The Boardgame Thread

[ghost]

And this is why Conan is so hot on hearing those lamentations.

Yep.  Easy fix, with the appropriate weaponry.

[Rasix]

Anyone have opinions on Robinson Crusoe? Could I walk my son through it?

Probably going to pick up the Arkham Horror LCG this week.  Wife has a lot of business trips, and I'm getting bored.

Can't seem to make heads or tails of what the boy wants to play next.  Seems to like most everything he got for Christmas, although he's tending more toward Sushi Go Party, Ticket to Ride: FJ, and Clue. King of Tokyo seems to take a back seat because mom doesn't like it. But these preference doesn't seem to translate to co-ops and most suggestions are met with "meh". Well, except for Zombicide: Black Plague which got a rather strong negative reaction.  

Takenoko looks like it might work with the family.

[Ruvaldt]

Robinson Crusoe is a great coop, and could work for kids who aren't big on losing with a little tweaking.  The game itself can be punishing, but with extra actions and npcs you can reduce the difficulty.  The problem I'd foresee with playing with a 7 year old is the length of the games.  Each scenario is going to last at least an hour and a half, but up to three hours is possible for the advanced scenarios.  The rules aren't that complex and only require simple math, but there are lots of little modifiers that could be challenging for someone that age.  Weighing risk vs. reward is a very important aspect of the game so some of the scenarios require a bit of strategy and planning as well.  I'd say 10-12 is a better age range.  It's a great family game though; that's how I play it.

[Rasix]

Have you played the second edition? Game shop guys said it's a bit less punishing. They've got a copy that's lower than I see it on the internet.  I guess the new version isn't widely available yet?

Game length would be ok with him. Might not work with the wife as she tends to prefer the quicker games. Although, that might be due to our longer game (other than monopoly) is Risk, and she hates combat heavy stuff. Thanks for the info.

Anyone played the Harry Potter game?

[jgsugden]

...
Anyone played the Harry Potter game?

If you mean Battle of Hogwarts - yes. Serious gamers will probably find it a bit too random.  There are not to many decsion to make each turn, and a bad stacking of a deck can either make the game a breeze or imposible.

However, it is fine light fare for fans of the books/movies. If you're going to play with kids, get card sleeves...  sticky hands do not mix with card games.

[Rendakor]

I didn't know there was a HP board game. My wife's a huge fan, but really hated Ascension (only deckbuilding game I've got). If you're suggesting kids could play it, though, maybe it'll go over better since she'll at least have the lore to get into.

[Lucas]

For anyone owning and with a bit of playing experience with Eldritch Horror: while I managed to play three or four distinct sessions of it, I still have to complete a proper playthrough (meaning: winning or being defeated by the doom tracker or lack of myth cards). 

In your experience, have you ever been able to win a game without any of the starting investigators dying? Barring a lucky sequence with rolls and being able to buff your investigators with resource cards, it seems to me that it's almost inevitable for one of your starting characters to die; actually, game seems balanced toward that resolution, of course given the fact there's a section of the rules dedicated to the death and substitution of investigators.

I'm asking because I'm still playing with the "hey I must finish this with my two starting investigators" mindset (I play solo with two characters), while I should probably favour the death/new entry mechanic (so leaving out a potential "it's game over when both starting investigators die" house rule) and live with it.

[eldaec]

First off, don't play with two investigators. Game is bad like that, far too luck based, not least because a single death costs half your character progression, but also because you are at the mercy of a map far too large for two guys to cover.

Play with 4 or 6 investigators, and as you say, accept that sometimes people die. 4 or 6 gives you enough guys to specialise. You almost always want a wizard, a monster slayer, and a reliable clue guy, you usually want a gate guy, and someone to gather gear from the market. You can often double roles up on an investigator - but 2 guys can't reliably cover half each.

Also, never play without the focus rule that comes in any expansion bar the first. It lets you use spare actions to take reroll tokens.

