on will also determine what actions it performs and when (from passing over squares marked X, Y or Z) as well as which weapons can hit it at that distance. For example, on the right, you might have a fighter with a cryoshield that will absorb the first round of damage regardless of the amount. If it doesn't appear until Turn 3, there's no point trying to fire on Turns 1 or 2, nor should you waste energy trying to hit it with everything you have on the first go. You may find that it'll reach an X square before you can destroy so it might be better to add more energy to the shields before then.

 

That's just a basic example, the game will throw all sorts of crazy things at you, with various abilities/effects, during those ten minutes, and part of the fun is seeing your 'best laid plans' going completely awry. See, once the ten-minute soundtrack is up, it's then that you go through the resolution steps to see what really occurred; who went where, did what and, usually, how you died.

 

Someone might use A in one station to fire a gun, meanwhile someone in the same station presses B to charge the shields. Both draw from the same reactor...and say that it only has 1 energy in it. Meanwhile, the person you thought was refuelling that reactor beforehand was actually in a different room and actually dumped more fuel into another reactor instead or was simply a turn behind where you thought they were. Hijinks ensue.

 

We had a game where one guy rearranged his actions at the last second of the planning phase and, later, as the final turns resolved, in which some of us had planned to shoot down a big foe, he and another player started laughing hysterically. It turns out, from the two laughing guys, the one who rearranged his actions was trying to anticipate what the other would be doing and got it incredibly wrong. Instead, he was drawing all the energy from the reactor to his unthreatened side of the ship and firing a gun that had its own rechargable energy source. And, yes, by 'unthreatened', I meant he was firing at nothing. Meanwhile, the three people trying to destroy a big enemy (that required simultaneous shots just to breach the shield) were left without any energy whatsoever. Still, those guys had done well enough earlier on that we survived anyway. Regardless, it was extremely funny to watch.

 

During another game, a player discovered he had messed up an early action and gone to the wrong side of the ship. Easy to do if you're under pressure, sitting in a certain position in relation to the board and, perhaps, assume red = right (like my brain was wont to do). There is a rule where you can declare, "Oops, I tripped!" and perform the action you meant to, except it then delays every other action you had planned (basically, everything shifts up a turn until a blank space is filled or your 12th action gets bumped off the board completely). Problem is, we'd been relying on him to help fix a malfunction as well as sync up cannon fire in order to destroy the biggest external threat to the ship as well. He elected to just 'see what happens'. What happens is the malfunction isn't resolved, damaging the entire ship and then a space octopus tears us apart. Not to mention the fact that his movement meant he didn't shake the bridge's joystick a second time so as to prevent the ship computer's corporate logo screensaver activating, drawing too much energy from the lights, thus plunging us into darkness and delaying everyone's turn. We were screwed from about Turn 3.

 

So, yeah, it can be a tough game but perhaps more entertaining when things go disastrously wrong...or at least a different sort of fun from seeing well-coordinated teamwork pay off. The great thing, though, is that the difficulty is highly adjustable. The handbook actually structures tutorials that gradually introduce all the various gameplay elements, so you get an idea of how to pace yourself with learning things, but you can also use these to build on. You could opt to keep players' hands open and have action cards played face up; you could opt not to include the screensaver step; you could leave out internal threats entirely; you could leave out 'serious' threats and deal only with 'common' ones; or take out the 'advanced' versions of any of them. In fact, we didn't quite get to a 'full' game because we were still tracking ship damage as simple numbers rather than flipping damage tokens that dictate what systems got affected (broken lifts, reduced power weapons/shields/reactors, etc.) which even further complicates how everything really resolves.

 

I was also worried that the resolution phase would be quite laborious 'accounting' but it actually goes fairly smoothly since it goes in quick, simple turns and everyone's keeping an eye on their moves. Of course, it's also the phase where you discover the monumental cock-ups that occurred. Anyway, highly recommended hilarious fun, provided you have at least 2 people to help teach and then run the game. Certainly helps that the missions go by so fast (ten minutes goes faster than you think) and are quick to reset for another go.

