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Topic: The Boardgame Thread (Read 593281 times)
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jgsugden
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Posts: 3888
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Pandemic Legacy Season 2: October 26.
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2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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eldaec
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Posts: 11843
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Review summary : It is good.
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"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson "Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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jgsugden
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Posts: 3888
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Review summary : It is good.
Yes, Pandemic Legacy Season 2, so far, seems to be a worthy successor to Season 1. We're just 2 games in, both successful missions, but we can already feel how the game is going to twist and change in cool and interesting ways. I nearly tackled the guy that had to leave which prevented us from playing more sessions on Friday night...
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2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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ghost
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Jump Drive is worth buying, even if you have Race for the Galaxy. It plays quicker and is easier to play with people who have a hard time with the iconography. Kingdomino is really great fun. We've gotten a lot of mileage out of this one already. And it plays well with grownups and kids. Onitama is okay. I would say a bit overrated from the glowing reviews I've read of it, but I'm not a giant fan of chess, and this one feels like chess to me. My worry for the chess crowd is that it's too simplistic. It's good for me in that it is very quick and I feel like chess can drag out sometimes. Fearsome Floors is a good one (and I haven't been a huge fan of Friedeman's work). The family had a lot of laughs over people getting eaten by the monsters. I would definitely recommend it to people who like light games, but it may not be what the serious crowd is looking for.
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lamaros
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Posts: 8021
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Time of Crisis is likely game of the year for me and up in to my top 10.
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jgsugden
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Posts: 3888
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... Kingdomino is really great fun. We've gotten a lot of mileage out of this one already. And it plays well with grownups and kids. ... Queendomino, which is the same game with some addEd phases to the game to suit more serious gamers, is now out. It is a great filler game to kill 30 minutes with just enough more meat on it to keep serious gamers happy.
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2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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Sky
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Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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I've got KDM set up on the kitchen table, first 1.5 edition game. Excited.
Was going to be a studio night, but I figure I'll get no focus while the rugrats come knocking tonight. And what better game than KDM for the occasion?
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Stewie
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Posts: 439
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So I picked up Clank in Space last week as my local store was out of The Gallerist :( and i had a giftcard from my birthday burning a hole in my pocket.
We really enjoyed it. Dominion meets a race board game. Basically you are deck building similar to Dominion in order to play cards that let you move through a ship to collect an artifact and get out before the big baddie gets you. As you go through you and your opponents all create "Clank" (small coloured cubes) These represent you doing things that draw attention to yourself and from time to time they get thrown in a bag and x number get pulled out. Each one of yours that is pulled represents damage. As the game proceeds more and more clank is pulled from the bag putting you under pressure to get out soon.
If you like Dominion, I'd strongly recommend giving this a try. Also the board is modular so it can be laid out slightly differently each time to add to reputability.
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Professional Forum Lurker.
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ghost
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The more deck builders I play, the more I just want to play Dominion. Yeah, it's bland, but I think it's so well done. I have found that I don't particularly care for the "lineup" deck builders and more prefer the separate pile types. There's just so much randomness in the central line of cards.
That being said, I do like Star Realms pretty well. It's cheap, quick to play and avoids the whack-a-mole effect of Ascension, which I pretty much loathe, at this point.
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lamaros
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Posts: 8021
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Time of Crisis is the only deck builder I've liked.
Free choice rather than card draw makes a much more strategic game in and deck builder + board situation for my view.
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eldaec
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Posts: 11843
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Clank irritated me.
It felt like a mediocre push your luck game tacked on to a mediocre deckbuilder. I'd rather play a good version of each separately. But most of the world disagrees with me.
My favourite deck builders fwiw are Valley of the Kings and Arctic Scavengers.
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"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson "Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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Stewie
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Posts: 439
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I haven't played the original Clank but I heard that Clank in Space fixed some issues and added a bit more depth.
Ever since one of our group got Trains (dominion type deck builder with a gameboard) I have not bothered to bust out my Dominion. I think Clank in Space will probably just make it even less likely that I bring out Dominion.
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Professional Forum Lurker.