[Lucas]

Thanks :) . I also read this thread:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1500629/two-investigators-balanced

Some divergent opinions. From my limited experience, though, it seems that the hassle of covering more distance that comes with playing with only two investigators (especially in the case of timed rumors) isn't that much counter-balanced by the relative ease in solving mysteries. In this case, you really have to strip down your choices and maybe "powerplay" too much into mystery-solving (while quickly accumulating assets is always a good strategy no matter the number of players, I guess). So yeah,2 investigators is definitely a challenge in itself that I'll eventually tackle, but I guess I'll play my next game with 4 characters :)

[eldaec]

From the base game, team I'd recommend...

Old guy who starts in san fran and can mail out market items : Keep him in san fran till he levels up influence,  then transfer to tokyo to remotely kill monsters. Most turns you take assets with the first action, take debt for extra loot, then clear the debt  on second action.

South African lady : develop as a gate ninja and spell caster. Getting a fully functional wizard with the teleport spell is the most reliable way to power up the team.

Spy lady who takes clues as an action : Clues are never bad. And her ability comes fully functional out of the box, so you are free to develop her however.

Soldier guy : Monster slayer. Or Sailor guy if vs Cthulu.

 

[Lucas]

Ah, regarding the "focus" action introduced by MoM, expansion arrived today, just in time (I already own the two smaller ones, Forsaken Lore and Strange Remnants)  .

Finally, about the investigators, yup, I'll probably go with Charlie Kane (the one that allows you to hand out an asset card you just acquired throughout the appropriate action) but pick the other three randomly to add some useless pain in the ass spice 

[Rasix]

Got Arkham Horror.  Think I've got the basics of it. Goofed on a couple of things (mostly setup, I didn't realize I could mulligan initial cards or assign damage to assets), so I think I'll replay the first scenario over again.

Just one question: when you have a weapon equipped (already played the asset), you can just attack with it right. You don't have to spend an action using the card and then another action attacking?

Bought Castle Panic. Had a good time playing the first time even though it was playing with my son, dad, and mom, who had no idea what was going on. Even I had just barely read the book. Game's a bit hard depending on how brutal your draws are.

[Lucas]

I'm starting to really get into the LOTR LCG, no matter the fact I'm still stuck at the beginner core set quest (passage through Mirkwood) 

Anyway, I finally bought all the adventure packs of the first cycle minus "The Hunt for Gollum" which is undergoing a reprint here in Italy.

Still, I'm determined to beat at least the first quest without using any of the cards from the Adventure packs, and I feel I'm almost there with a Spirit/Lore deck I was quite unlucky with yesterday during a couple of playthroughs. I really really like the whole experience, but damn, it's brutal if you want to play by the rules (meaning play "single-handed" when solo without simulating another player, or sticking to the "tournament" deck size of 50 which is penalizing with some of the useless cards of the core set).

And....success!!! Finally beat the first core scenario ("Beorn's Path" ending) with a single-hand Tactics/Leadership/Spirit 50 cards deck, core set only 
---

Can't remember if any of you is playing/ever played this, but anyway, here's the deck:

Session was quite lucky: I beat the scenario on turn 6.

- Got the two "Steward of Gondor" on Turn 1 and 3 (yeah, I shuffled! :P); first attached to Aragorn, second (the one on Turn 3) to Thalin, which was important because on Turn 2 I got the always nice "Caught in a web" treachery and attached it to him :P . I was also lucky enough to get an early "Celebrian Stone" which I attached to Aragorn; Beside the starting location, I drawn only one more of those, while I got the aforementioned Caught in a Web treachery, plus three more (with two I had to inflict one injury to each exhausted characters; the other made me discard all the events in hand :P). Fought the initial forest spider and also drawn Captain Ufthank, which was held at bay because I put in play "Galadhrim's Greeting" to lower my threat to 26 (he's 35). But yeah, that's it. Because of the constant low threat in the staging area, I managed to power through questing with Eowyn, Aragorn (Celebrian stone really helped, yep), eventually Thalin and one more ally.