 

We then did a different scenario for Firefly. One I'd chosen to hopefully keep things moving and not take five hours, since the guy who really wanted to play it couldn't stay too late. Basically, you ignore the starter Alliance guy and his jobs and the sole focus is on earning loads of money, with a bonus for doing illegal jobs. This prevented things bottle-necking like with some of the goals and it actually opened up things a little more to completely different strategies. For example, the guy who eventually won was playing 'traditionally' and doing a lot of jobs, whereas I'd figured the strengths of my captain (Mal) and where best to find the supplies I needed (Regina). I literally spent the whole game around the top left part of the board, bought all my supplies bar one, from the same planet and for a long time had completed just one job. However, I'd bought myself something that helped during salvage ops (extra contraband and money) and nearly filled my entire ship with cargo and contraband, which I then sold to the only person with whom I was solid after completing that job, for somewhere between $5-6k. I'd jumped up to $11k of the $15k goal in just a few turns. Unfortunately, the Reavers made progress a bit slow (such is life in border space) and I only got to complete one more job (after which I didn't pay my crew) before the leading player called time. Lost by around $1k in the end.

 

Either way, I think most people really enjoyed it, except perhaps the one guy who got really unlucky a couple of times and then kicked while he was down (not by me!) Definitely think that's a better story card for that many players.

 

Unfortunately, the guy had to leave after that (well, during the last few turns of Firefly in which he'd been a very close third) and we went onto a couple of games that were new to me.

 

Pacific Rim (yes, really). Picked this one out just to see what the designers had done. Thematically, it doesn't really feel like the film or capture any part of that. The 9 jaeger pilots are lined up from right (position #1) to left (position #9) and players are also dealt two of them at random (not co-drifers) that they keep secret from others. At the end of the game, players get the 'fame' that their pilots have earned. Fame is earned based on what kaiju cards come out. Basically, a kaiju card is drawn that will do 'something'. It could give 1 fame each to the pilots in positions #1, #3 and #5, it could give 2 fame to only the pilot in position #1 but then damage them (preventing them from earning more fame) or other various things. Whoever's turn it is can choose to do nothing (if they were happy with that outcome as is), use and then discard one of the three movement cards to rearrange the order of the pilots, choose to heal all damaged pilots or guess another player's pilot. If they guess successfully, they get half of the fame (rounded up) currently under that pilot and obviously now everyone knows who one of those pilots belongs to, so can take appropriate actions to mess with them (or help conceal their own motives).

 

So, while it doesn't really capture much about the film, it's an intriguing little game about deception. Unfortunately, I'm crap at that sort of thing and one guy guessed one of my pilots (Chuck) then capitalised on a wrong guess by me to identify the other person I suspected of holding a particular pilot card. Still, I kept my other guy (Herc) 'hidden' in the middle of the pack and he built up a decent amount of fame while no one could really prevent the already rumbled Chuck from earning even more fame, putting me in second place, 4 points behind the winner.

 

Yes, to anyone who remembers, I got the two Australian jaeger pilots and had to seriously restrain myself from talking in a really bad Australian accent. In fact, my reticence with regards to doing that may have given me away somewhat...

 

I enjoyed it though. Certainly not a bad game considering it was a joke purchase by the owner.

 

Lastly, we played Chez Goth. Instantly, I recognised the Munchkin-like art and got a sense that it would involve random funny things and screwing people over. As I learnt the rules and things went on, I got the sense that it might play better than Munchkin in that the mechanics keep you using cards and doing things rather than saving everything for the end. Unfortunately, I think the theme and attempts at humour got in the way of coherent on-card rules and so I never felt entirely confident in what I was doing, which I'd never really found with Munchkin. Didn't help that I seemed to be the most targeted player...

 

After that, my back started telling me that it had had enough of the incredibly uncomfortable chair and that it was time to go. All in all, though, great day.

Edited March 17, 2014 by Hot Heart

[TheMightyEthan]

I played the exact same Firefly scenario with my wife, my sister and her boyfriend yesterday.  My wife ended up kicking all our asses (she won with $15k when my sister's boyfriend and I were both tied for 2nd at about $7500).  Really early in the game though she hired a dude who let her draw one fewer misbehave card each time she misbehaved, so that let her be able to tackle some higher paying jobs early on.  We made a house rule that you could still deal with Harken after you had cleared your starting warrant, but nobody ever did so it didn't change the game any.  After that game I was actually thinking the opposite of you and that maybe it would be more fun to do some of the more involved scenarios.

[Hot Heart]

Funnily enough, Two Fry and his Carbine (i.e. the combo that gives you the one fewer misbehave ability) were the two things I missed out on since they're both on Regina and were in the starting discard, but the player who went just before me got there first. Though, I was playing the promo version of Mal so really I wanted more misbehaves (I intended to switch the rifle between him and Mal depending on the situation, it was the Sniper Rifle keyword I really wanted).

 

As for the more involved scenarios, they work, just be prepared for potentially much longer games. We always play with five people and that one still took us around 3 hours, though this one still helped because people were free to go off and do their own thing with varied crews from all over the board.

