Boardgames

[Hot Heart]

Played Legendary again, this time with a randomly generated scheme involving Kingpin and a Skrull Invasion. Much more enjoyable and interesting than the first/intro session, especially since it made use of the Bribe mechanic. This added extra layers with regards to whether you recruit a high value hero to stop them potentially becoming a tough to defeat Skrull, but also risk running the hero deck down completely. I also got a Thing card, which meant recruiting could be turned into fighting.

 

Definitely looking forward to trying all the crazy combinations the game has.

 

We followed that up with DC Deckbuilding Game. Heh. As before, I don't think this does as much new, but way more enjoyable than Dominion. Heroes were randomly dealt, and I was mocked for receiving Aquaman... but he actually seems a little overpowered. Because any cards of value 5 or lower I purchased got to go on top of my deck, I was managing to buy a bunch of cards and then utilise them the next turn. Works really well when you get a location that will get to be deployed and utilised straight away. The others managed to stifle me with some attack cards against which I only really had (or could've bought) one, but some other buys saw me able to eliminate some and the weaker elements of my deck. For the first time, I think I actually built a decent deck, and I won.

 

Then we tried out the new ships for Firefly, along with the new setup and story cards. These are actually pretty cool, because one involves starting with $12k and actually having to buy your ship, plus choosing how much starting fuel and parts you want. The new ships are very expensive, but they start with some decent upgrades and have some cool abilities. The story card also played pretty quick because you don't deal with the contacts, or have a hand of jobs, but instead everyone can work the one face-up job each contact gets. The first person to get 5 solid reputations with different contacts (Blue Sun means there are 7 potential) wins. That way, everyone's racing around, trying to beat people to jobs and there's a bit of tension when a piracy job shows up or someone risks attaching a Mr. Universe challenge to a job. A lot of fun, and it does make me think that Meridian is actually a pretty strong starting place (after I did well there last game). Ended pretty close, with some of us maybe 2-3 turns behind the winner (who got lucky with an easy one-stop job precisely where he started.. Meridian).

 

Then we played a Loot Crate version of Superfight, but that hardly bears mentioning. Then we went for Shadows Over Camelot, which I'd never played before.

 

 

Very pretty game, but it just feels like a heap of window-dressing. I mean, it sells the tension really well but the actual gameplay is very dry and slow. We didn't have a traitor and were close to losing, but instead just held out until enough stuff failed, in order to fill the round table in our favour. I think Homeland achieves almost the same thing in a neater package. Also surprised that the friends who hate Dead of Winter, like this...

[Hot Heart]

Played our first game of Legendary with five players. I should point out that we've been using a suggested variant, after many highlighted how much tougher the game is when there are more than four players. Put simply, for every player over 3, replace one of the starter SHIELD agents with a SHIELD officer (aka. Maria Hill). So, a standard starter hand gives you 4 fight, and 8 recruit across 12 cards, while in a five-player game you'll have 4 fight and 10 recruit across 12 cards. Not a major change, but helps get you going.

 

And it was definitely needed, because it can be brutal. I used a smart randomiser from the Play store, and it seems to work pretty well. It has generally selected masterminds, schemes and heroes that play off each other in interesting ways. In this one, we had shenanigans with bystanders while a couple of the heroes worked well with that, we had Nick Fury who could chain off SHIELD cards and a few covert hero options for tackling the potential penalties. Star-Lord - who I'd just got in the GotG expansion - seemed pretty useless without the rest of the team, but he had some benefits. Mr. Sinister built up a massive attacking rating thanks to nabbing bystanders, but I snagged the rare Black Widow card which allowed an automatic KO on him for having bystanders which helped us fight back after a crushing start with lots of discards and villain-with-bystander escapes.

 

It was close in the end, and the game went on a bit too long, but we won. The new player pipped me for victory with his last turn (before we did the showdown that I won), but had built a pretty solid deck, considering. I liked how we sort of had to work together among the total chaos, and the deckbuilding and strategic choices shone through.

 

Then we moved onto Small World. I played as nice as I could, which meant others left me alone quite a bit. Some Beserker Ratmen and Sea-faring Pixies (on a wave of mutilation...) saw me to a comfortable 93 point victory. Yay.

[Hot Heart]

Me again!

 

*echoes*

 

Hrrm.

 

Had another crack at Roll for the Galaxy the other night after an easy game of Castle Panic (the usual situation where so many players = way more options = much easier to plan).

 

I actually knew what I was doing from the offset and got lucky with a couple of "starter" dice. Basically, I could fairly reliably produce and ship for 3-points each time. Although, there was still a little bit of smart decision-making with regards of which dice to buy back (something I'd not really appreciated the mechanics behind last time) depending on what I hoped to do the next 1-2 turns. I didn't get to build much, but I settled a couple of worlds and the shipping meant that when someone else triggered the endgame, I pipped victory from the closest rival.

 

Decent enough game once you grasp the basics. Reminds me of 7 Wonders in its light civ tone and basic strategy/tactics play; also simultaneous turns helps when it's five people.

 

 

And we actually did a starter session of our long-planned Pathfinder RPG campaign.

 

It was more to get a feel for things to see if we actually wanted to do this (since none of us had attempted anything like it before) and, I guess, to ensure we were happy with our characters.

 

I'd done a load of prep months ago and just liked the idea of playing a martial artist. Everywhere I read, however, just said that Monks are absolutely dreadful because they're MAD and stuff like that. Rather than be put-off, I figured a) the GM would probably value story-telling/fun over min/maxing and punishing players and b) ...I would focus on min/maxing.

 

Seriously, though, I just read a bunch of advice on how to make sure you get a build that doesn't drag your team down. Essentially, you pump as much as you can into STR then WIS, then DEX. Strength for attack and damage, WIS because of the AC modifier bonus and DEX for when you throw shurikens. The real asset of the Monk is being able to make powerful unarmed strikes with any reasonable body part, which means they can carry a weapon or two for overcoming any DR (depends on situation, whether you want to deflect arrows or grapple or whatever).

 

It was good though, because it actually informed my character and set me onto writing a back story. But onto the main story...

 

So we began the first bit of the starter set, which involves being tasked by the Mayor of... I want to say Sandstone. She was Kendra Deverin or something. Anyway, she wanted us to investigate and rid her town of whatever monster was dragging off livestock. All we knew is that it had big black fangs.

 

Us four adventurers began outside a cave and I took a look at a nearby stone statue to see it had been burned by acid. Fair enough. While I was inspecting that, our half elf Sorceror/Ranger approached the cave entrance and pulled apart a moss curtain from which jumped two goblins. They didn't prove too troublesome, and I got to experience how powerful my character was by killing them both in a couple of rounds; none of us even injured.

 

Our pirate-like Gnome Rogue, Jenson "Jen" Eric Caracktor (player hadn't created their character so GM did) looted the bodies and decided to share out some of the loot. He tried to hand me a shortsword, but being a low charisma monk who preferred not to use weapons, especially not those of goblins, I simply turned my back on the gnome.

 

"I jab her in the butt with it," demands the player. The rogue was clearly affronted.

"Roll for attack," instructs the GM.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Okay..." he says, then rolls a 20. "Whoops..."

Everyone laughs.

"Now roll to see if that's really a crit," says the GM.

He rolls again and it is also a successful hit, so he rolls for damage.

"You take 2 damage," I am informed.

 

I took out two goblins, no problem, then lose 2 HP because I got stabbed in the butt!

 

I chose not to retaliate, stating that I was the bigger person. Quite literally.