Now I'm definitely ready to get badly spanked by the "Journey Down the Anduin" scenario, but before that I think I'll actually start adding some cards from the Mirkwood adventure packs :P

[Soln]

For LotR LCG there's both a regular and an "easy" mode (there's also Nightmare, which are special decks sometimes).  The rules should tell you how to manage easy mode (so which cards to omit).  Also, this site has many great resources and advice for starting out with the game: https://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com

[Goldenmean]

Just one question: when you have a weapon equipped (already played the asset), you can just attack with it right. You don't have to spend an action using the card and then another action attacking?

Correct. There are a lot of cards that will have a bolded Fight as part of their effect. That means you take the fight action (with whatever modifiers the card provides), but you do not need to pay an additional action to do so. This is most common with weapons assisting with fighting, but there are similar cards which will let you investigate or evade, etc as part of their effects.

[Lucas]

For LotR LCG there's both a regular and an "easy" mode (there's also Nightmare, which are special decks sometimes).  The rules should tell you how to manage easy mode (so which cards to omit).  Also, this site has many great resources and advice for starting out with the game: https://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com

Yeah, I know about that website and I'll start reading more in-depth stuff from now on. There is also a great YT channel, called "The Hive Tyrant", dedicated to the analysis of cards and playthrough of Mirkwood scenarios in order of release (two player decks):

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmkDVibqfjU65cexxMcQDhPC52XKgWWVp
----

Oh, and by the way, I made a mistake during my first "win!" session of LOTR (figures  ): since it's a unique card, there should be only one "Steward of Gondor" in play at any time but, as described above, I had two :P. Without attaching it to Thalin, I wouldn't have had enough resources to ready him for a couple of turns, nor play a couple of allies (since I would have lacked the bonus resources from the Steward). Still, given the draw of encounter cards, outcome would have been more or less the same, just delayed by a couple turns (after I finished the game I actually checked the next two or three cards and there was another treachery plus two locations, that I would have powered through with Eowyn and Aragorn, while still adding tokens to the main final quest).

[jgsugden]

I played Colt Express recently.  I think someone mentioned it before and said it really didn't have any replayability.  I think it is good to play with some non-serious gamers and that the right group might enjoy replaying it.  It is going on my gateway games shelf as a game to play with my wife and her teacher friends...

[eldaec]

Have you played the second edition? Game shop guys said it's a bit less punishing. They've got a copy that's lower than I see it on the internet.  I guess the new version isn't widely available yet?

Game shop guy is not correct. Second edition is exactly the same game with slightly better components, and a much better rulebook.

[Rasix]

Have you played the second edition? Game shop guys said it's a bit less punishing. They've got a copy that's lower than I see it on the internet.  I guess the new version isn't widely available yet?

Game shop guy is not correct. Second edition is exactly the same game with slightly better components, and a much better rulebook.

May have been me misremembering what he said. Better rulebook is good. Kid wasn't interested in the concept anyhow. I'd have to buy this one on my own and hope the family would give it a shot.

He seems to have liked the idea of Legendary, partially because he recognizes Marvel (how, I dunno), and partially because he likes card games.  I think I'll make him watch Wil Wheaton's intro from Tabletop.

[Lucas]

Ah, regarding the "focus" action introduced by MoM, expansion arrived today, just in time (I already own the two smaller ones, Forsaken Lore and Strange Remnants)  .

Finally, about the investigators, yup, I'll probably go with Charlie Kane (the one that allows you to hand out an asset card you just acquired throughout the appropriate action) but pick the other three randomly to add some useless pain in the ass spice 

Aaaand....Failed miserably!!! (played with 4 investigators) 

But hey, I had fun no matter what along the way, which is great for such a heavy thematic and time consuming game. After the first 2-3 turns, I managed to accumulate quite a few tokens among my investigators and some nice assets with Charlie Kane: then came the dreaded and inevitable blue mythos card, which put on the board a legendary monster. Unfortunately, I couldn't manage to beat it in time (Tick-Tock men), and the result was a TOTAL wipe of clue tokens both on my investigators and on the board, and before I could even solve the first mistery card. That started a downward spiral into madness and despair that led to an inevitable and slow defeat (actually, I stopped with the doom tracker at "2", but situation was  already compromised).