[Hot Heart]

So, it was International TableTop Day yesterday. Didn't actually play anything until very late in the day and it was a last minute invite, but we'd had some fun the previous evening with Ticket to Ride and Cards Against Humanity.

 

First up, because one guy couldn't make it, we had a go of a new purchase that only supported four players: Legacy: Gears of Time.

 

I'd read a little about it before, and the concept intrigued me. You are time-travellers who are...messing about with a timeline in order to claim inventions as your own and thus claim points. But the more complex the invention, the more prerequisites are needed earlier in the timeline (like tech trees, basically) and the more cards need to be discarded from your hand in order to place it down. So, already you get a sense that if you want to invent 'The Internet', you also need a couple of earlier inventions like the 'Analytical Engine' but that itself requires the invention of a few things like 'The Printing Press'...which relies on the fundamental invention (i.e. no prerequisities) of 'Writing'.

 

Since you're limited to three actions a turn, four turns a round and four rounds total (points awarded at the end of each round and 'influence' points being reduced, therefore, requiring upkeep), you simply won't be able to perform/manage all this alone. On top of that, you can only go backwards in time during a round (it gets reset at the end of each) so have to be careful about going too far and not inventing those more valuable things with earlier prerequisites (though you can still claim points off those earlier developments that influence later successful inventions). Yes, you cannot go...back to the future. You really have to think long and hard about your potential moves...ahead of time. And the final catch is that each invention also has a cost, which means you need to discard other cards from your hand equal to that value (and it takes a whole action just to get 1 extra card), making it further unlikely that you'll get out every invention. Essentially, you really have to observe what you can of other players, getting a sense for what inventions they're relying on and what overlap there is.

 

The real fun comes in when you can screw around with other people's plans by inventing things earlier in the timeline, therefore, making their own version redundant/worthless or using influence points to claim them as your own or simply share the credit so you both get the points. Nobody has influence during round 1, but at the end of each round, that 'degrading' mechanic happens, which means they get a point back from each of their owned inventions, thus, reducing their control of it or in some cases where the cost was only 1, the invention drops to 0 and will disappear at the end of the round should no one claim it. And as the game goes on, time advances, so earlier timeframes will support a greater number of inventions.

 

I really liked it, because it may look daunting and there can be a lot to keep track of, the playing itself is fairly simple. You can pursue a few different tactics in order to yield points, though some are clearly more successful than others. It's very situational, and what happens in one round can alter what happens in the next (especially if player turn is altered as it has the potential to do each round, based on influence pool totals)

 

For example, one player used his first turn to go right back to the very start of the timeline and invent a lot of the fundamentals. Now, it may have seemed like a stupid idea but these inventions gave him the biggest pool of influence points for round 2, which meant he could have tried to play them wisely and snatched away or shared some more valuable inventions made by other players. Of course, this strategy, like any, carries its own risk. People might not perform the upkeep on all the necessary fundamental inventions now sitting at 0 influence, thus rendering later ones obsolete. Whether it was bad fortune/situation (biggest legacy pool, meant he had to go before everyone else) or bad decision-making, he went very far back early on, which meant the rest of us found it a little easier to plan our own turns.

 

The final round does get very tense, too. Even though I'd had a roaring third round, lapping two of the players on the score tracker and pulling away to a comfortable lead, I knew how much things could change in a round. The closest player could easily be nipping at my heels by claiming earlier inventions and racking up points that way (as I had done in 3) since the influence on those had degraded further (to 0 in many cases). I could've tried to repeat my actions from round 3 and hope to score that way, but I was worried that was too predictable, and there was definitely the potential for people to supersede a few key inventions and scupper it all.

 

Overall, I made a mistake early on by contesting another person's invention of 'The Internet'. I didn't consider him a threat and was merely happy to share the points, plus I thought he'd be more concerned about the upkeep for his 'Space Flight' along with fighting back against the other player who was stealing some earlier inventions of considerable value. I misjudged it and he thought I was trying to steal it outright once he had moved away. Long story short, I spent too long on the internet (story of my life) and had to waste more influence (more actions!), that allowed the other actual threat to go back further and gain a comfortable grasp over all the big-scorers I'd had during the previous round.

 

However, because that gave me a clear idea of what sort of prerequisites he needed, I could adjust strategy slightly and make use of the cards I'd been hoarding (part of the backup plan and to shut other players down) and spend my remaining influence wisely. I placed a very late 'Hospital' even though I had an earlier one (but at 0 influence) and invented Advanced Sciences a little earlier, both to save on actions and influence spend more than anything, and then stole 'Mining' off my competitor who was bound to steal the all-important 'Writing' that I just couldn't get to at the very beginning.