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Goldenmean
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Clank in Space improved a lot of things about Clank, most notably that it takes more effort to get *any* of the artifacts you need, so you can't end the game as early as you could in Clank. It also added modular boards and some more nuance to the deck building portion. It's a big improvement, but it's not going to change the mind of anyone who hated Clank.
I think my favorite "deck builders" are all other games that happen to have deck building as a component, rather than the entire thrust of the game. Great Western Trail, Mage Knight, Orleans and Hyperborea (if we're counting bag builders). Trains is probably the closest to a deck builder of this group as it is just straight up Dominion with a board component.
If I were limited to entirely card based deckbuilders, I'd say my favorite is probably Aeon's End, which is a cooperative deck building game that plays like Dominion meets Sentinels of the Multiverse, with a lot less randomness. You never actually shuffle your discard pile. When you get to the end of your deck, you just flip over your discard pile and go from there. It makes properly planning the order in which you buy things a big part of the strategy, plus who likes constantly shuffling a small deck?
Oh, or Puzzle Strike. It's a bag builder with chips instead of cards, but it's a great 2 player game with a lot of layers (typical of Sirlin stuff)
Valley of the Kings is pretty high up there also. Dominion is pretty far down the list, and Ascension is well beneath that. I feel that central deck deckbuilders like Ascension and Legendary are inferior forms of the mechanic.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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sirlin makes bad games
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Soln
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Posts: 4737
the opportunity for evil is just delicious
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FWIW, and speaking of deck builders, Martin Wallace has a new game out. It's the last he will (self) publish via Tree Frog. A Handful of Stars is the final game in an unintended trilogy. It is a space themed game that builds on the concepts and mechanisms first seen in A Few Acres of Snow, then developed in Mythotopia. Rather than bore you by going into lots of detail about the game, the rules are posted on this site so that you can download them. If you have played either of the two former games then much of what you will find here will be familiar.
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Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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Gloomhaven arrived, holy crap that's a big box o stuff. I also snagged the removable stickers to be able to reset the legacy-ness of it.
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lamaros
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8021
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FWIW, and speaking of deck builders, Martin Wallace has a new game out. It's the last he will (self) publish via Tree Frog. A Handful of Stars is the final game in an unintended trilogy. It is a space themed game that builds on the concepts and mechanisms first seen in A Few Acres of Snow, then developed in Mythotopia. Rather than bore you by going into lots of detail about the game, the rules are posted on this site so that you can download them. If you have played either of the two former games then much of what you will find here will be familiar. Mythotopia was so beige. Just so very boring.
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Arinon
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Posts: 312
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Gloomhaven arrived, holy crap that's a big box o stuff. I also snagged the removable stickers to be able to reset the legacy-ness of it.
Mine shows up next week. Didn't jump on the removable stickers until too late. Now they seem to be hard to get a hold of. I'm hoping the non-resetable legacy aspects are easy to keep track of without stickers as I don't feel like waiting around.
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eldaec
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Posts: 11843
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It takes a really long time to get gloomhaven to a place where resetting the campaign is a thing.
I mean a *really* long time.
I doubt more than 5% of those reset kits will ever get used, and the proportion of games that genuinely get played through twice will be even tinier.
You don't need the stickers.
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"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson "Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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guess i'm buying handful of stars
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Samwise
Moderator
Posts: 19227
sentient yeast infection
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I just looked up Gloomhaven and it sounds neat. Has anyone here played it?
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"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
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Goldenmean
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Posts: 844
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I just looked up Gloomhaven and it sounds neat. Has anyone here played it?
Extensively. I posted a lot of long winded ranting about it at the beginning of the year: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=20113.msg1452362#msg1452362It's since been bumped out of what I thought was a lock for Game of the Year/decade by Spirit Island, but it's still an amazing game.
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Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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Thumbing through the manual I'm excited to play it, but I have the table set up for KDM. And I end up spending any gaming time playing Madden...
Still want to romp through some more Massive Darkness, it's got a nice light gameplay I enjoy a bit more than Zombicide (assuming you have the KS freebies for variety). Bummed they aren't releasing the elemental pack at retail. The minis sucked but I wish they'd just release the cards and I'd proxy in the minis.