Anyway, I learned a couple things from this session. In general, I definitely need to take this game more seriously and "powerplay" a bit with my investigators if I actually want to beat an Ancient One and not just be content reading the cards :P

In related news, I just read about the latest expansion that came out a couple weeks ago ("The Dreamlands"...Here in Italy they still have to translate Signs of Carcosa), which has, like, the best expansion icon EVER for a card component 



Cthulhu Cat!!!

[jgsugden]

Seafall update. We've  played 2 more games (8 total). All but 1 box are open. At this point, the game is very interesting to my group and has moved back to a highly recommended game: but only for the right groups of players and only if you set it up to be fun. 

Our interest level in the game definitely fell into a valley around game 3 or 4.  Although we were happy to continue, we understood why so many people gave up on the game around this point.  To us, the game escalated in interest each round after that point.  I think this aligns with a few of the early reviews where people gave up around game 4 and opened the rest of the boxes - and regretted that they did so when they saw what was to have come.

I think one of the things that kept my group's interest level higher was not rushing games back to back until we were eager to play them.  The games tend to be long (3 hours) if people are not very decisive.  There are a lot of decisions to be made.   Playing them back to back will reduce the chance you forget rules (there are a lot of those), but it does tend to make you feel that early game drag more.  I suggest at least 3 weeks between games until an eagerness to get to the next game sets in for the group.  Last night we played a game that went from 8 PMto midnight - and we backed it up with a second game from midnight to 3 AM because we were getting excited.

However, I suggest being careful to only play with people that have 3 key requirements:

1.) Truly thick skinned.  This game carries a lot over from game to game and some of that is really meaningful stuff.  One of my fellow players did something in the fourth game that has taken me several games to overcome.  We laugh about it - but a lot of people I've played other gams with would be really resentful and angry over this situation if they were in my shoes. We have not all been laughing the entire time, however.  We started out with 5 players and lost a player when he got frustrated and started to act randomly out of frustrated spite.  That would have ruined the game.  The rest of us suggested this wasn't the game for him and we reduced the game to four players.  That was not fun.

2.) Stay interested when they are losing.  I'm leading on the path to overall victory for the game by a hefty margin.  I'd like to think I've generally played well, but I was also the beneficiary of some nice luck.  'There is a choose your own adventure' element to the game which usually involves deciding whether you'd like to take a risk or play it safe - I've taken some big risks that paid off while others have taken some big risks that really hurt them when they didn't.  Players may find themselves in a spot where they can't seem to compete for a few games in a row.  You want people that will keep trying at this point as there are a number of rebalancing mechanics in the game (with additional ones introduced throughout the game) that will allow them to get back into the game.  I liken it to Power Grid for those that know that game: Being ahead doesn't mean you're being set up to win the overall game - it may mean you're going to be in a position for others to cut you off from the path to victory as you approach final resolution of the game. 

3.) Like a balance of luck and skill in a game.  There is a lot of skill in this game, but one of the biggest skill elements is knowiing how to manage your luck.  Do you take the path that sounds like it could have a huge payday / spell disatser, or do you take the path that sounds like it will be a low risk small payday.  However, as good as you are at managing your luck, you're going to lose out at times - sometimes taking a path that looks like safe only to find out it was a path to catastrophe, and sometimes finding the safe path you were taking to build your long term game engine is all for naught due to a new change in the rules that would have been extremely hard to predict.  I set up some good long term engines that are serving me well.  Other people designed their long term engines only to find the game negate their strategy after investing in it heavily (although they were able to repurpose their resources into other strategies fairly quickly).  If you hate luck in a game, this is not a game for you.