 

We continued on, exploring what we could, gaining some bonuses from a well and wisely electing not to charge into the room where we could hear chattering goblin voices. The next room we entered housed an altar with two statues either side and a booming voice said, "APPROACH WITH HUMILITY AND LIVE" for each person who entered. Before I could kneel and head towards the altar, the gnome rushed in and did just that. He probably didn't need to lower himself too much, since the fire trap that shot out from the two statues didn't touch anything below 3 feet anyway. Having reach the altar safely, the rogue instantly grabbed the red gem that sat atop it (choosing to replace it with a ruby we'd found earlier, Indiana Jones-style). Grabbing the gem caused him to take 1 fire damage and the ruby did not fit the placement the gem had been in so we took that back and continued on.

 

Charging into the next, web-covered room and towards the treasure chest near the centre, the rogue was assaulted by a large spider dropping from the ceiling. Everyone charged into battle and since I couldn't make the distance to melee it, I threw a flurry of shurikens (which benefit from STR bonus on damage but use DEX to hit). Both missed. This would be a recurring pattern (particularly for me) as we kept rolling terribly and failing to hit the creature until eventually the rogue finished it off. We looted the chest to find some weird doll, a wand and some potion.

 

We continued on and solve some runes to figure out there was a wyrm (dragon) who scared the goblins and had deadly breath (what dragon doesn't?). Our cleric gained a bonus to swimming and breathing underwater from the glyphs but would have to take off all her armour to benefit. Having seen some shining object on a small island across some water, and me being the most capable swimmer, I went over there alone and was confronted by a reefclaw as I left the water on the other side. Thanks to an arrow from the rogue and a couple of solid attacks myself, it died pretty easily but then hurt me with one of its two final dying blows. Worth it though, as we found loads of gold and a dragonbane longsword mace (so someone in our party could actually use it) which we didn't know the specifics of, just the implication of the name.

 

Back on the shore, the rogue chooses to pick my pockets and steals 20GP without me noticing.

 

In the next room, we found the source of the voices from earlier, encountering a goblin king and his entourage. He continued to ask, "WHO YOU?!" which our party almost ignored until it was too late (despite the GM's hints) and failing diplomacy checks; especially considering our cleric held the dragonbane mace high in the air, looking threatening. Personally, my monk chose to stay quiet and half-hopes to get into a fight. We got things back on track and established that there was some sort of toy that had been lost and no goblin was brave enough to go find it. We recalled the doll we had found and which our rogue was currently carrying...

 

The rogue stepped up. "I take the doll from my pocket and hold it up to show him. Then I drop it on the ground and bring my foot down hard."

"Okay, everyone roll for initiative..."

 

It turned into a tough fight as I got surrounded, with the rogue pretty hurt too. Fortunately, our cleric had a healing spell that worked wonders and the GM played that the goblin king was enraged with the rogue, somewhat sparing me his full wrath. The sorceror got to let off some burning hands spells, and I used my regular hands, getting some gory descriptions as I punched right through stomachs and snapped necks with uppercuts.

 

With them dispatched, we found some more loot and continued onto the next bit where we fooled around with climbing a rope up a wall, making everything dark with a spell then light again, unaware of three skeleton warriors who shuffled up to us. They proved pretty easy as I managed to land a flurry, destroying two in a sort of double fist punch move.

 

Then came the dragon who was megatough, knocking two of us unconscious from full health, in one acid breath. We rallied and gave it a good show, managing to surround it and land some decent hits before it flew off (as instructed).

 

Overall, I really enjoyed it and it kept us entertained for the 4+ hours it took. The GM did a good job and was sure to offer a bunch of descriptions for all our (inter)actions while keeping things flexible enough for our japes. My monk did seem overpowered, but that's only because these were basic enemies with no resistances; I am concerned that I appear to be the only real up-close DPS, which could cause problems if I start to lag, but we'll see. I definitely look forward to trying more.

[Hot Heart]

Update

 

Had a crack at Cyclades.

(Crappy photo in which my friends make their own brand of offering)

 

Much better than I expected. The way the systems all mesh is really smart and it also makes turns somewhat quicker while keeping the amount of information manageable. You can only do what that god grants you, which is actually a handy limiter, and while there's a little planning here and there, it's still more of a "two turns ahead" kind of thing. Tactics more than strategy.

 

And while it's got conflict, it never overwhelms the game because it's locked into the core systems of winning gods and being able to pay for their extra benefits. To invade another isle requires at least two turns because you'll need Poseidon for lining up your fleets then Ares for generating and moving troops; it is probably the most telegraphed move, but can also be the most surprising when someone's staggered it over a few turns.

 

And it escalates quite wonderfully. Things turned tense when someone managed four philosophers to give them their first metropolis, but that meant that a) they didn't control more territory overall and b) hadn't amassed a large force while another player had plans for a sweeping turn to win the game, but couldn't quite manage it because they also hadn't quite got the forces or the territory (they had to destroy an important building that was part of a future plan just to make way for the metropolis). Meanwhile, I'd focused on seizing land/income but hadn't made enough headway towards my own metropoliseseseses not to be concerned by others' progress. The balance is impeccable.

 

However, what really clinched it, is the utility of the mythological creatures. Majorly in my favour, I'd been left alone to generate loads of income so that even if I didn't get the god I wanted, I could bid low elsewhere (preferably earlier in turn order) and easily have enough gold for these, so I was gaining access not only to exclusive options/bonuses but also regular actions usually reserved for god's favours which were, usually, hotly contested. I could pick off a rival troop or fleet here and there, freeze someone's invasion plans or receive my income again that round (I was already raking in 6-8 gold a turn for most of the game). I was rolling in so much dough, I was even able to purchase some purely defensively.

 

It's got the feel of a resource-led, bidding game combined with a light strategy game, all spiced up by the perfect amount of randomness/"take that!"

 

I definitely hope to try this again and I'm sure the next game will be tighter now the others have gotten to grips with it and are aware how important the income/bidding aspect is and especially the benefits of those mythological creatures. Additionally, it also played in a decent time, considering there were five of us.

 

After that, I actually won a game of Dixit. Usually, I go way too obscure on my own clues (which I did at one point) but a lot of luck and a little bit of smart counter-play (if that's a thing?!) saw me through. Pipped it right at the end where only one person picked my card despite not actually interpreting my clue how it was intended. That's probably a regular Dixit occurrence though.

 

Then we ended on King of Tokyo. It's a dice-rolling game, so you bet I hate it. Cool theme and artwork, but not really supported by the dull gameplay itself. I'm also pretty crap at this and wasn't really paying attention. What I can impart, though, is that the best way to be King of Tokyo is to be in Tokyo as little as possible.

Edited August 15, 2015 by Hot Heart

[Hot Heart]

Board games night down the pub.

 

Started with a go at The Manhattan Project.

 

I believe Dean's gone over this many, many moons ago so I won't go too in depth.

 

Worker placement game in which you are trying to assemble bombs worth points. Twist is that you choose when to recall workers (rather than it being a round-by-round placement affair) and there is a degree of "engine-building" as you purchase more powerful buildings than what's available on the main board. The components and artwork are really nice too.

 

However, we played it four-player and it's a little too unrestrained and all over the place. The buildings become far too important in actually getting a viable strategy and then you're at the mercy of who buys what, when and whether some bastard has nicked the espionage slot (enabling you to utilise other player's buildings) right at the time you could've used it. Blocking is a legit part of the strategy though, so...

 

We also played it with the Nations expansion. I was zaff afreeka, who were useless, and although I was given the option to switch, I figured I'd give it a bash; probably hurt my chances a great deal. That said though, one player stormed to victory when none of the rest of us had any points. Not even the owner of the game.