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Samwise
Moderator
Posts: 19227
sentient yeast infection
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I just looked up Gloomhaven and it sounds neat. Has anyone here played it?
Extensively. I posted a lot of long winded ranting about it at the beginning of the year: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=20113.msg1452362#msg1452362It's since been bumped out of what I thought was a lock for Game of the Year/decade by Spirit Island, but it's still an amazing game. Ah, thank you! I wish my old gaming group wasn't all living in different cities now -- this sounds like it'd be a great low-effort (as in no DM/prep needed) alternative to getting together for D&D.
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"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
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Ruvaldt
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Posts: 2398
Goat Variations
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It's possible to play it solo, as long as you don't mind that kind of thing. As solo games go it's quite good.
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"For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can." - Ernest Hemingway
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Goldenmean
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Posts: 844
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It's possible to play it solo, as long as you don't mind that kind of thing. As solo games go it's quite good.
It's definitely possible to play solo. There's even a PDF of solo "challenge" scenarios that were designed to be played by one player playing one character, but those are meant to be the ultimate test of mastery for the various classes, and they're just side stories. They aren't really part of the overall campaign. For the campaign proper, you'll need to be playing as at least 2 characters, and will probably want to notch the difficulty level up a bit. Players aren't meant to have perfect information about what the other ones are doing, and a difficulty boost will help balance out the benefit you'll get by playing alone. But then, lots of people seem to think the default difficulty for Gloomhaven is too hard, so YMMV.
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eldaec
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Posts: 11843
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Also you don't need to commit to a solo campaign or a fixed group.
Works just fine if people drop in and out.
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"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson "Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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Soln
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4737
the opportunity for evil is just delicious
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Still waiting in SEA for my KS copy of a Gloomhaven. Checking KS it looks like the usual round of shitty logistics by shitty Fun Again Games.
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Ard
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Posts: 1887
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A friend of mine got his last week here, but mine is still awol also.
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jgsugden
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Posts: 3888
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« Last Edit: November 21, 2017, 07:23:06 PM by jgsugden »
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2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11843
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I'm about half way through pandemic legacy 2
This is a much heavier game than season 1. One april game we had a total of 4 turns each, so 8 in all, and it ran for an hour.
So far the biggest difference between 1 & 2 is that wheras 1 still primarily 12+ independent games of pandemic, this one is much more about balancing the need to make progress on campaign goals with game goals.
I think it would be much less interesting for players who drop in and out - you really want to commit to a group playthrough. Also I suspect the campaign snowballs if you get ahead or behind on your campaign goals. The balancing mechanisms aren't strong enough.
Fun though.
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"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson "Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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Edmund McMillen @edmundmcmillen
So @Danielleorama and I started our first campaign of Kingdom Death: Monster, holy shit what a ride, I’ve played nothing like it. One of our characters arms were ripped off and died in the first battle, another now lives gentaless with a prolapsed intestine.. highly recommend! Currently on Lantern Year 4 in my first 1.5 game, about to face the Butcher who I fully expect to live up to his name. (the quote is the Binding of Isaac/Super Meat Boy dude's tweet)
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Hoax
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Posts: 8110
l33t kiddie
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I'd love to get a game of KD:M in via TT sim with some of you guys who have played it. Game is too fun. I've got some experience with the early stuff, I've hunted the Lion, the Goat thing and the crazy scary baby once iirc but that was all a year+ ago and I've never been the guy who knows all the rules/ makes the big decisions. Its still fun. Great game too because people can drop in and out. A f13 game with a good write up would be awwwwwwwwwwesome
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A nation consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, then that individual is without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a nation. -William Gibson
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Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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It would be, but organization has never been our strong point and I've done those 4 lantern years ( = 4 play sessions) over the course of a few months, soo....
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Hoax
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8110
l33t kiddie
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That's the thing, with a big enough player pool you only really need one dedicated person who knows how to manage it in TT Sim and knows the rules. The other 3 players can be whoever is avail that night. I played two games through a small Blood Bowl discord server like that and it worked really well, then I was moving and didn't have net for weeks etc. and I just kinda lost track of it all.
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A nation consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, then that individual is without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a nation. -William Gibson
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