If you have the right group of players and don't rush the early phase, I think you'll like the game.  We have all but one box open, but that doesn't mean we've introduced nearly everything to the game, yet.  Some of those boxes contain elements that are sealed and we have yet to open - and a lot of those types of elements that we have opened are now in stacks of cards, but have yet to appear (and thus have not been read by our group).  Accordingly, we're still exploring things and are not quite ready to head to the end game, yet - but I have hope that the rest of the games will be as interesting as the ones we've just played.

My biggest criticism: The rule book SUCKS.  There are a lot of rule interactions and figuring out where and how they interact and how you resolve some corner case things is not easy - and further, if you go to Twitter and BBGforums and look at posts by the designer, you'll find that the intended rules are sometimes in direct conflict with the written rules.  For example, there is a rule that explicitly says there are only two ways to remove a particular negative effect from the game that might be applied to a ship.  My group drew the conclusion that when you rebuild a sunken ship, this negative effect should stay with the rebuilt ship because rebuilding/sinking a ship is not one of the two explicit ways to remove these negative effects and there is a thematic reason it might stick with the ship once rebuilt.  However, online, one of the developers noted that sinking/rebuilding removes this negative effect - and that there is even one more way to remove it not stated in the rule book (although that one was pretty darn intuitive in my eyes).  I recommend having one player sit down and reread the rules between each game (on a rotating basis) to try ot make sure you get the rules right.  There are a lot of rule interactions that are unclear unless you combine the rules correctly and for which there are several intuitive paths that would have made sense.

I likely will not post another update until either the campaign ends or our interest falls off - not much more to be said, really.

[eldaec]

Reason I'm not at all interested in Seafall is that I've never seem anyone describe any positive reaaon to play - just reasons its problems might not be catastrophic if you are interested in its plumbing.

The other particular issue that would stop me committing to it is that it seems to go on far too long after the winner is clear. Monopoly rightly takes shit for running 2 hours past the winner being clear. I don't see why this gets a pass for running a month or longer.

[ghost]

Harry Potter:  Hogwarts Battle is a decent enough game to teach small people how to play deck builders.  If you like Harry Potter, the theming is nice, and the components are good.  I can't say I would recommend it to anyone that wants a real game, but if you want to play something with non-gamers or kids, in particular, I like it.  And it's cooperative, which is good for kids. 

[Soln]

Thanks for the updates JG.  FWIW your notes are some of the most balanced reviews I've seen.  I'm still not going to pick it up or try it, but I'm interested in people's play throughs and opinions.  

[jgsugden]

Reason I'm not at all interested in Seafall is that I've never seem anyone describe any positive reaaon to play - just reasons its problems might not be catastrophic if you are interested in its plumbing.

The other particular issue that would stop me committing to it is that it seems to go on far too long after the winner is clear. Monopoly rightly takes shit for running 2 hours past the winner being clear. I don't see why this gets a pass for running a month or longer.

For the right group of players I think this is a really good game overall.  We caveat with the flaws, but it is something I'm now actively looking forwarsd to continuing.

Regardless, I do not believe that players that are behind at the midpoint of the game will be out of contention.  There are multiple elements in the game that help players catch up - and allow the players that are catching up to block the end of the campaign until they are in contention.  Until the end of the campaign is triggered, it looks like any player can overcome any deficit - unless the player gives up. So, again, it is about having the right group of players.

[Goldenmean]

My copy of Gloomhaven showed up on Friday and I got a little bit of it in over the weekend. It's pretty much exactly as good as I thought it would be, which is to say "Incredibly good". If you like cooperative dungeon crawlers, this is easily the best on the market, and you should beg, cheat and steal to get a copy if you can (which will probably prove to be difficult as there was very little left after the kickstarter, and I think basically all of that has been preordered).