 

Anyway, enjoyable enough experience with those guys but probably saved me some trouble since I did consider buying it myself at one point. I think it probably really shines at the lower player counts that I'd never see.

 

Next, we made way for a fifth person and played Why First?

 

 

Nice little filler game in which you come first by coming second. Yes, really.

 

If that sounds confusing allow me to attempt to try to explain.

 

There are five rounds. In each, players will be dealt a hand of five cards, typically with values between -4 up to +4 (there is a single +5 and a single -5, I am told). Players will select a card to play either on themselves or someone else, with the final card having to be played on themselves. Making sense so far?

 

Okay, so a typical round might see someone bump themselves up 2 while someone else bumps themselves up 4, while someone else gets a plus and a minus played on them. Each new play will alter the score track until the end of the round.

 

And here's where it gets interesting. At the end of each of the five rounds, whoever is in second will score points equal to wherever they wound up on the board while everyone else scores nothing. After these five rounds, whoever has the second highest score wins.

 

Our game had us propel someone into a 10-point lead by them "winning" the first two rounds. Round three, I cannily nipped into "second" (first) by getting to 5 points. Unfortunately, come round 4, some sneaky bastard got 7 points. Round five became pretty tense and I almost pinched a 3-point second place, only two other players screwed me up and instead the guy with 7 points "won" another point. Drat!

 

Fun though, and hilarious when everyone slaps their cards down in front of just one player all in one go.

 

Then we finished with Dogs of War (mine)

 

I've spoken about this a few times before. Anyway, it was fun and someone fell into the same trap of making an alliance with someone who was bound to benefit way more.

 

At the start of the game, one player asked, "What is a typical winning score?" just to get an idea of the sort of gravity behind certain point-scoring decisions

"For five player games, usually high 30s or into the 40s"

 

Our game ended with one player scoring 66. We got crushed.

 

The guy who helped him only scored 1 more point than I did, as I spent too much energy trying to keep my own favoured house on the up against nearly every other player (along with two years of bad match-ups).

 

Still, everyone enjoyed it a great deal and it was a fun time.

[deanb]

I've played none of the games listed above (also haven't done much board gaming in a very long while)

[Hot Heart]

Oh, my apologies. I must have read about it elsewhere then.

[deanb]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/crowdfunding-is-driving-a-196-million-board-game-renaissance/

 

Kickstarter has driven nearly $200million in board game funding. Not bad. Though vast majority is around the Oatmeal one, Zombicide and the Dwarven Minatures stuff.

[Hot Heart]

I've neglected this thread somewhat as I've been busy with work, moving into my flat and *ahem* The Taken King. I've still been gaming a bit, although I don't think you want to hear more about my Pathfinder adventures.

 

First up, Nefarious.

 

This is a hard one to parse/articulate. It's a game by Donald X. Vaccarino (designer of Dominion), a man who is often accused of producing somewhat dry games with the theme pasted on afterwards. For example, Infiltration was originally about stealing sweets from a candy factory before it got rebranded to fit Fantasy Flight's Android line. Also, Dominion is just plain old dryyyyy.

 

Nothing wrong with that, of course. Solid mechanical design can be entertaining enough. This one's along similar lines. You're mad scientists trying to build all manner of diabolical (or just plain crazy) inventions, but nothing about them particularly stands out. You build an invention which might have an effect like getting some money (back), or make players discard some in-hand inventions or you might just get some points; it feels like a lot more could've been done.

 

The basic gameplay involves simultaneous action selection from a choice of four, where you either send out workers to occupy spots on the board (producing income whenever a player to the left or right selects the related action), invent a card from your hand, research to get a little money and draw a new invention or just take 4 money. This is probably a little more tactical at lower player counts, but at 5 it's just kind of chaotic and then, while everyone's trying to speed things along by resolving everything simultaneously, you have to try and track what actions the players to the left and the right took to make sure you get any money owed.

 

To add to the chaos, each game will have two universal modifiers drawn from a deck; increasing replayability and giving each game a slightly different twist. This sounds really cool and shows promise, but it doesn't exactly feel wildly exciting. For our game, we had that no action can be repeated twice in a row and that any invention effects are repeated (do the actions in order, then do them again).

 

It might sound like I'm bashing the game, but it's a perfectly okay filler that I'd play again; I just hoped it had something a little flashier to accompany the really neat art style.

 

Next up, Stone Age...

 

 

...thus ends my opinion on Stone Age.

 

Okay, I'm kidding. I have a lot to say (as usual).

 

First of all, I really like the look of the game. The components are real nice and you get a leather dice cup. LEATHER. It might be fake, I don't know. What am I, an expert on leather? It smells nice anyway.

 

It's a sort of worker placement game where you send out guys to gather different types of resources, with each adding a die to the roll at the end of the round. The more valuable resources have a lower yield because they divide your dice rolls by higher numbers. So, food is a simple half of your die roll while gold divides it by a whopping six. Stone is actually the second hardest thing to get. FUCK YOU STONE THIS SHOULD BE CALLED WOOD AGE OR SOMETHING.

 

So, anyway, you gather resources in an effort to purchase civilisation cards or huts which awards points for different things. Some, like the huts tend to work out as a straight up translation of resources (wood = 3 points, gold = 6 points, etc.) while the civ cards will be modifiers based on other factors such as agriculture score or tools. See, as well as the basic resource-gathering, you can gain more workers (but more mouths to feed), increase your tool proficiency (buff dice rolls) or up your agriculture (producing food each turn and lessening the need to send guys hunting instead).

 

It all sounds like a neat balance of factors, and I'm sure its legacy as a great game is founded on this initial format of four players. However, my friend kindly purchased the expansion to allow a fifth player.

 

This completely fucks that system sideways.

 

Okay, I can't speak as an expert on Stone Age, but as someone who has played a fair few worker placement games now or just familiar with basic action selection/worker placement balanced systems.

 

Five players is too many. I've bemoaned this fact before, but some games lose a little something when you cram in that extra player. Stone Age probably could've addressed this, since it adds some sort of board overlay (which didn't line up with the existing art and drove the player with OCD quietly crazy). Where before you could probably focus a little more on some element (like driving up tools or agriculture) as part of a certain playstyle, there are no extra places which makes it even more competitive for these spots. You finally get first turn and want to perform the action that everyone else nicks... except it's come at a time when you really need this other spot.

 

However, this isn't a deal breaker. The game is still playable, just requires some adjustment of overall strategy. The biggest problem is the new element the expansion introduces.

 

There's a jewellery collecting/trading element which just feels ridiculously unbalanced. See, in every other game with all sorts of spaces and possible actions, there is some sort of penalty or off-setting factor that prevents a player from relying on a single action/space every single turn/round. This did not feel like the case. One player was able to plant two guys down, get some free jewellery pieces (bone things), move two spaces up a track that would eventually let him trade 1 thing for 2 of any other thing provided it was used to purchase a hut/civ card (if I recall correctly) and then also spend a few more of the jewellery bits to purchase a civ card blind from the stack.

 

And because these jewellery pieces could be gathered the same way as hunting for food (highest possible return) it was easy to keep everyone fed as he required and then use these pieces to begin getting easy gold round after round, which then went towards multiplier huts to send his score sky-rocketing while also running the game down by exhausting the civ card pile. He didn't have to rely on dice rolls for gold or anything like that. No diversification required.

 

Granted, we could've blocked the spot a little more but I was inexperienced (and focused on other factors instead) and since it was new we probably undervalued it a little. Whether or not the players self-balance it remains to be seen, but it feels completely at odds with the core mechanics.

 

So, yeah, I think that new expansion element is terrible but would be interested in seeing if a five-player game would work without it.

