The Boardgame Thread

[Goldenmean]

Ascension: Whatever Edition - Still no news. 2 years and 5 months late.

What edition of Ascension are you talking about? As far as my memory (and searching) can tell, the only Ascension Kickstarter was for the digital game, which has been up and running for some time, and I got the physical product they were bundling along with it forever ago as well.

As for Tokaido, yeah, that's sort of a hilarious (as someone who didn't back it) mess. Not going to try to defend that at all.

Millennium Blades has started showing up in people's hands, though as far as I can tell, it might only be the Europeans. I don't even consider 3 months late "late" for a board game. I think the only thing Level 99 really screwed up there was actually giving a month for a release date instead of the more usual in board gaming circles "Winter/Spring 2016"

I continue to be happy with all of my (incredibly extensive) board game kickstarting, but I don't ever actually expect them to show up near the date they targeted in the campaign. I just pledge, fill in the surveys, and let the packages show up on my door however many months/years later, and occasionally go back through my "Projects you have backed" list to make sure nothing has completely fallen off the map.

[schild]

What edition of Ascension are you talking about? As far as my memory (and searching) can tell, the only Ascension Kickstarter was for the digital game, which has been up and running for some time, and I got the physical product they were bundling along with it forever ago as well.

The $400 edition.

As for Tokaido, yeah, that's sort of a hilarious (as someone who didn't back it) mess. Not going to try to defend that at all.

Millennium Blades has started showing up in people's hands, though as far as I can tell, it might only be the Europeans. I don't even consider 3 months late "late" for a board game. I think the only thing Level 99 really screwed up there was actually giving a month for a release date instead of the more usual in board gaming circles "Winter/Spring 2016"

I continue to be happy with all of my (incredibly extensive) board game kickstarting, but I don't ever actually expect them to show up near the date they targeted in the campaign. I just pledge, fill in the surveys, and let the packages show up on my door however many months/years later, and occasionally go back through my "Projects you have backed" list to make sure nothing has completely fallen off the map.

Tokaido sure is a mess. As for Millenium Blades, I wasn't really complaining. That was my last outstanding boardgame kickstarter thing. I'm happy overall, the Ascension thing really pisses me off though. This one:



Every card was supposed to be foiled. It was all of year 1, the first year 2 set was on the way out and they were supposed to offer us discounts on complete sets for each year after that. Now we're on year 3, and we still don't have the year one set. The whole kickstarter has been a fucking abortion.

[Goldenmean]

Every card was supposed to be foiled. It was all of year 1, the first year 2 set was on the way out and they were supposed to offer us discounts on complete sets for each year after that. Now we're on year 3, and we still don't have the year one set. The whole kickstarter has been a fucking abortion.

Ah, ok, so the same kickstarter I backed, but at a different tier level with a lot more custom components. Yeah, that sucks, especially considering that was a pretty smooth kickstarter for most of the rewards. Screwing up for your most devoted customers and then continuing to do so for years seems... suboptimal.

[schild]

It's been damn near radio silence. Back in February they said they were going to get us to email them any address updates and shipping would be soon... and then, nothing.

They suck.

[Lucas]

It was long overdue, but tonight, at last, my father managed to introduce me to wargaming, in this case Advanced Squad Leader (starter kit). We played three full turns, not enough to complete the scenario, but definitely enough for myself to start forming an idea about the whole thing.

Now, I understand that the full game is, to put it nicely, vastly more intricate than the starter kit, but the whole turn sequence is not that complex once you get the hang of it (and of all those acronyms/abbreviations, my gawd). What is impressive is the sheer number of strategic choices you have to face (add the potential "analysis-paralysis" factor) and how some of the different turn phases have an effect on each other and on the strategy as a whole (defensive 1st fire vs subsequent, or movement vs advance phase).

I'm not sure I'll be able to play it on a regular basis (IMO, it's not a game you simply play on a whim, you have to read and research a lot about it), but yeah, even with just the starter kit you begin to understand the potential neckbeardiness of it all  

[Goldenmean]

If you're interested in a slightly more modern take on wargaming than ASL, I'd recommend checking out most of GMTs product line. Combat Commander especially is at around the same scale as ASL, but with a slightly less venerable and obtuse system (and it's easier to find everything for it). The current hotness in that realm though is the COIN series, which we talked about some upthread, but those really want four players, and if this is just going to be a you and your dad thing, that might not work, though the game which spawned the COIN system, Labyrinth was two player, or even single player if you wanted. And then of course there's Twilight Struggle and Paths of Glory and all of the other slightly older card driven systems.

