The Boardgame Thread

[schild]

I don't think anyone has because he just sent out that email about it.

[Sky]

I don't know how hip you kids are to the jive.

[Ruvaldt]

Speaking of Cave Evil:

[schild]

Ugh I need that

[eldaec]

http://netrunnerdb.com/web/app.php

Bummer.

Trash 1 fan site.
 End of story.
Site closed by order of Fantasy Flight Games.
FFG recommend you use CardGameDB.com.
FFG welcome suggestions on how to improve it.

This site is back up - I gather in defiance of evil corporate lawyers from FFG.

[MrHat]

Why do these games not print enough.

I wanted to go buy Dead of Winter since it looks fun for my group but out of stock everywhere.

I guess I can go into Barnes and Noble and have them search all the stores.

[Jeff Kelly]

We've played a lot of the Pathfinder Card game over the recent weeks.

I like it quite a lot but I'm also already pretty much fed up with it. While the basic rules are pretty tight they also limit replay value quite a lot. After the fifth setting or the second campaign it feels to 'samey' for me to enjoy it anymore.

We've also cracked open the second installment of 'Legends of Andor' yesterday, a game that's still great.

[Thrawn]

I wanted to go buy Dead of Winter since it looks fun for my group but out of stock everywhere.

This is the game I just came to ask about actually and see if anyone has tried it.  I'm a huge fan of traitor mechanic style games, but as soon as I saw it was sold out and hard to get I worry that it's another super hyped game with inflated ratings that actually sucks when you play it since that seems to be a trend lately.

[jgsugden]

I like Betrayal at House on the Hill as an abstract concept, but the enjoyment varies wildly ... I try to stay away from playing this. I've just had too many games that have stagnated in the haunt phase with everyone just sitting in one place making the exact same check every turn. With dozens of scenarios, they can't all be winners, but too many resolve down to just mindlessly sitting in some target room racing to get a certain number of passed stat checks.

My experience is different.  Only about 1 in 5 games has been a disappointment for me.  The other 4 have been fun.  This is one of those games that works best if people buy in and ham it up a bit.

[schild]

New Ascension expansion is a little... broken.

[Hawkbit]

The new Imperial Assault game looked cool, until I realized it's just a Descent skin.  I think.  I'm hoping someone tells me I'm wrong so I can justify a purchase.

In my quest for deckbuild games that my wife and kid can play, I bought a copy of Machi Koro that I hope they like.  How's the DC Comics deckbuild game?  My FLGS told me it's more approachable and easier to play than Dominion.  Which sounds great, because I really like Dominion but can't get past the theme.

Sadly they did not enjoy Kingsburg, so that sits on the shelf collecting dust with Smallworld, PACG and Munchkin.  

EDIT: DC deckbuilder vs. Marvel Legendary?

[Ghambit]

SW:IA is indeed a Descent 2.0 reskin (main difference is you cant path through an enemy figure in Descent, but can in SW).  Word is, if you've got Descent 1.0 (like me), it's a smart buy.  If you've got a pile of Descent 2.0, notsomuch... unless you plan on selling out or are a complete SW fanboy.

I plan on getting it after the holidays (I sold an old copy of Paranoia to afford it).  It's the perfect entry coop crawler for my less-than-geeky friends.

Other games creeping up the hotness scale:  that new marvel dicebuilder cardgame (they raved abt it at my FLGS; Dice Masters?) and Relic Knights (now that it's under full production).  Definitely give the latter a gander if you're into skirmish mini type games at all; malifaux, etc.

[ezrast]

DC is okay; it's a functional deckbuilder but nothing really sets it apart except theme. It's quick to learn though.

Legendary is kind of the converse in that it has way more mechanics than are necessary or beneficial but it's still playable once you figure out all the rules ambiguities. I found it dull, but that's partially because it doesn't scale well to 4-5 players - the game is mostly over by the time you get an interesting deck together.

Have you looked at Puzzle Strike? I'm a big fan but the mechanics break down slightly with more than 2 players there as well. It's still very playable with 3, you just tend to hit the game-over condition a little bit more quickly/arbitrarily than is ideal.

[eldaec]

Valley of the Kings has been very successful in my household as a simple family/gateway deck builder that won't ever require expansions to be bought. OTOH It plays itself out with a gamer crowd before too long.

[Hawkbit]

Valley of the Kings has been very successful in my household as a simple family/gateway deck builder that won't ever require expansions to be bought. OTOH It plays itself out with a gamer crowd before too long.