 

Onward to Venus

 

 

Bought this on a whim a while back, but never got a chance to play it. It's from Martin Wallace, the designer of A Study In Emerald, and he's renowned for trying slightly odd twists on things so you get a somewhat curious if not always balanced or easily understood affairs. Fortunately, this is a crisp blend of tight euro game mechanics combined with a little "take that!" trashiness from the card play and luck with dice rolls, married to a fun theme of different nations (USA, Russia, UK, France and Germany) looking to colonise the solar system with their steampunk-esque forces. So you have tanks and rocket ships and moon lasers and the Crudmobot 370 and Col. AP Harrison OBE, VC & Bar. 3rd Venusian Rifles.

 

 

It works well with three players, but I guess only time will tell with five. In its favour, turns are quick, single-action affairs, and it takes place across three rounds. It combines elements of worker placement with area control and card play. The aim is to be yielding the most profit from a planet at the end of the game, this then awards scores based on player positions on each. Earth is worth 11 to 1st, 8 to 2nd, 5 to 3rd while Venus is 10/7/4 and the moons of Jupiter might only award 1st and 2nd.

 

The way to "colonise" these planets is to capture factories and mines on each planet. However, their presence is all determined by tile draws at the start of each round. Each planet receives a certain number of tiles which might be the aforementioned mines or factories, but they might also be big game, tension tiles, crisis tiles or card draw tiles.

 

It's up to the players to manoeuvre their forces across the system (only rocket ships can move between planets but can carry as many troops as you wish, tanks are usually stuck on the planet on which they are built) and decide how best to go about business. For example, you might get to a planet then have to decide between attempting to capture a mine or a factory. The mine will produce £3 compared to the factory's £2 (YES, POUND STERLING), but that factory will allow you to produce rocket ships and tanks on that planet, which might be handy if no one else gets the mine... or if a tension tile comes up later. Yes, the game is not heavy on PvP action (he says...) but these rare tiles might allow you to steal an opponent's building.

 

That's the basic gameplay focused on the core actions: build units, fly them across the solar system, capture buildings. It's the cards and dice rolls that introduce the more random, but also tactical elements and the nice moments of surprise.

 

The dice rolls feature whenever you try to take a tile with a defence value and add to the difficulty of capturing it. You roll 3 of them, subtract the lowest value from the highest and there you go. However, instead of a 1 there is a skull (AN EVIL SKULL) that actually counts as 0 but also means you have to kill a unit for each one rolled whether you decide to take the tile or not (they're lost after taking a tile at least; casualties of the skirmish). However HOWEVER, the cards will confer benefits such as simple combat rating buffs or ignoring skulls or rerolls.

 

This gives you a decisions between attempting to claim tiles to draw more cards or bolster your forces or where to place them or when to best utilise your cards. On top of that, there are crisis tiles. These can trigger unique effects on each planet, but are reliant on a single dice roll at the end of each round. They're not meant to be a huge factor, but can require some effort to shift and might cause trouble if left to build up. They sound like a fun little element, but the other two players in this game expended quite a bit making sure they were eliminated quite quickly. I think I alarmed them by pointing out that if Earth gets too high a crisis rating, a robot uprising occurs and everyone loses. In future, I might try the "heightened crisis" variant suggested on the BGG forums.

 

Anyway, I really enjoyed it. It's thinky enough without being overwhelming, moves along nice and quickly and it looks really pretty. Most of all, I liked the possibilities provided by the cards (even if I did accidentally go way over the hand limit by forgetting to just ditch useless cards I was never going to use). The other two got into a (costly) war over the Moon, with moon lasers and supertanks and stuff, while one guy stole Earth right at the end thanks to a card that allowed him to take a tension tile from the discards and put it on any planet and I did a sneaky capture by amassing a huge force far away not to arouse suspicion and then buffing their movement to allow a swift invasion.

 

In a few ways, it sort of reminds me of Cyclades but much lighter and with a healthy dollop of randomness.

 

Finally, a nice relaxing game of Tokaido.

 

 

A game from Antoine Bauza (7 Wonders) where you play a traveller trying to take in all the sights and enjoy as much as you can along Tokaido, the east sea road of Japan.

 

You move along a track, selecting/blocking spaces as you go. The player farthest behind gets to move first each turn, which might be a boon if you get to snatch up some spaces skipped by others, or a curse as they block the one thing you really wanted.

 

This makes it sound more (passive) aggressive than it is, though. Really, it's got a similar vibe to 7 Wonders in that you probably do best to focus on a few key elements for maximising your score. You can paint landscapes, shop, eat, donate money, make friends etc. and there will be bonuses for first player in most categories. It's got a calm, pleasant vibe to it and the artwork is so pretty. SO PRETTY.

 

I would like to say I won through some smart play, which there might have been moments of, but really there was a bit of luck at a few key points. My character's bonus meant I got a random "friend" (aww, fwend) card whenever I visited the inns (those red squares checkpoints) which enabled me to get money at just the right time, finish off a painting I might not have otherwise and get a free donation to the temple to tie 2nd. On top of that, I managed 3 different icons in one shopping trip then drew another thanks to a "friend" space.

 

Anway, cool game and has a nice feel to it. Having five people might get nasty though...

[Hot Heart]

Me again.

 

Cutthroat Caverns

 

This is something I managed to nab for a decent price on eBay. I know my friend was interested in it, and I had liked the sound of it way back (it's from the same publisher as Dread Curse and I saw a "double review"). Since it was just over £16 for a "like new" copy (the previous owner had sleeved it all and then crammed those in the box), I figured it was worth a punt.

 

It's fun. It's mean. It's messy.

 

It's a sort of semi-cooperative, "take that!" game in which you play as D&D style adventures trying to escape a cavern with your priceless loot. Along the way, however, you'll encounter all manner of monsters whom you'll need to defeat one after another in order to escape. This is done with simple card play of (mostly) attack cards used to whittle down the monster's health. The twist is that to earn the prestige points from each monster, you'll want to land the last hit on the creature as well as survive until the end.

 

Oh, yes, there is elimination. I'm never too fond of this, but there is a sort of inbuilt balance (each creature has "AI" based on the # of players who started the game) so that losing people too early, will doom the whole expedition.

 

And in order to win you'll want to fuck with your fellow adventurer's plans. Be it by redirecting a creature's attacks towards them, playing a "Critical Miss!" on their attack or getting some opportune shots in before anyone else can kill the creature. Hilarity ensues as some card zapping happens back and forth and the monster who should have been dead two rounds ago, continues "regenerating" health and picking away at the party's precious life points (there are healing potions but they are limited and must be used before an encounter begins).

 

So, our group of five set out to face the 9 encounters. We did well up until about the 5th or 6th when we sabotaged everything against aforementioned "regenerating" golem. We left that encounter fairly low on HP across the board, and gradually a couple of people died off. Fortunately, they play Hearthstone on their phones, so they got on with that.

 

We got to the final creature with three of us, but a couple of us were pretty much doomed after a round. Of course, I fucked up by forgetting I had a card zap, which might've got me through then played a wrong card afterwards but I had fun either way.

 

I really dig the core simplicity of it, and the creatures have some amusing little design variations (like playing Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who faces a minotaur in a maze). That said, the rulebook is somewhat lacking in its phrasing and clarity when it comes to some concepts so it takes a little figuring out the intention/mechanics for some encounters (e.g. "The troll strikes the first player to damage it for 20 LP and the last player to damage it for 10 LP", took me a few readings). There's also the fact that it's got the "anytime" cardplay, which always raises questions about timing and validity but I think we all came to agreements without any real fuss.