[ghost]

Really getting into ASL can be extremely expensive, since a lot of the stuff is out of print and hard to find. 

Combat Commander is easier to find and will probably get reprints from GMT from time to time, although many of the smaller add ons and I think Pacific are out of print at this time. 

I guess unless you really love it and have the time I would suggest not getting into ASL due to the cost and steep learning curve. 


Rum and Bones:  The second tide is hitting kickstarter.  I kindof like the first one, but I certainly rank it in my top five most disappointing game purchases to date.  The second edition sounds like they are actually trying to make a game out of it, and the models are unbelievable.  I may go ahead and back this one, although I'm already having pre-guilt just thinking about it.

[Goldenmean]

Rum and Bones:  The second tide is hitting kickstarter.  I kindof like the first one, but I certainly rank it in my top five most disappointing game purchases to date.  The second edition sounds like they are actually trying to make a game out of it, and the models are unbelievable.  I may go ahead and back this one, although I'm already having pre-guilt just thinking about it.

You and me both. I really just need to stop backing CMON stuff. There's some genuinely good stuff in there. Blood Rage is awesome, and I've heard good things about Arcadia Quest, but the rest of it is either just not really my groups cup of tea, or just a complete failure from a game design perspective. Some of their games really feel like they just have a bunch of themed miniatures made and they just say "Ok, Bob, we need a ... ninja game this time" to the nearest intern. Maybe I'll just try to stick to only backing Eric Lang games from them, as his name seems to be associated with the only stuff of theirs I genuinely like as a game instead of a collection of cool minis.

Also, my copy of Millennium Blades showed up yesterday. Haven't gotten a chance to play it yet, but the sheer density of cards really does not disappoint. I've got 70 different stacks of cards spread across my table at the moment. Good thing they've still got an expansion coming...

[ghost]

Yeah, I'm a big fan of Blood Rage.  The miniatures are unnecessary fluff, but unbelievable nonetheless. 

Played a couple of games of old school Axis and Allies the other day with the boy (1942 version).  He is 7 and picked up on it pretty quickly.  I had forgotten how good it is, particularly for the time period in which it was produced.  But man it is looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong.     Particularly if you are playing to capture all 12 cities. 

[Sky]

Wish they had made resin collector's versions of the Blood Rage minis. But I'm an Adrian Smith fanboy.

[ghost]

They're still really nice.  Nice enough for me, anyway.  My paint is all drying up because I don't have time to paint right now.  And don't think I will for the foreseeable future.

[Thrawn]

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=amb_link_468682822_1?ie=UTF8&rh=i%3Atoys-and-games%2Cn%3A14185992011%2Cn%3A14185992011%2Cn%3A14185992011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=hero-quick-promo&pf_rd_r=09613RZDPANVQNBDFQ27&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=2475134462&pf_rd_i=B0145GMT3K&pldnSite=1

Lots of good deals on Amazon today.

[Chimpy]

Splendor is definitely worth the 20 bucks.

[MrHat]

Fuck. I'm still trying to get rid of board games so I can get new ones. I ran out of shelf space.

[Rendakor]

Splendor is definitely worth the 20 bucks.

It's showing $29.75 for me; did the on-sale ones sell out?

[Mosesandstick]

Another sale us Europeans can't enjoy...

Played Sheriff of Nottingham and Dixit (Odyssey) for the first time this weekend. Sheriff of Nottingham was fun, quick, easy to get the hang of. It also nearly caused a marital dispute. I liked Dixit, but it was a lot more serious than I imagined. Weird but interesting game.

[MrHat]

Splendor is definitely worth the 20 bucks.

It's showing $29.75 for me; did the on-sale ones sell out?

Last time Amazon did something like this, they had a lot of the more popular ones sell out at the sale price (i.e. Amazon sold out), but the games were still available from 3rd party sellers at various prices.

Sucks because you might not even notice it's not the best deal until it hits your cart.