 

So as the scores totted up, I was getting worried as blue player gradually moved ever closer on the score track and then overtook me by 3/4 points right at the end of scoring up his successful inventions.

 

...And then came the invention of The Internet. Whammy! Ten points to me, leapfrog blue player and wind up five points ahead. Winner!

 

So, yeah, not a great fourth round, all told, but I'd done just enough to secure victory. Definitely a fun game, and I think once players get a better feel for what inventions link to others (there is a handy diagram on the back of the rulebook) and how many cards there are, it should play quick and more interesting tactics should occur. Perhaps people deliberately let earlier things disappear off the timeline simply because it costs their closest competitor more overall (things did disappear but only at cost to one person).

 

Then, to put a dampener on things, we played Pandemic on 5/7 difficulty and lost after about 12 turns...

[Hot Heart]

Oh, and since this is my thread now, I was going to share some updates on things.

 

First one was aimed at Ethan, whether he'd seen that details were being released about the next expansion to Firefly. They've shown a bit on bounties that should certainly liven up the PvP element a whole lot more, and there's still more to be shown on Lawmen and Pirates and the new Leaders (Jubal Early!).

 

Secondly, I've seen there is a kickstarter for a new hex-grid, tactical combat game based on/by the guys behind Sentinels of the Multiverse, that uses the TacDice system seen in Shlock Mercenary (I've never heard of it). If anything, I think it's a neat, lighter type of tactical combat game based around a theme I really love. My big fear is that, like the card game, certain characters/elements can bog the whole thing down with too many extra 'little things' on the cards that you have to keep track of.

 

Besides those concerns, I'm currently holding off for a couple of key reasons. First being that, although it sounds cool and interesting (Player-controlled supervillains versus player-controlled superheroes! Scenario play!), I want to see some proper gameplay that, most importantly, I can show to friends and get an idea of whether I'd just be wasting my money by backing. That should be coming, as apparently they did some stuff for TableTop Day.

 

Second is that, while the stretch goals have really added some value to the overall package, I want to see how much gets added for existing pledge levels. I do like the package with all the unpainted minis (especially if they're not using cardboard standups) and there is actually quite a lot in there, with a great deal of replayability, but that $50 for international shipping would still really sting. Otherwise, I could opt for no minis at all and perhaps use heroclix instead (got a massive bundle cheap on eBay), just so there will be more easily-trackable 3D markers.

 

If you're in the US or Canada and the game interests you, though, that package looks like a very sweet deal.

[TheMightyEthan]

First one was aimed at Ethan, whether he'd seen that details were being released about the next expansion to Firefly. They've shown a bit on bounties that should certainly liven up the PvP element a whole lot more, and there's still more to be shown on Lawmen and Pirates and the new Leaders (Jubal Early!).

I had not seen that. Awesome!

[deanb]

Smash Up.

You start the game with two decks of factions (I've had Ninja Zombies and Ninja Cyber-Apes), each with their own flavours e.g Ninja's can move out of their turn at the last minute, swap things around, suddenly turn into other ninjas. Zombies return, and can even be played, from the discard pile, and so on.#

 

There's then several bases with a numerical value, you play minions from your hands to raise up an army of sorts on each base to "break" the base, with you and the runners up earning the Victor Poiints listed on the card (usually 4 VP for winning the base, followed by 2VP for 2nd place and 1VP for third). Each base has different actions either for a "when minion is played" kinda thing, or jsut a "when base breaks do this". Themed bases means some favour certain factions. Such as monkey lab for the Cyber Apes, Graveyard for Zombies, Greenhouse for killer plants and so on.

 

Winner is the first to 15 VP points. I have only got as far as coming second today (would won too if I got my next turn).

 

Betrayal on the house on the hill

Horror themed board building game. You start with a character of various traits (Might, Sanity, Knowledge and Speed). Your points in these determine amount of dice rolled. It's a D6, but has 2 sides blank, 2 sides of 1 and 2 sides of 2.