That game looks good.  I'll have to watch for a reprint, currently $65.00.  Thanks for the tip. 

I'm not so sure about Puzzle Strike, but the dicebuilder game looks interesting.  I might have to give that a try.

[Ghambit]

Be aware, Dicemasters requires a few extra packs to be interesting - so some say (I read 5 in a review).  The core sets do not offer up enough variety (unless you get the big box edition?).  The caveat is the packs are laughably cheap ($0.99).  So no biggie.

[MrHat]

Finally got Dead of Winter AND Twilight Struggle as Xmas gifts.

Dead of Winter is a sum of everything I like, plays intuitively and was easy to teach.  First game took us about 2 hours though since you have to kinda read all the item cards over and over again if you're a 57 year old Dad.  Dammit Dad just kill the last 2 zombies so we can reveal our secret agendas!  I really liked everything about this except: (1) the Box doesn't have proper places for everything and really needed it, at least Pathfinder had places to keep the cards separate, this just has baggies and (2) it gets a bit long waiting for your turn with 4+.

As for Twilight Struggle - this game is a fucking masterpiece except for again the Box doesn't have proper places for everything.  Not a big deal here as its just a pack of cards and two bags of chits.

[Rendakor]

I got Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan for Xmas, but haven't played either yet.

[Ghambit]

So I gave the DiceMasters Uncanny x-men a shot (was only $15).  Evidently it's simply the Quarriors system, but better with better theme.  The x-men version of the game also has more variants of each hero per card, a new "heroic" keyword (so heroes can team up), and a bunch of action card tweaks.

This is a great game; and if you love rolling dice (I do), it's a must-have.  Period.  I'm an X-Men whore so the purchase was obvious, but if you're into Avengers obviously go for that version instead.  The buy-in is not that expensive either, and singles can be had based on rarity ($1 for commons, to like $5 for rares; depending on your FLGS). You get more dice in the "mystery packs" per dollar, but of course you dont know what you're getting.

I recommend two starters so you can minimally play a full game; but for tourney style games you're gonne need a booster box on top of that.  Also buy the playmats if you're not into printing your own.  They're a must have.  There's  a handy carrying case thingie with nifty velvet bags also.

Caveats:  you need an active gaming group or nearby league to make it worth it.  It's not really a casual pickup game (unless you intend to just draft every game), though it's very easy to learn.

[lamaros]

Been getting in a few games of Railways of the World these past few days. Good fun game, and though not as cutthroat as Steam or Age of Steam is very good fun and does have a bit of grunt. Also far more likely not to send people running.

Fast becoming a favourite.

[eldaec]

More games I have played:

Panamax

Theme is shipping through the Panama canal, it presents itself as a heavy economic game, but is actually it is a fun chaotic euro with a largely pointless pseudo-18xx stocks & shares layer on top. The core mechanic is loading your cargo onto yours and other players ships, and then using your turns to place your ships strategically so that other players end up pushing them through the canals using their own resources, but also so you don't get caught with your stuff in the chokepoints at the end of a round, when you pay taxes according to where you are in the canal.

It is fun, but mis-sells itself as something it is not, and could be better with fewer mechanics.

Also, avoid playing unless you have the full 4 players, with any fewer there is too much space on the board and the best part of the game (traffic management) goes away.


Alchemists

Worker placement deduction game about wizards collecting ingredients, experimenting with potions, then selling potions and publishing theories about them. The worker placement is thematically and mechanically reminiscent of Dungeon Lords/Petz, but lighter and more forgiving than either. The deduction element is that you use the worker placement actions to figure out the alchemical composition of 8 potion ingredients (randomly determined by the companion app at the start of each game).

It is more interesting (but also more random) with 4 players than with 2, because the higher player count results in fewer actions per player and forces you to decide whose published theories you are going to trust - you will rarely have enough hard information to make the judgement deterministically.

I enjoyed figuring the game out, but after a few plays the degree of randomness that arises from your first couple of experiments, together with the relatively shallow worker placement, and the fact the whole game is pretty fiddly, all started to wear thin. I'd definitely recommend playing it a couple of times on someone else's copy, but not sure it is a must buy.


Mysterium

Dixit meets Cluedo. Players acting as ghosts use dixit-style art cards which represent dreams that teams of other players rely on to figure out the murder weapon/location/victim/murderer. Major christmas hit with the family, like Dixit the abstract and creative nature of the game helps non-gamers play with steely eyed veterans, but unlike Dixit only the 'ghost' players have to play cards which helps get new players up to speed - and team play means it generates even more table talk.