Sidenote: I've been going through my board games to come up with fair used prices, most are like $5/whatever, but a couple apparently are collector's items or some shit - my copy of "Pret-A-Porter" that I bought on a whim a bunch of years back is like $250 on Amazon.

[Thrawn]

Sidenote: I've been going through my board games to come up with fair used prices, most are like $5/whatever, but a couple apparently are collector's items or some shit - my copy of "Pret-A-Porter" that I bought on a whim a bunch of years back is like $250 on Amazon.

I thought you were nuts until I found a $120 eBay auction for a copy that sold.  I have a copy of this sitting on my shelf as well.  

Apparently my Kickstarter version of Boss Monster is worth over $100 easily as well, which I'll never understand for such a shitty game.

[Chimpy]

At least they started taking the ones that sold out on Amazon at the great prices off of the sale landing page.

I bought Flapjacks and Sasquatches because, what the hell, I need a good 2+ player card game and the theme sounds fun.

[MrHat]

I waited too long and the one I actually wanted (Evolution) went off sale.

[lamaros]

Finally played War of the Ring. Was good but I think to get value I'd need to play it five times a year.

[lamaros]

Any WotR fans have views on if the expansion Lords of Middle Earth is worth it?

[ghost]

Off topic question for you, Lamaros-  did you ever finish your game?

Also...

I have the expansion but haven't played it.  Have you tried The Battle of the Five Armies?  It's supposed to be faster and also very good, so maybe you could get it to the table more often.


More also-  the new Boardgame Geek format is horrible.  Just horrible.

[Viin]

Does this count as a boardgame?

Tak is being made by Cheapass Games via Kickstarter.
Tak comes from a series of books by Patrick Rothfuss, which are quite good.

[lamaros]

Off topic question for you, Lamaros-  did you ever finish your game?

Also...

I have the expansion but haven't played it.  Have you tried The Battle of the Five Armies?  It's supposed to be faster and also very good, so maybe you could get it to the table more often.


More also-  the new Boardgame Geek format is horrible.  Just horrible.

I didn't finish it, I have around three different games in a playable but not very exciting state at the moment. I wasn't able to find a spark to make them novel or exciting enough for me, so I put them on the back burner for a bit. Hopefully when I come back to them something will click.

Not played the Battle of Five Armies, but also not especially keen. I doesn't seem to have the arc of WotR which is the interesting thing for me. The narrative of WotR is interesting, as if the push and pull between the different endgame mechanics. BoFA seems to take out the narrative, and cut away the push and pull in to a more simple back and forth. This strikes me as a much lesser experience.

Thank for the link, I was looking under the wrong forum, often all the discussion is just on the main game page.

[lamaros]

I've bought/pre-ordered a few games recently...

Colonial - Played this the other day. Very interesting diplomatic game, some euro mechanics but very thematic. I like its mild honesty about an interesting but somewhat difficult theme, but the mechanics are what makes it great.
Parade - Quite fun as a 2P game, not yet played it with more.
Indonesia - Love the look of the game and it's gameplay seems to be the one I'd most like from the Splotter stable.
Leaving Earth + Expansion, Medici, A Fake Artist Goes to New York, Onward to Venus.

Blood Rage is getting sold today though, it just didn't stick with me as something I care that much about.

[jgsugden]

I recently finished Pandemic Legacy. Best gaming experience I've ever had. If you have not played it, get together 3 friends and enjoy.

[Goldenmean]

Since I'm currently enjoying a severance package, I've been doing a lot of 1 on 1 gaming with another funemployed friend, playing the sort of direct competition games the girlfriend doesn't really go for, and we have been playing the hell out of Sirlin's games. Mostly a buttload of Puzzle Strike, which is easily my favorite deckbuilding (or in this case, bagbuilding) experience, but we also finally got around to doing the print and play of his upcoming game Codex, which he's been working on for a loooong time, and man it is reaaaally good.

Basically, Codex is a deckbuilding Magic style game with an RTS sort of feel. It's all fixed sets, no collectability and because it's Sirlin and he's insane about balancing, I wouldn't expect to see any expansions for it any time soon, if ever. It follows the traditional deckbuilding trope of starting with a very small 10 card deck and throwing your hand away every turn, which means you'll cycle through your deck very rapidly. But from there, the design diverges pretty rapidly. There's no shared central bank to buy from like Ascension style deckbuilders, and you don't randomly generate the bank every game like Dominion style deckbuilders. Instead each player has their own codex, which is basically a binder with every card it is possible for your faction to produce.