So, Gloomhaven is essentially a long running co-op RPG campaign in a box. Think Descent, except entirely cooperative without the use of an app, more epic in scale, with a slightly less bland "generic fantasy" world, and coming from a euro card driven heritage instead of an ameritrash dice chucking one. It seats 1-4 players, and if you believe the side of the box, each scenario should last 30 minutes per player, which seems theoretically feasible once you actually know the rules if everyone plays quickly. The overall flow of the campaign is the old reliable fantasy RPG trope. You're all mercenaries who have formed an adventuring party in order to keep food on the table, and (at least at the beginning of the campaign), you're getting missions from one of Gloomhaven's merchants. An interesting twist here is that each member of the party has their own goals. When you create your character, you are dealt two personal quest cards, you pick one and throw away the other. This is the reason that character is out adventuring at all instead of getting a real job. Once the character has accomplished that goal, they are content, decide they have better things to do than hang around in dungeons all day and retire to a goat farm or something. Each personal quest unlocks something new in the game. Almost all of them unlock a new class, but a few will open another envelope containing... well, I have no idea yet. So this is a Legacy game, of sorts. If you are for some reason totally in love with the character class you were playing, there is nothing stopping you from creating a new one and just starting over with them, though obviously the intent is that you'll see what the new character class you unlocked is like, or try one of the other ones left in the box. As such, the game is much more about the evolution of the town and its environs than the arc of any particular character. By the time you finish the campaign, each player will probably have gone through several characters.

There are initially 6 character classes available. There are 17 total in the box. Based on some of the personal quests I've looked at, I don't imagine you'd be unlocking new classes much more often than every ten scenarios or so (and I think that's low balling it). Personal quests are generally things like "Do x scenarios in these particular environs" or "Kill x of these sorts of monsters", but there's a pretty wide range. Character classes are pretty distinct from each other. Each character class has its own deck of action cards, and let's talk about those, because they're really the heart of scenario play.

At the beginning of every turn, you will pick two cards from your hand and place them face down, selecting one as your "leading" card. Cards have three main sections. They have a top section, a bottom section, and an initiative number. Once everyone has placed their cards, you flip over all of the leading cards and determine turn order based on the initiative of the leading card. Each type of monster also has its own small deck of (generally much simpler) action cards which also have initiative numbers. I'll talk about the monsters in more depth later. When your turn in initiative comes around you have a choice. You get to perform the top action of one of the two cards you selected and the bottom action of another. You can also always ignore the top section of a card and play it as an "Attack 2" card instead, and similarly, you can use the bottom as a "Move 2". It is not uncommon that you will plan out your turn one way, but then by the time your turn comes around realize that the board state has shifted so that your original plan doesn't make much sense and instead use the different combination instead. Cards played are generally discarded, though some are "lost" instead (which is basically a more permanent discard pile). You do not have a deck of cards. Every character has a fixed number of cards in their starting hand and that never changes. When you level up, you get access to new, more powerful cards, but each one you add has to swap out for one of your existing ones. Once you have run out of cards in your hand, you are forced to rest. At that point, one of the cards in your discard pile goes to the lost pile and the rest come back to your hand. So you have an ever dwindling supply of resources that need to last you the whole scenario. You will never have more choices than you do on the first turn of each game. Cards can also be lost to absorb damage from enemy attacks.

This system is really very clever. Each class has a unique set of these, and they vary *wildly* and make each class feel incredibly unique. Even level 1 cards have a pretty wide selection of abilities on them. There are attacks (in ranged and non ranged varieties, and different flavors of AE), different sorts of movement, healing, about a dozen different status effects, pushing or pulling monsters (or friends), summoning pets, putting up various permanent buffs, etc. Some abilities infuse the battlefield with one of six different elements, while other effects will consume those elements for various bonuses which let you set up combos between different party members. And there are *tons* of these. Each class starts with somewhere between 8 and 12 level 1 cards, come with three extra "level x" cards, which are effectively level 1 cards, but are slightly more advanced and aren't recommended to be swapped in until you're used to the class, and then 2 extra cards for every level up to nine (which is the cap). So a max level character is looking at being able to customize their loadout from about 30 different cards, and remember each one has both a top ability and a bottom ability.