 

But, yeah, I think we all enjoyed it somewhat. There were some genuine moments of laughter with the player fuckery.

 

What's He Building In There?

 

 

There's not a great deal to say about this. It's got a cool theme, in that you are evil doctors looking to unleash your doomsday machine and have an escape plan in place, but there's not much of a twist on the worker placement genre itself.

 

Each player has a randomly dealt Doomsday Machine and Escape Plan, both of which will require different inventions/blueprints and resources. To earn resources, you can use your doctor or henchmen to visit workshops and inventions require certain resources along with some "Master At Work" points and money. The workshops will change each round and during the resolve phase at the end of each round whoever landed on a workshop first gets to choose whether it will be supplying the related resource or refining it. So, there's a bit of player awareness needed (virtually impossible with five players and everyone's master plans hidden anyway) with whether you go to a workshop hoping to get some resources when instead the other player who got there first chooses refine. There are additional black market spaces, which allow a little rule-breaking but they're generally less efficient methods.

 

There's an additional element with regards to improving your evil doctor's residence and social standing (the right of the board above) but I had to ignore that completely because I put so much in getting inventions out first and working towards tier 3 of both doomsday machine and escape plan, that I couldn't spare sending my doctor to those spaces (orange ones are for your doctor only)... even though I had heaps of spare money coming in from those inventions towards the end of the game.

 

And that's about it. You put people down and get things to turn into other things while hoping no one fucks it all up. An alright game, but not one I'd ask to play again anytime soon.

[Hot Heart]

Gave Frag a spin.

 

 

It's alright. Pretty simple, trashy game. Exactly what you'd expect from "Arena Shooter: The Board Game."

 

You "build" your guy's stats and then roll dice as you run around collecting weapons and gadgets, and shoot at people. Wound up a pretty tight game but then most of us were playing it fast and loose anyway. No use trying to apply much in the way of strategy or tactics, given how swingy dice rolls can be and how unpredictable the card play makes it; don't drag it out too long if you can help it. There are enough cool weapons, gadgets and special cards that you should have some fun moments. Mine was getting a cool combination that saw me hit someone with a 13 dice attack, wiping them out in one go.

 

And I played a solo game of Burgle Bros. today.

 

 

Really cool co-op game that packs a lot of game into such a small package. You play a team of burglars breaking into a building (represented by floors of 4x4 tiles), aiming to crack the safe on each floor and then escape via the roof.

 

Each player controls a character with a specific ability and then you have 4 actions a turn. This could involve "peeking at" (revealing) an adjacent tile or moving, but there are also tile-specific things like hacking or safe-cracking. The real trouble is that each floor has a guard who patrols it; which is done via a deck of cards showing a part of the grid and a die used to track his speed. The knack to beating the game is being able to "manage" their movement so as not to get caught (sometimes by deliberately tripping alarms to divert them). Since only the guard on that player's floor will move at the end of their turn, there's a dire need to split up the team as well (exhausting the patrol card deck bumps up the speed by one). Getting caught by a guard costs a "stealth token" (life) and you only have 3; if anyone loses all 3, that's game over.

 

So, you're moving around, encountering all sorts of different tiles that throw spanners in the works (that second floor in the picture above completely fucked me with all the deadbolt and keypad tiles) and hunting for a safe. However, finding the safe isn't enough; you'll need to crack it by using actions to add dice to the tile and then roll the combination. "How would I know the combination?" you ask. Ah, see, here's another clever part. The combination for a safe consists of the numbers in the bottom-right of all tiles in the same row and column as the safe, .i.e. 6 numbers, but not necessarily 6 unique ones. So, as well as avoiding the guards, you'll have to reveal those tiles. You can start "cracking" the safe without having uncovered them all, but if you'd already rolled that number, it won't count retroactively.

 

And that's it in a nutshell. There are a bunch of extra wrinkles like tools, loot cards (a KS bonus variant that gives identities and extra mechanics to the stuff you boost from the safes, i.e. more plates to spin) and a "lost visual" card to put in the guard's patrol decks. I only played the two-floor intro scenario (normal is 3) and that was tough enough. I can imagine a three-floor one would be a real tense affair, given that each time a safe is cracked, it then boosts the speed of that floor's guard and any below.

 

I can see a ton of replayability and some scope for tweaking the difficulty, plus it's really easy to teach and sits in a nice sort of middleweight space as a co-op game. Plus, it's real pretty.

 

And I just had a readthrough of Paperback.

 

 

A blend of Scrabble (or any word game) and deckbuilding mechanics. The idea of the theme is that you are a writer looking to find fame via publishing your work and so it sort of ties in loosely. I just liked the mechanical concept itself.

 

You start with some basic letters and wild cards, then use them to spell out words in order to score more money to purchase more valuable cards with other letters and abilities. The rest is somewhat standard deckbuilding fare, except I really like the "common card" mechanic. This is simply a face-up card that anyone may use during their turn, enabling them an extra free letter, or a space so they can make two words, or to reverse a double-letter card. There is a stack of four, and when a player reaches a 7-letter word, they can opt to take that card for themselves, which then reveals a new one beneath that can only be taken after an 8-letter word. You can guess the next one, and then the final one ends the game.

 

On top of that, there are some fun little variants like player powers, awards and thematic bonuses. While not an official variant, I think it might be fun to get everyone to write down every word they spell during the game and then award bonus points to the player who can make the most comprehensible sentence(s) out of them at the end.

[deanb]

I haven't played a boardgame in so long.

 

Frag seems kinda neat.

[Hot Heart]

Yeah, it's a pretty easy pick up and play kinda game; the lightest of "tactical" miniature games in a sense. From Steve Jackson games (Munchkin) so you get an idea of what to expect. Robert Florence piqued my interest with it here, and with lucky timing, I found a decent set on eBay.

 

Speaking of lucky timing, I found an auction for Legendary Villains (although, I know you said that's your least favourite, Dean) due to end the next day, put in a fairly low bid all things considered, it went unchallenged and I won. Even says "Used" but the photos are of a box with the shrink-wrap still on it. Guess I'll see on that though...

 

In other news, managed to get some people who'd never played tabletop games since childhood into them last night.

 

Started with Colt Express, which was a riot. That's always a good game for introducing new players, I find. Not too simplistic but not overly complex, and part of the fun is the chaos that ensues. Plus, 3D train.

 

Then we played Assassin's Creed: Arena, which they really enjoyed as well. There was a good mixture of event timings and animus glitches that made for a tight game and there was some actual smart tactical play going on as well.

 

They're eager to try all sorts of games now. They're interested in Firefly, and I love that but... maaaaan, that's gonna be a tough one to teach. Gonna have to pare it right back to basics again.

[TheMightyEthan]

My sister got me Pandemic Legacy for Christmas.  Of our group (me, my wife, my two sisters and my wife's brother) my wife and I were the only ones who'd ever played Pandemic before, and we'd only played once, so we ran a couple non-Legacy games yesterday afternoon to familiarize ourselves before we start the Legacy campaign.  Lost the first one, won the second, but both were insanely close.  The first game we would have won on the next player's turn, but at the end of my turn (I was right before the player with the cards to cure the final disease) we got an unlucky draw that caused two outbreaks, the second of which put us over the edge.  The second game was equally close, but the other way: at the point that we cured the final disease there were at least 4 different hotspots in the world that would have put us over the edge if any of them had been drawn.

 

All in all a fun evening.  Wish I'd taken pictures.  One thing I especially liked about it was that even though it's technically a max of 4 players it's really easy to play as teams, since it's a cooperative game and 90% of the "play" isn't actually making your move but discussing with everyone else what you should do.  I think we're going to do a couple more practice games next weekend and then start the campaign. 