 

You start in the entrance hallway and explorer the house, it has a ground floor, top floor and basement. you draw a room tile to add to the building as you explore. Each room is either blank, or has a symbol for event, omen or items. Items are good, events are middling, and Omens can give you items (usually occult in nature) but raise the Haunt meter, eventually leading to a haunting. Once the haunting happens you refer to one of two books, one for the traitor(not always the person that picks up the final omen, can be oldest, youngest, least sane, etc) and one for the survivors, each with their own instructions and rules. There's a grid that basically is Omens along the top and room along the side. The corresponding omen and room tell you what page to turn to. I'd guess there's around 50 different hauntings. Ours my housemate picked up a ring in a crypt. The haunting scenario revealed it to essentially be the one ring. She became invisible and psychopathic. She was playing Flash the jock, the fastest of us all and could move 7 tiles a go. Thankfully started with no weapon, but first killed the guy with the revolver. She was now invisible, moving very fast and able to shoot through multiple rooms and we had two occult items that could only give vague idea of where she is (we could only directly identify her if she attacked us, and we survived the attack, and rolled a good knowledge check). Thankfully after whittling us from 5 survivors to just the two of us, she flubbed an attack on me and we found where we was, so other remaining guy got her with a combo of axe and dog minion, then I ran up the stairs and skewered her with my spear...just. It was a good victory, since as soon as she got the gun, and managed to kill one of the occult finding item users while they hid in a vault it was like "oh yeah.. may as well turn our weapons on ourselves". If she'd not messed up her attack on me (she realised too late she should have just stolen my spear. I'd be without a weapon, and not able to identify her location).

Certainly one I'll happily play again, it's extremely variable based on both the room layout, range of cards to pick up, and the 50 or so haunting scenarios. Only major issue is it can really take up a lot of table space.

 

edit: image!

It's big, best opened in new tab.

 

So here we have the upper floor closest to me, the ground floor in the middle, and the basement off in the distance. The green bar with 0-12 on it is the haunt meter, it goes up as omens are drawn. The cards with event, omen, and item are drawn as you play cards. You'll see on the tiles there's little yellow symbols on. Closest to screen is the Storeroom with an item symbol (ram skull). The hex card in front of person next to me is your character, sliders around the edge go up and down as your stats change (those sliders could do with being tighter gripping, and a bit further indented. They move with the slightest brush. Might be an app which'd work much better.) Photo is good enough you can mostly read that top event card for Possession. The cards give a bit of story to them. Oh yeah, secret passages really mess up the layout (and helped with the Traitor making max use of the seven moves). You could go from the Game room on the ground floor, through a hidden star way to a dusty corridor in the basement, then through a hidden passageway on the other side of that corridor to come out of a bed in the upper floor. There's also a mystical elevator which can end up anywhere.

[Hot Heart]

Smash Up.

You start the game with two decks of factions (I've had Ninja Zombies and Ninja Cyber-Apes), each with their own flavours e.g Ninja's can move out of their turn at the last minute, swap things around, suddenly turn into other ninjas. Zombies return, and can even be played, from the discard pile, and so on.#

 

Did you see my post about it up above?

 

I do like the Ninja, especially when you pull off an awesome surprise move, but I think they depend on a faction that can get a lot of minions out. I was also one turn away from winning with Ninja-Bears in my first game.

 

I've not played it much, but it's definitely one of my favourite games.

[deanb]

I will have read it. I sometimes struggle to follow along with your boardgame posts tbh. So I might have phased out.

[Hot Heart]

Heh, I'm afraid they're a bit 'stream of consciousness'.

 

Related to that Sentinel Tactics post I made. The KS released some gameplay videos, and while it seemed like I might enjoy it because of the story and theme, I can tell that my friends won't. It might potentially become a bit samey too. So to spend £60-80 on it, with the international shipping, is a big no-no.

 

However, someone mentioned a new thing called Heroes Wanted, which had a very successful kickstarter (which I missed, sadly) and it looks like a heck of a lot of fun. That has some proper gameplay videos, an elegant and interesting design, a funny atmosphere and tons of replayability. The theme itself seems very close to the SuperZeroes thing I'm writing at the moment, too...

 

I think some elements are vaguely reminiscent of Small World, Smash Up and uh...cube/meeple management games but with a hex-grid tactical element, too; which I don't think any of us have played.

 

So I went ahead and ordered that, seeing as the full game and expansions with more reasonable international shipping charges means it's £65 total. Probably an even better deal for US folks, since it's free shipping.

Edited April 9, 2014 by Hot Heart

[deanb]

Legendary: Marvel Deck Building Game (or just "Marvel Legendary")

I think we also had one of the expansions.

 

So first the bad: the artwork is pretty much the same for every card in a deck. Except for some of the henchmen decks.

Decades of artwork to pick from and it's the same throughout.