This is a highly, but not entirely deterministic game. There are no dice, but every character has a modifier deck, which fills in. This deck consists of 20 cards, and every time you attack, you draw the top card and apply its results to your attack number. Initially all decks are identical. They bell curve from -2 to +2 and also include a null (miss) and a x2 (crit). So if you play an "attack 3" ability, on average, it'll do exactly that much damage, but there's a possibility it could do anything from 0 to 6. This starts off as basically being a twenty sided die, except because it's a card deck, you know that if you've had a run of bad luck, you've probably got some good luck coming, and vice versa, though you're never entirely sure, because every time you draw the miss or the crit, you reshuffle the discard. However as you level up and unlock perks, you get to tune this deck in character specific ways. So one of the more burly tank type starting characters has the option to add a +3 card to the deck, or to remove 2 of the -1s, or to start adding modifier cards that add stun, or push to the attacks, or to add a +1 that also grants him shield 1 for the rest of the turn, etc. So you both tune your ability loadout and you tune your randomizer deck as you progress.

Back to monsters. Each type of monster has varying stats based on the level of the scenario, which is determined based on the level of your characters, so as your party levels up, monsters level up as well. All monsters also come in both normal and elite versions, which is indicated by the color of the base you clip the monster standee into. Monsters are mostly a collection of stats, health, movement, attack, possibly a range, and a few static abilities like status immunities or shield, or retaliate, but they all also have a small 8 card AI deck unique to that type of monster. Every turn you flip a card over for each monster type currently on the board, and that gives their initiative number and also what they do that turn. Frequently, this is just "move and attack", but sometimes they'll move a little farther or attack with a particular modifier. And sometimes they'll do something completely different. Even the very first vanilla "bandit guard" monster you fight has some random tricks up their sleeve above and beyond the basics that they can surprise you with. The AI deck makes every monster feel pretty distinct rather than just being a slightly different set of move and attack numbers. And there are 34 different monsters in the box, not counting about a dozen unique boss monsters.

I touched on this before, but this is a legacy game. It is more resettable than many other legacy games, though it really wouldn't be very hard to play it without the legacy elements. Theoretically there is nothing stopping you from just playing with all 17 characters off the bat rather than slowly going through and unlocking them. The other legacy elements mostly involve a map of the city of Gloomhaven and the surrounding wilderness. This is initially empty, but there are all sorts of stickers that you place on it to represent scenarios as you unlock them. Initially you only have one scenario available to you, but as the campaign goes on finishing one scenario will start unlocking two or three others. You could just skip that entirely and record which scenarios were available on a piece of paper. It's worth noting that the campaign does actually branch. Following some scenario paths will permanently block others. There's also some space to track global changes to the world. At the beginning of the campaign there's one of those noting that Gloomhaven is under militaristic rule. What's that mean? Who knows! But there are some other stickers indicating economic or demonic rule, so clearly your choices in the campaign can change things quite a bit. The only legacy aspect you couldn't easily duplicate with pencil and paper instead of stickers is the enhancement system. At a certain point in the campaign you become able to permanently modify your ability cards with stickers. That would take a lot more tracking to really simulate without making permanent changes. Honestly, I don't know why you'd want to, but this seems to be a hot button topic for a lot of people, so I figured I'd mention it.

I've sort of touched on this in other places, but this game is an absolute monster. The box is bigger than almost every game I own short of Mega Civilization or Kingdom Death. Just for giggles, I went to weigh it, and even with all of the extra punchboard removed, it still weighs 18 pounds. There are more than 80 scenarios included in the scenario book (and there are some randomizer cards to generate more if you somehow manage to finish those in the forseeable future). I think there are about 1700 cards. This is easily the best content to money ratio of basically any game ever made. This was 80$ on kickstarter. I think it'll be around 120$ if you can find it retail and that is still an *amazing* deal. I asked my friend to guesstimate how much it must have cost after looking through the box and he said "At least 200$". Honestly, I'd still consider it a steal for that. I think the only reason not to buy this if you're into coop dungeon crawlers is if you're just spectacularly fetishistic about dice for some reason? This really does pretty much everything better and to a greater extent than any other game I can think of in the category. It is a great, great game.