[Hot Heart]

Haven't been playing many new boardgames recently (been really enjoying Pathfinder sessions) but there have been a few, so I figure it's worth an update.

 

Crazy Coconuts (or just "Coconuts" depending on your region)

 

I mentioned this in the Games You've Bought thread because I've grabbed my own copy.

 

You have a set of cups in the middle. Everyone takes turns firing a coconut, claiming any cup in which the projectile lands (and stays). Red cups mean you get an extra shot. You win by building a pyramid of 6 cups out of those you've claimed (you can win them off other players, so there's a "catch-up" mechanic). Alternatively, if all 32 coconuts have been used up (possible with the aforementioned back and forward of "cup-stealing"), then the player with the most coconuts in the cups on their board wins. There are also cards you can play which make players take shots blind or just miss a turn, but I don't think they're really needed.

 

Fun, simple game that should amuse almost anyone.

 

Codenames

 

A sort of party game where you split into teams (red and blue), with each having a "spymaster" The theme of the game is that the spymaster must help their fellow agents identify some codenamed agents on a grid of words (the codenames, presumably?)

 

It is a 5x5 grid that looks something like this.

 

These are all randomly dealt from a stack of all sorts of words (plus, they're double-sided so can just flip after one game). The spymasters will have a "key" in front of them, which basically determines which bits of the grid are blue agents, red agents, bystanders or the assassin. It's up to the spymasters to help their team find the right words on the grid by giving them one word clues and then a number (indicating how many words the clue might link).

 

For example, if they related to all the same colour, that spymaster could try and link "smuggler" "thief" and "racket" by saying "Criminals 3". Their team would then point to words, one-by-one, being allowed to guess 1 more than the number given (useful for when the team might have played safe and passed earlier, or just missed an earlier clue that now makes sense with more of the grid scored).

 

In this example, it might just so happen that the team points to "smuggler" and then thinks, "Criminals might use poison. That's not too much of a stretch, right?" This is when the spymaster has to keep a blank expression despite their brain fighting to say, "No! That's the assassin! AAAAARRRRGGH!"

 

See, if the team points to a bystander or a rival agent, their turn ends; nothing more (although, unmasking a rival agent is pretty bad). However, if a team points to the assassin, this one deadly thing in that 5x5 grid, then that team instantly loses. So, not only are you as spymaster trying to think of clever ways to link up your team's words, you have to be mindful of that one word which you could accidentally hint at.

 

And if you're not the spymaster, you've still got to be paying attention to the other team's clues which might help narrow down what your own spymaster is telling you.

 

It's a really smart and simple game that gets you thinking about how other people's minds might work, and you get these great moments as a spymaster when you pull off a 3+ combo.

 

 

In other spy-related party games, had a go at Spyfall with a visiting friend, which can be played on smartphones via this site: http://spyfall.meteor.com/

 

Honestly, though, it's probably my least favourite of the social deduction/party games.

 

Among the group, there will be a shared location and then each player will have different roles related to there. One player, however, will be the spy who has no idea where they are. The spy's job is to figure out the location (from a list of about 25 possible ones like church, hospital, school, submarine, arctic research base, etc.) while everyone else is trying to catch the spy. Gameplay progresses as simply posing questions to other players; which is itself kind of neat, because the spy knows fuck all, while the others want to identify each other but don't want to give too much away in the process.

 

First game, I was the spy and it was a fucking daunting task. I sort of fumbled through it and got lucky with some answers. Someone asked, "How old are we?" and I shrugged, "Not very". As it would turn out, the location was "A WWII Squad".

 

Funniest bit was when I'd started getting inklings of what it might be and asked someone how they got "here" and they said, "Uh, a motorised vehicle" so when I was asked what I had on me, I just hazarded a guess at, "I've just got a bag of equipment." "Just generic equipment?" "Yes." I was kind of playing it off as being someone who knew where they were without giving too much away to the spy.

 

I probably waited too long before making a guess, but I had concrete information with "What are you doing for Christmas?" "Probably seeking a truce" moments before someone wanted to call a vote, so I just blurted out, "Well, we're in a World War Two Squad."

 

I suppose once you get the hang of it, you'll get a little more creative with your questions and answers, but I'm not hankering to play it again.

 

...and on the subject of deduction games, gave Entropy a whirl.

 

 

A KS game I got for something like £15.

 

Each player has a "reality" which is made up of 4 cards (known as "fragments") that form a tableau, these are all shuffled into a main stack along with 3 wild fragments. The aim is to claim and reveal all four of your own fragments. This is done by going through rounds of playing an action card that has a resolving order on it; any numbers that clash don't get to resolve.

 

These actions will see you drawing cards from the stack, taking them from the discard or another player, revealing (and therefore "locking") one of your own fragments, etc. There's a catch-up mechanic for if you clash too much in a round (4 actions = 1 round) but the way it works can be a bit too random in higher player counts. Each player has a unique "1" priority action too, which can make for some interesting twitsts.

 

Basically, you're trying to identify where your fragments are (in the stack or face-down in front of another player) and get them in front of you and face-up as quickly as possible. Because your actions can be blocked, there is an element of figuring out what others are likely to do or spend an action to claim the "anchor" token which allows a one-time-use override where your next clashed action still gets to resolve.

 

I think it might work better with 3-4 players and is an okay-ish filler. The artwork is really nice though.

[CorgiShinobi]

So while I was on the search for a new dry cleaners (last one sucked), I happened to notice there was a gaming shop not too far from the place. Board, card, and those collectible figure types of gaming. Seems like a pretty good place, but I'm not really one for board games because they tend to require a group and I don't typically have company over.

 

But, say if I were to do so, what kind of board games would ya'll recommend? I only have one that I got a few years ago: King of Tokyo. Real fun game and can be played with 4-6 people. I don't imagine myself ever getting into the collectible and/or painted figure scene, but if it was part of a standalone game it might be interesting.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Maybe they play games in the store, or organise/advertise a regular night somewhere local? The old Games Workshop by us used to do that and my brother went along to those many moons ago. Of course that would also depend on how keen you are playing with strangers though you'd get to play a wider variety of games, I'd imagine.

[deanb]

There's King of New York out now too.

 

But generally some starter games are Monopoly, Cluedo, Catan and the like.

 

On a more serious note, there's plenty of smaller cheaper games to start with. Munchkin isn't for everyone but it's a good starter game. Likes of Coup are pretty nifty for small groups. I've found Saboteur to be a good starter game and scales really well from 3 to ..I think 12, if you have the Saboteur 2 expansion.

 

TFG has the good idea though, most will have either regularly scheduled gaming nights, or infrequently scheduled demo days. If they have neither it's always something you could suggest, it's a good way for them to get in more folk gaming n get some pennies.

 

Here's a bunch of board games I've played with relevant forum link to my write up:

http://imgur.com/a/y50vJ#0

 

Oh Betrayal is maybe a tad pricey to pick up at times, but it's also pretty great. Some occasionally fucked up broken outcomes, but otherwise it's quite neat and the horror story tropes are a theme everyone should be somewhat familiar with. XCOM is cool, though frantic and good if you have gaming friends. Epic Spell Wars is also kinda small, simple and super fun too. Breaks friendships though, but it's all tactical.

[Hot Heart]

So while I was on the search for a new dry cleaners (last one sucked), I happened to notice there was a gaming shop not too far from the place. Board, card, and those collectible figure types of gaming. Seems like a pretty good place, but I'm not really one for board games because they tend to require a group and I don't typically have company over.