 

The second bad, though not really the games fault, is if you're starting out don't go up against the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (And they were just Henchmen, we didn't even touch Doctor Doom as the Mastermind). So yeah our first game was pretty crippling. But we started early so got through a second game easy (and some Pathfinder card game too, with a bit of Pathfinder PnP planning)

 

(not my image)

Basic game mechanics are there's a villains deck and a heroes deck. At the start of the game you pick a variety of villains to fight (e.g Brotherhood of Mutants, Hydra, Enemies of Asgard, Doombots, Savage Land Mutates etc), and a variety of heroes (e.g Prof X, Nick Fury, Hulk, Thor, Blade etc). These get put into decks together. Then a Mastermind and a Scheme/Scenario(?) are chosen. Scenario dictates the win condition (the first was Negative Zone breakout so once 12 villains had crossed the board through the City and escaped you lost), and Mastermind dictates some fancy features that didn't matter for most of the game(so I don't know them to be able to explain).

You start the game with a few Shield grunts and agents. Agents let you buy stuff (you may see a star with a number on next to Maria Hill), and grunts attack (not clear, but it's on most those hero cards there's claws). Your initial deck can't do much(one buying and one attack for each) so you'd buy heroes (see the coin with numbers on, eg that Wolverine is his legendary card, costing 8, and Spider-man is cheap costing 2). As the game progresses you'll end up with much more flexibility in your deck for buying and attacking, even better with cards that can work together. Which is a biggy on why we fucked up on the first game.

 

First game we picked whoever sounded cool, picking a hero each to put into the Hero Deck. I picked Deadpool, biggest fuckup was Prof X. Prof X had a lot of abilities that required Xmen cards. He was the only one in play. Whereas second game we had a more Avengers Assembled themed game. Mastermind was Loki, and heroes were Cap, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye (We'd had Iron Man in previous game). Drew and I had realised that the Thor and Hulk cards worked very well together (the more green fist cards you played in a turn the more Hulk did, to the end point causing 10 damage with his Legendary card + whatever other attack cards you put down. Thor also got more buying power with green fists, letting you buy more and hit harder and harder as game progressed). I imagine as we'll play it more it'll be easier to figure out what kinds of heroes play well with each other. We also found it was good to have Hand Ninjas and Savage Land lot in villains; easy to defeat and beneficial to do so (a lot of villains/henchmen cause damage when you beat them. Horsemen especially liked to KO your cards.)

Oh yeah, you draw up 6 at end of turn, you have to play all 6 in your turn. So you might have a lot of wasted cards early on(e.g villains are usually 3hp+ but you might only have two Shield grunts with 1 attack each), but as you play you'll get cards that let you draw up more during play. My housemate and her BF were playing this other night and my housemate had to draw and play so many from her combo she had to reshuffle discard back into deck to be able to play enough cards in her turn. Oh yeah, KO is cards gone for good. Your discard pile is pretty much your future deck cos you'll be burning through your own deck quite frequently and need to reshuffle your discard. You only start with 12 cards, draw 6 per turn, you do the maths.

 

It's certainly a fun game to play, especially since we're all into our Marvel/X-men stuff (which as noted on the above with Discworld*, theme games can be hit or miss depending on how many fans there are). I think we'll be playing it many times again in future. It's also pretty small too, certainly a bonus over other games.

 

*Played Discworld again this weekend too, while housemate n her BF played Marvel. This time I had two Discworld fans to play with, so they actually knew the who and the where's. Only real issue was trying to explain that a card with a building on (e.g "the Dysk theatre") isn't the actual building you're placing (which would actually be "The Shades"). So folks were thinking that the text on the card was the bonus of the building for each turn.

[deanb]

Played a couple new board games this week. Only got pictures of one of them cos I'm a dunce, so bonus Civ board game photo instead.

 

(not my pic, hence being small)

Among The Stars

The aim of the game is to build a space station and earn the most points at the end. It's tile based game, so you get such rooms as "Alien Bazaar" "Command Centre" "Docking Bay" "Restaurant" etc. Tiles come in a variety of colours depending on purpose (military is red, utility blue, trade in yellow, entertainment purple). You all go around a point track, with certain tiles scoring either immediately, or end game bonuses (or both), so in my case I was pretty far behind through most of the game but at the end I shot forward around 45 points (one loop of track is 50) and mostly caught up to everyone else.

What I really like about it is that at the start of each year/round (there's four) you draw up 6 tiles and pick one to play, pay your fee, then pass the hand on to the player to the left/right (it switches each year) to do the next turn of play until all 6 are gone. So you might have something decent you want to play, but would require some other cards played first. Got to hope that's not played by someone along the way.