[Lucas]

snip

I'm throwing money at the screen but nothing is happening!!!

[Sky]

I do love dice, but that sounds pretty cool.

[Khaldun]

Anybody here played T.I.M.E Stories?

[schild]

I didn't back gloomhaven because I thought it was ugly as fuck and I hate playing ugly games.

I'm a terrible consumer and part of the problem.

[Rasix]

Looks OK to me, but I'm a neophyte in this arena.

Game looks fun, but I think the kid is 2-3 years away from playing this sort of thing. Not sure about the stickers, but a reviewer made sense of it for me.

Got an organizer for the Arkham Horror: LCG.  Makes everything a lot nicer. Having different bags for all of the tokens, cards, active scenarios/decks, etc was getting annoying. Not sure how I feel about sleeves since I've put them on, but at least it'll keep me from jacking up the cards.

[eldaec]

I didn't back gloomhaven because I thought it was ugly as fuck and I hate playing ugly games.

I'm a terrible consumer and part of the problem.

I did back it but this is the exact reason it will take months before it hits the table, if it ever does.

[Teleku]

I backed it, was excited about getting a group together my last few months here in Moscow to run through it.  Then my mom emailed me, and I realized I put my parents address down when I kickstarted it instead my Moscow address because I wasn't sure if it would be done in time.

Box looks huge, not sure if I want to pay to have it shipped here just for a few potential games before I bow out in another few months.

Oh well, guess something for the Laos board gaming community to enjoy!

Thanks for the write up Goldenmean.  I initially was hesitant on backing it because the visual aspect didn't wow me as much as some other games (similar to Schild.  Also, I'd kickstarted other similar sorts of games like Conan), but reading about the game itself won me over and I backed it at the highest level.  Glad to hear its working out.

[Hawkbit]

Got an organizer for the Arkham Horror: LCG.  Makes everything a lot nicer. Having different bags for all of the tokens, cards, active scenarios/decks, etc was getting annoying. Not sure how I feel about sleeves since I've put them on, but at least it'll keep me from jacking up the cards.

What did you use for the organizer? I'm half-assing the decks into DeckPro boxes, but it's not the best solution. Also, I decided not to sleeve them, figuring it's co-op and not competitive so it's not a huge deal if the cards get a scuff or two.

Ultimately, I'm not sure I really like the game so far though. I really like having a board and for some reason the card location layout just isn't the same thing to me.

[Rasix]

Got an organizer for the Arkham Horror: LCG.  Makes everything a lot nicer. Having different bags for all of the tokens, cards, active scenarios/decks, etc was getting annoying. Not sure how I feel about sleeves since I've put them on, but at least it'll keep me from jacking up the cards.

What did you use for the organizer? I'm half-assing the decks into DeckPro boxes, but it's not the best solution. Also, I decided not to sleeve them, figuring it's co-op and not competitive so it's not a huge deal if the cards get a scuff or two.

Ultimately, I'm not sure I really like the game so far though. I really like having a board and for some reason the card location layout just isn't the same thing to me.

http://www.thebrokentoken.com/arkham-horror-the-card-game/

The local game store had it in stock for a few dollars markup. Kind of pricey I guess, but it works rather well. Kind of annoying that it pushes the box up enough that you need the band on it.

I like the game well enough, but I think I need a mat.  Would have been nice if they included a generic board (or used some sort of simple tile placement) for card placement, since the act/agenda/encounter portions are ever present. Box real estate is going to be at a premium in an expansion or two (not counting mythos packs).  I may unsleave it if that becomes an issue.  Art work is nice and I like the flow of the game. The threat build up and resolution mechanics seem to work pretty well. Getting cold-decked in a campaign playthrough would suck mightily, however.