Probably limited replay value, and definitely needs you to tweak the rules here and there, but it more than earned its place on the shelf.


Sekigahara : The Unification of Japan

This is easily the best game I've come across in 2014, and for my money is a better 2 player direct-conflict game than Twilight Struggle. It describes itself as a low complexity 3 hour block warfare game. This dramatically undersells how intuitive the rules are for traditional gamers in place of wargamers, how thematically brilliant the game is at telling a reasonable story that matches the themes of the conflict, how replayable the game has been given only minor variation in starting conditions, and how goddamn awesome it looks on the table.

[Rendakor]

I played the Mage Knight boardgame (not the minis game) tonight; mixed feelings.

Cons:
Setup took forever. It was a first time so this will get better, but still.
Takes up a huge amount of space, and does not do so in an easily defined manner. It's not one huge board, it's a bunch of piles of random cards and tokens, etc.
Overly complex. See: schild's complaints about Endless Legend.

Pros:
Not a lot of RNG. It's sort of a deckbuilder so you've got the randomness inherent to card draw and that's mostly it.
Reasonably symmetrical sides to start. Each of the 4 heroes has one unique card, and (I think) one unique skill acquired on level up; otherwise they're identical.
I won. Always a plus.

Overall it feels like Ascension meets HeroScape, but somehow worse than both of them. We played the recommended new player scenario with 3 people, and over the course of the entire game I think we added a total of 6 cards to our decks between us. As we got to the higher level "areas" the battles mostly looked unwinnable, and I'm not sure how we were supposed to level up to the point that we could take multiple monsters. Fortunately I guess, the game was over before that really became a problem and it feels like we spent more time setting up than playing. I'll give it another shot now that we have a grasp of the rules, and see if another scenario makes it a little more interesting but otherwise I wasn't really impressed.

[schild]

I *hated* Mage Knight.

[Shannow]

Sekigahara looks dead sexy. Going on the birthday list.

[Rendakor]

I *hated* Mage Knight.

Care to elaborate?

[Ghambit]

I think the issue with Mage Knight is that it's over-produced.  Victory conditions are typically met well before the game even starts to flesh out (as Rendakor kinda alluded to).  Since there's a million and one choices in multiple modes of gameplay, you rarely have any time to truly explore the game also.  E.g. one must house-rule the game likely.

I never bought it because of that particular complaint, but it still looks like a good game.

[Ragnoros]

Got a bunch of games over the holidays.

Machi Koro: Think catan crossed with dominion, but not really? Buy cards, roll dice, get money. Not too much depth in the base game, hopefully the expansion will help that out. Had a lot (for a board game) of prerelease hype, and I'm not sure it quite panned out, but it is quick (20 mins) and generally fun filler type game. Hard to go wrong for $20.



Through the Ages: Only played the intro/easy variant so far, which is fairly bare boned, but it felt promising. More to come.



Survive: Not a whole lot of 'game' here, but it is fun dicking your friends over regardless. Each turn you move your guys, remove some island, and then send in the sharks/whale/kracken to eat your foes. By the end of the game I hardly cared who won, and just wanted to eat more meeples.



Telestrations: The telephone game with pictures. Not a game, more of a conduit for laughter.

[Ingmar]

Survive is actually a really old game. One of those old 80s Parker Brothers games that actually turned out to have some fun to it.

[lamaros]

Oh, I also played Han (which is a recent reprint anniversary edition of China) in the last little bit. It was good fun, would be interesting to see how much depth there actually is in there after a few more plays.

[Nevermore]

I played Survive when I was like 5 or 6 years old.

[eldaec]

The app for Xcom is available and it is glorious.

This game is going to age terribly and only be playable with exactly the right group, but I don't care I'm buying it anyway.

[grebo]

Through the ages is a really great heavy offering.  Watch out for the confusion over how tactics and air power work together.

[CmdrSlack]

Hopefully, this hasn't been posted yet...at very least, the path to Warhammer is accurate.

http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2015/01/pick-the-best-board-game-to-play-in-any-situation-with-this-flow-chart/

[lamaros]

Its not really that useful, clever, easy to read or funny. But it does make a nice pattern!

[Shannow]

When it gave 'Axis & Allies' as having the 'hardest rules ever' I stopped reading.

Reminds me of the article the other day talking about Packers o-lineman who play Catan, the writer describe the game as 'very complicated'.

#boardgamesnobbery