 

Alien Frontiers

This one took a while(~2.5hrs), but it was first time for any of us playing it (though not the first time it was played, much to the owners annoyance). Certainly quite a different game from most I've played and felt much more tac tactical than most. Also while it was a bit of a dicking over game with a clear winner, we couldn't help but help other players with cool actions they could take each turn.

Action Shot that's a bit less fuzzy.

Basic aim is to build and deploy colonies on a planet, once a player has all their colonies down the points are totted up and winner declared. You start with 3 ships, represented by dice. You roll your dice and depending on your roll depends what you can do. Basic is to buy solar power or begin building a colony, since it has no requirements. But others, such as buying extra ships (up to max of 6 ships/dice in play) requires two-of-a-kind, doing a raid on another player takes a flush of three dice. You can also buy alien tech cards which gives various boons (such as cheaper ship cost, ability to re-roll dice, remove player ships from orbiting platforms, shield from raids or just get an extra victory point). Those largely change how each player can play the game, those and building ships early definitely a massive boost at the start. I think we all rather enjoyed it (though one lad left on final round to play Werewolf), but with pretty much the main annoyance being a single players turn could take 2-5 minutes to work out how to play their dice, it got bigger and bigger an issue as we all got to the cap of 6 dice (7 for one guy since he colonised the "relic ship"). Owner has some faction pack expansions, but since it was first time playing it was decided to go with base game.

 

Oh yeah, the planet areas are all named after Sci-Fi writers, such as Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov.

 

 

Bonus Civ game picture (I didn't play, it lasted so long even the Firefly players were like "oh shit, they're still going?")

[TheMightyEthan]

When I get home I need to remember to take a picture of our Firefly set up that we had to leave because we didn't have time to finish it Sunday.

[TheMightyEthan]

And lo, it was good.

 

[deanb]

It wasn't until late that I was all "oh shit I didn't get any photos". Ah well.

 

Saboteur

This one we quite liked and I think I'll be getting a copy for myself. It's a bluff style game, you're a group of dwarves trying to reach a vein of gold ore. Except there's a group of saboteurs amongst you trying to ruin the dig. Unlike most bluff games the saboteurs don't know each other.

You lay out cards building your tunnels to reach the ore cards on the other side of the table, there's 3 ore cards; one gold and two coal. Saboteurs would aim to divert you towards the wrong card, wasting time and cards(when you reach the end of the deck without hitting gold, they win), while playing broken equipment cards on you (and you on saboteurs) to stop people playing tunnel cards. We found the game does heavily favour the dwarves a fair bit, especially as there's a "map" card that lets you peek at an ore card and see what it is. If a saboteur points you towards coal by saying it's gold, and another person checks and it's actually coal it's a bit easier to spot the saboteurs.

But all in all a rather quick game to set-up and play, small storage space and up to 10 players, which is currently a big thing looking for in a game (the ice-breaker types)

 

Ultimate One Night Werewolf

I may have posted about this before, or at least tweeted it. This has been a recent popular hit, I think a big part being it's relatively quick to get people up to speed on it given most folks have played Werewolves of Thingy Hollow. It's also much faster to play since it's "one night" and it's also on a timer.

Game is much the same as regular Werewolf. There's werewolves and villagers of various abilities, you take turns to do actions in the night then in the morning you've got to decide who the werewolf is (only need to kill one, all games have 2 werewolves). With minor complication there's a suicidal tanner, and a werewolf minion. They'll try and get killed instead of the werewolves.

There's a large amount of bluff involved in convincing people who you are and are not, and various player elements trying to confuse the whole thing. I found it best when I was the werewolf to claim I was the werewolf. It's a tactic that works well...twice. After that claim you're a werewolf when you're the tanner/minion. I was playing as a lone wolf once which I managed to also win, I think got a robber killed. I was quite pleased with myself on that one.

 

Oh yeah, a nice part of this from normal werewolf is everyone joins in, there's no narrator. There's a free companion app that narrates the whole night, with creepy night time sound effects (which helps mask the sounds of swapping cards and raising thumbs and such). Which is another element I think people enjoy it for, since normal werewolf someone is out of the game in order to narrate, and also the app has a timer which speeds things along. Means a game only lasts like 4-5 minutes (depends on player count).

 

When I first played it I wasn't overly keen, but it's certainly grown on me. It replaced the usual 1am wrap-up game of Avalon so it definitely won over many others (the most impressive one being the guy who owns Avalon/runs the board game day). Though during course of play there was "hmmm, One Night Avalon?"