 

But, say if I were to do so, what kind of board games would ya'll recommend? I only have one that I got a few years ago: King of Tokyo. Real fun game and can be played with 4-6 people. I don't imagine myself ever getting into the collectible and/or painted figure scene, but if it was part of a standalone game it might be interesting.

 

If you like King of Tokyo, you might also like Bang: The Dice Game or if you want something a bit more complex, with a civ-game/engine-building theme there is Roll for the Galaxy.

 

It's hard to recommend stuff because it really comes down to group dynamics and taste. There are so many different mechanics and themes these days.

 

Colt Express, I find, works with most people. Firstly, it's got straight up visual appeal in that it's a 3D goddamn train.

 

(Train track mat not included )

 

And the basic concept is an easy sell: you're a bunch of bandits who've jumped on a train to try and grab as much loot as you can. The game takes place over a number of rounds where you "program" actions by taking it in turns playing cards into a stack that then gets flipped over at the end and resolves in that order. So, for example, you might have planned on jumping into the next carriage and grabbing a diamond lying there... except the person there played a "punch" action, making you drop some of your own loot and get pushed back into your original carriage... except someone in there got punched since, so your "grab loot" action resolves there instead and you snatch up their dropped loot. You can also shoot people or move the marshall to mess up their day.

 

It's easy to grasp and there's laughs to be had when people's carefully laid plans get completely ruined and shots or punches end up going towards unintended targets as mentioned above.

 

Dead of Winter is quite popular in the gaming community as well. It's a heavily thematic game about surviving a zombie apocalypse in a harsh winter climate, with the emphasis more on the human element of tense alliances and potential betrayals. The rules are a little more complex than other games of that ilk, but it creates an immersive atmosphere and if you're a fan of the "story" element of how a game transpires then it should be for you.

 

Here's an amusing review:

 

Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game is a popular example of the "deck-building" mechanic first found in Dominion (zzzzzz) whereby you have cards that provide currencies (attack and recruit, in this case) which get cycled through in different hands. With those cards you then acquire more powerful cards, and try to eliminate weaker cards, so you build a more efficient deck since the better cards will cycle round more often.

 

With Legendary it has some twists on the genre in that there is an overall mastermind and plot, with different combinations altering your priorities from game to game. There's also a deck of villains and henchmen who stomp across the city (who need fighting) and the central "market" is a hero HQ made up of certain heroes you choose beforehand (for recruiting). Different heroes will complement each other in various ways and the (semi-)cooperative nature means you coordinate with who gets what, who fights what or whether it's worth letting a villain escape. It's fairly easy and quick to play once you've got the set up sorted (there are a lot of cards).

 

If you're into miniatures games then there are very popular and high quality D&D-a-like things like Descent and Star Wars: Imperial Assault or other ones I hear mixed things about like Arcadia Quest and Zombicide.

 

I'll stop there, and like others have said, it might be worth seeking out local groups if you're interested in trying games. Otherwise, many people have gotten into the hobby via Wil Wheaton's TableTop show in which he gets together celebrities to play all sorts of games. Because of the nature of it, they have to play things that aren't too complex and, therefore, are accessible to newcomers.

 

Here's some people playing Libertalia, which is a game I've seen played and looks pretty interesting (I have Dogs of War by the same designer, which is really good).

Edited January 24, 2016 by Hot Heart

[SomTervo]

Girlfriend got me Dead of Winter for Xmas. Look forward to a wee sesh on that, hopefully this weekend.

 

Also got Cursed: Escape from the Temple. Hadn't played it before. Really good 10 minute game, tbh. You're almost totally at the whim of the die and it's tiringly fast-paced, but if you're up for a frantic, shouty laugh, it's great.

[deanb]

Dead of Winter is pretty sweet.

[Hot Heart]

The day after saying I hadn't played much new, I played a couple of new (to me) games and then some more the other day.

 

First up, Planet Steam

 

An economic Steampunk-y game. Yay, my favourite.

 

That said, once we got into it and had all the rules explained... as we went. I can't say it's any better or worse than Power Grid or Black Gold. Even if I don't particularly like a game, I'll try and play to the best of my ability rather than be the grumpy jerk who's ruining it for everyone.

 

Basically, you build "tanks" (generators would make more sense, since they're not for storing stuff) on those city spaces and then upgrade them and power them to generate resources like water, ore, quartz and power. With these you can then further upgrade things like carrying capacity (in blimps... which are you storage things) and manipulate the market with what you buy/sell. There is also some element with bidding for the different roles each round, which also governs turn order. Winner is the one with the most money after four rounds.

 

And I almost won as well. If I'd known a building licence I'd received from an auction could be used on the white "blocked off" spaces I would've been $10 richer and won by $4 (you either take $15 then or get a space worth $25 at the end).

 

Anyway, it takes a good while to set up and play and everyone else was kind of bored by it. You... might like it?

 

Next, we tried A Study In Emerald (Second Edition).

 

The first edition (no longer in print) is one of my favourite games, and one I reviewed for the site. Problem is, it takes a good while to play and even longer if you have to explan it each time because you haven't played it in months. This one was meant to simplify things and play much quicker, so I was keen to give it a try.

 

After everyone complained about not knowing certain vital rules in Planet Steam, I wanted to go over each possible action to cover all the little queries that can arise (something still present in this edition). Everyone started getting fed up, so we moved things along (and then they later got annoyed when they missed a crucial bit of information that I had told them. You can't win).

 

This version is certainly quicker but it also loses a lot of what makes the original great. The secret allegiances, bidding wars and assassinations are still there, but everything zips along at breakneck pace. The biggest problem I can see is that city cards are too powerful because they can no longer be taken back; you win one and then you have a whole heap of points that you can never lose with far less preparation or risk than assassinating royalty. Of course, with experience, people will recognise this and the bidding will probably become more competitive, but I always liked that element as a sneaky area-control side part of the game rather than an attention-grabbing event. Also, things like zombies barely got a look in because things ended so fast; the game end trigger this time was reaching a point score, which I've never before witnessed.

 

Worth trying again sometime though.

 

Pairs (Goddesses of Cuisine)

 

A filler card game in which there is one loser rather than winner (although, you can play it over rounds, I guess).

 

You take turns drawing cards from a deck or passing and taking the lowest number card on the table. People keep going until someone draws a pair, which then scores them that many points and keeping one of those cards out of the deck. The aim is not to reach/exceed the score threshold based on how many players than are, so you're essentially pressing your luck and weighing up the odds (there is 1 card of value 1, 2 of value 2, etc.) Only real problem is that, because the score threshold is so low, it's really easy to get screwed over if you're dealt high numbers earlier on; you either pass and take a lower number card (which could be at least 1/4 of the score threshold) or take your chances.

 

So, yeah, it's alright. The pictures are pretty.

 

Coup

 

Someone in our group who strongly dislikes games with an element of social deduction and bluffing bought this. Really surprised by that.

 

Anyway, I knew about this game and had played it at a games event over a year ago. Except that was 3-player and it sucked.

 

Fortunately, with 5 it is a lot better.

 

Each person is dealt, face-down, two cards from the deck of 15 (three of each of the five powerful people) which bestow certain actions that can be taken legitimately since that player has an "in" with that member of the upper echelon of Coup's society. The aim is to be the last player with remaining influence (at least one of your cards face-down).

 

On your turn, you can actually take any of the actions in the game. It's up to the others to suss out whether you really have the card that enables you to do so and decide that they might challenge you. There are all sorts of interactions with challenging people and how they have to reveal and then shuffle and draw a new card (which means they might get the same card back) so I won't go into that.