 

Oh yeah I also played Alien Frontiers (which I went from winning early game, which means nothing, to losing most of mid-game, then in one turn I went from last to first and got the "end game" condition.), and Carcasonne. Which was my first time against people (I've got the app), and I won by a fair margin. It's a good quick game (my housemate played with us on that, and turns out she'd played it previously with boyfriend and others with expansions and hadn't enjoyed it. But sounded like it was a mix of the expansion, first time playing, and one of the other players.)

[deanb]

Eight Minute Empires

 

We didn't time the game (but I've suggested it'd be a good one for doing "races" on in future) so I can't say if it fully lives up to its name. It's sort of a bit like a cross between Catan and Risk with very very simplified and sped up rules. You've got 8 turns to build an empire, gain goods and spread your army and cities around then it's all totted up at the end.

State of play is you have limited funds (even more limited if you go first since you all make a bet at the start to go first, highest pays up and goes first. In our first game the lad who won first place paid out 6 coins...we only got 9 to last us the game. So already there's a trade off, going first and getting initial pick of the cards, or having more money to play the rest of the game. Money is used to buy cards, the cards all have a good associated with them, used to tot up VP at the end of the game, as well as actions you can do on your turn. These include building and moving armies, as well as building a city or killing other army units. There's a balance going on, usually the better action turns are associated with crapper goods cards. So you could get 5 army pieces to place on the board, but it'll only come with a carrot (of which you need three to get 1 VP), or you can get a card with a gem on it (1 gem = 1VP) but it might only let you move 2 army units. It does mean that while someone might have less control of a board at a glance, they might have much more VP from goods.

 

You get victory points based on how many regions you control, how many contents you control and then whatever you have in goods.

e.g if I had 2 anvil cards t the end I'd have 1 victory point. The bit on the bottom of the cards is the actions, so move army across sea, build an army of 5 units, or move 2 units across land.

 

(I really had wish I'd gotten pictures during play, these images don't really match up to the actual game. e.g the map above isn't the actual map in the game, but it's close enough)

 

All in all pretty good, certainly great for a speedy filler game while having a bit more challenge than most. Works well with smaller scale of players too, which is where many filler games fail, usually requiring 6+ players).

 

I'm slowly building up my own collection:

(There's not a huge need to build up a massive collection of my own, there's plenty other folks with games at the two board game groups I go to that duplicating it all is a bit silly). Also I think I need to invest in elastic bands and small resealable bags.

[deanb]

http://imgur.com/a/YsDv3#0

 

Apparently not here, but somewhere (Twitter/Google+?) I promised I'd get some images of our local shops supply. Which means much easier to get suggestions. I'm realising I missed the top off most of the shelves mind. The last one is a bit blurry though. There would also be another one except I went "fuck, this is just Munchkin, sod that".

 

This be the shop I game in on Tuesdays (in case you've noticed a general absence around Tuesdays, I know Ethan got worried). Then on random Saturdays it's in a church.

[TheMightyEthan]

I ordered Android Infiltration (Infiltrator?), should arrive Tuesday. I'm excited for that.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Has anyone played falling card game? It's free to print out off their website. Or you can buy it. I heard it mentioned on a podcast and they said it was fast paced (only 90 secs long) and fun.

[Hot Heart]

http://imgur.com/a/YsDv3#0

 

Apparently not here, but somewhere (Twitter/Google+?) I promised I'd get some images of our local shops supply. Which means much easier to get suggestions. I'm realising I missed the top off most of the shelves mind. The last one is a bit blurry though. There would also be another one except I went "fuck, this is just Munchkin, sod that".

 

This be the shop I game in on Tuesdays (in case you've noticed a general absence around Tuesdays, I know Ethan got worried). Then on random Saturdays it's in a church.

 

Dean, I see Samurai Sword (and, next to it, probably the expansion that allows for an extra player for a total of 8)!

 

I think we spoke (tweeted) briefly about it before. From the looks of your group with Avalon, Werewolf, Saboteur, they might enjoy the 'hidden roles' nature of the game. You don't have to worry about player elimination like in Bang! plus it plays fairly quickly. So, yeah, buy it... or convince the Avalon owner to. The expansion might be handy if you do have that large group, but I know there are some slight changes to the basic rules (without player elimination, deck reshuffles wind down the game; expansion = more cards so slight necessary alteration) to bear in mind.

 

I'll probably write a review of it once I've had a go with five players (and got my Sentinels one done). Seems like the strategies can really vary based on number of players (no Ronin in four player, and different scoring systems and numbers of roles for different-sized games).

Edited June 9, 2014 by Hot Heart