 

Anyway, it's a really tight design since the money element helps speed the game towards and end (7 coins means automatic influence loss for a player of your choice) but also introduces a press your luck (bluff) element. And you can go with different "playstyles". I won the first game by playing completely honestly and letting the others tie themselves up in knots; the second game was won by someone who kept drawing so much money unchallenged despite not possessing that card. At five players, you've got enough cards out among the players that it's slightly easier to deduce who might have what, and turns don't go on too long.

 

Fun game.

 

We finished with a couple of rounds of One Night Ultimate Werewolf (which the Coup-owner sat out). The first game, we all lost because, post-Coup, we didn't trust each other that no one was a werewolf. The second game was another one of those instances where I get a cool power like Seer and discover some vital information (one werewolf in the central three and the troublemaker) only to have that fucked up by some Robber shenanigans that were too hard to detect (where one person was the werewolf and doesn't realise they no longer are).

 

 

[deanb]

I too have being playing some board games.

 

First up:

Tsuro

 

You each have 3 tiles (pick up new tile at end of turn) and you start at an edge of the border (not super clear but there's little white "pegs" along the side of the grid) and place down tiles each turn to move your piece (mine is the golden one up near top, I lost this round) along a path, while trying to divert someone else off the edge. Got to make sure that you don't stick yourself in tight spot, so it's sort of trying to unravel all the paths in your mind while place each tile. Start of game it's fairly safe, but a couple turns around and the board is soon super complicated. It's pretty neat game and over fairly quickly. Might pick up a copy for myself (assuming we don't have it, have gained so many boardgames since I last properly delved in).

 

Next up we played Funemployed

 

In this game it's essentially Cards Against Humanity, with a wee story telling twist to it. Each turn someone takes a job advert out, and you use your four cards (which you can briefly trade with those in the middle) to go to the "interview" and explain, using your cards, why you should get the job. Here I was going for the position of "School Nurse": I was in the top 1% of my class at school nursing school, I've a utility belt full of helpful cures n remedies for anything that may happen, be it a scrape or the school pyromaniac, I'll sit them down on a stool and find out what's wrong soon enough!

The game ends when someone draws the "My Job" card, they say what their job is and everyone else interviews for it. 

It's a more SFW themed version of CAH. Neat, though not overly compelling and tbh the Job Adverts list seems fairly short so you'd soon run out of roles.

 

Codenames

So for this one what we did is scroll up and read Hot Hearts description. I was one of the first Spymasters and housemate (owned the game) was the other sides. He went first. "Drinks 4". Turns out that a lot of mine were also drink related. Sure made it fun for the rest of the game. I will say it gets a bit harder if one of your team mates has...I don't know but sort of dyslexia related. Reminds me a bit of some of the word games we used to play in English lessons (we used to play Taboo, Just a Minute n similar). I managed to stupidly jab one of the pieces while guessing, was the Assassin right out of the gate.

 

Zombicide: Black Plagues

A medieval/LotR themed version of Zombicide. Need I say more? One of my favourite tweaks to this though is that there's new card holders which I wish more games would come with. The main major change is that this is a necromantic curse, so occasionally a Necromancer appears (bottom corner there's a all black, slightly billowing cape figure (housemate is in process of painting the models) which'll add a new spawn point, which if it can reach another spawn point will become permanent so there's a rush to kill him. My wee annoyance, since I know from regular Zombicide it's an expansion heavy game, is that there's no weapons in-game capable of taking on an Abomnination, you need to find "Dragon Bile" and a "Torch" instead to coat it and set it alight. But no doubt future expansions will include a "Heavy Crossbow" or something along those lines).

 

And finally we wrapped up with Secret Hitler

This is a PnP copy my housemate got, which you can't tell cos it's black n white is actually done on quite nice card. If you've played Resistance/Avalon then this is very much that kind of game. One of you is hitler, some of you are Fascists and the rest are all Liberals. Your aim is to either get Hitler into power as Chancellor or to pass all your Liberal laws depending on side. The Fascist track is kind of neat cos it can have either half swapped out to change early n end game play with different powers granted as progresses (the symbol you can see up next is the power to kill another player (so if you're a Liberal you can use that to kill Hitler, or a fascist to kill a Liberal)). For the most part though we're joking about being Merlin n Lancelot n such cos yeah it plays so close to it, with the whole voting on a team (we had two guys we called "team incompetent" cos one of them as Chancellor managed to bing a Liberal card, the last one to win, and put down a Fascist card cos he'd not realised we were one off winning). There's more Fascist that Liberal "laws" so there's many a time where a Liberal will have to put down a fascist law. I was bummed that in like 5 games of it I was a Liberal every time.

Oh cos of complaints about using "Hitler" despite the fact it actually being pretty spot on thematically and not just for shits n giggles, the creators have put out a slight tweak: Secret Santa and Secret Trump.

 

 

 

@HH: Coup is neat, we actually seem to have a rather large box of Coup appeared on the shelf so I'm not sure what that is. I kinda hate bluff games like that myself, though I usually do alright mainly through not bluffing and instead having the cards I'm claiming to have (being Duke a lot helps).

 

Spyfall I've only played the once (and was brought up while playing Codenames) and I didn't really enjoy it much, mainly cos of a heated argument (well, as much as one gets with boardgamers) over if the Sainsburies outside, which is only a small one, counted as a "supermarket" or not (I'd said something implying no, which got the "he's a spy" target on me)

 

Anywho, hopefully I shall be more active in this thread in coming months, and as always my photos n such are here: 

http://imgur.com/a/y50vJ/layout/undefined#0

[Hot Heart]

Just sharing this because I am a huge fan of TMNT, so this has got me pretty excited.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/idwgames/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-shadows-of-the-past-b

 

It's a really cool-looking little skirmish game with a smart dice-sharing system. Basically, you have action dice that determine your available actions and/or the "power" of them and because the turtles are individuals that work like a team, each has their own custom dice but they share their outermost dice with their neighbours. So the player to your left shares your left-most die, and you share their right-most while the player to your right shares your right-most die while you share their left-most one.

 

The actual game itself reminds me a little of Sentinel Tactics but I think the overall design is better and far more adaptable (it's from the original designer of Descent, who loves TMNT and asked to do this project).

Edited February 11, 2016 by Hot Heart

[deanb]

Only a couple new games this week, started the session playing Saboteur but had new folks join in as was setting up and only stopped once we'd squeezed like a can of sardines around a round table. Most folks were totally new to Saboteur as well so kinda dragged out for that.

 

So the games I did get to play was:

 

Flick Em Up

I died early on (that's me in between the cacti, cos I flicked my piece a bit too hard near the start, all my other outlaws stayed back. Also it's harder than it'd sound to flick without using a thumb (especially in attempting to not hit cacti)

Also since I know Hot Heart has picked this up I'll let him do the fuller review of sorts.

 

 

Trickerion was up next. This one is relatively new and a friend had it so I reserved a spot to give it a spin and see if I'd want to add it to the collection. Probably not gonna happen. It was an alright game but extremely fiddly.

 

The general premise is you're all magicians trying to earn fame and fortune. I was the Illusionist; The Gentleman. You build up spells, buy materials to prepare your tricks, then go to theatre to perform, earning you fame and fortune which you use to buy better spells, better materials and you get the idea. It's worker placement stuff, you move your dudes around Downtown (for new spells, money from the bank and hiring help...oh yeah you get managers, apprentices, stage hands, etc), to the market for parts, the Dark Alley for...err stuff and the Theatre where you show your spells off.

It was all rather quite complex tbh, there was some bits and bobs I wasn't clear on and barely scrapped a second to last, with the first two place positions being well ahead (and both of them having played before).