Cards are either spells, which are cast by your hero, units that are produced by tech buildings, or persistent upgrades. Every turn you "tech" two cards from your codex into your discard pile, so you've got complete control over where your deck is going to go. Are you playing against someone with lots of flight capability? Might want to get that anti-air stuff into your deck to counter it. You're constantly evolving your deck to deal with the threats you expect from your opponent, or to exploit their weaknesses, but because it takes time for the discard pile to cycle, and discard piles are kept facedown in this, you have a few turns before you find out whether or not you read your opponent correctly.

Combat is interesting as well. It's the usual Magic style attack/defense, simultaneous damage system, except it's all 1 on 1 and you can declare multiple attacks in a turn. There is also the concept of a patrol zone, which is an area that you put your untapped cards at the end of your turn. If there is nothing in your opponent's patrol zone, you can attack anything on their board, and because everything requires something else to play, you can reduce their options. If you kill one of their heroes, they can't cast that heroes spells until it is rebuilt. If they don't have their level 2 tech building, they can't play any level 2 tech cards of that faction until it is rebuilt, etc.

Back to the patrol zone though. It consists of five spaces, each of which has a distinct bonus. Things like "Absorb the first point of damage you take, and this unit has to be attacked first" or "When this dies, draw a card", etc. In a way, you're pre-assigning units as potential blockers, which is important because you can't do anything at all on your opponent's turns. No reactions. Nothing. This might seem like it would limit interactivity, but there's enough interesting choices to be made in the patrol zone, that it sort of just shifts everything to the end of your turn. It makes for a very proactive game also as opposed to a reactive one. You essentially "counter" spells by killing your opponents hero so that it's not around to cast them on their turn. It also means that the game is going to be a breeze to play digitally without having constant priority stops (and all Sirlin games get digital versions sooner or later).

Because this is a Sirlin game, there's a ton of asymmetry. There's 20 different heroes across seven different factions, and you can mix and match them however you like, though there are some cost penalties for playing out of faction. It's the same universe as his other games, so you'll see a lot of the Puzzle Strike/Yomi characters reappear, filling their usual archetypal role, though there are some new cast members as well. It's also designed to be played at a very high level. All of his games are tournament caliber games with really high skill caps.

It's being produced at this point after a successful kickstarter and some patreon funding, so you're still a few months away from being able to play the final version, but there's print and plays up for purchase on his website if you want to check it out in advance at http://www.sirlingames.com/collections/codex. You can even download the very basic 1v1 hero set for free (The full game is 3v3). There's also a ton of design articles at http://www.sirlin.net/codex/. Would strongly recommend this for anyone who likes aggressive deckbuilders or M:TG, or just good head to head games in general.

[ezrast]

Goddamn, I really wish I'd splurged on that Kickstarter, but I'd just lost my job at the time. As a huge Puzzle Strike fan myself I'm glad to hear Codex is good.

[Goldenmean]

Goddamn, I really wish I'd splurged on that Kickstarter, but I'd just lost my job at the time. As a huge Puzzle Strike fan myself I'm glad to hear Codex is good.

I'm really, really liking it thus far. I'm a gigantic Puzzle Strike fan as well, and this feels as good to me, or possibly a bit better, though in a radically different way. It's definitely more fiddly than Puzzle Strike is, though not cripplingly so. It plays a bit slower, though back when we were Puzzle Strike neophytes, that played a bit slower also.

We're still at the point where the game is opening up before us. Moving from the 1v1 hero game up to the full 3v3 really expands the possibility space gigantically. And we're still doing just faction vs faction. "I'll take the three green heroes and you take the red". In the "real" game you can mix and match any of the 20 heroes together to form a custom team, so there's a *lot* of different matchup possibilities.

BTW, if your finances have recovered some, I think they're still doing preorders here https://codex.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

As I recall, there wasn't anything kickstarter specific in the campaign either, and all of his previous games have hit retail, so I'm sure you'll have some time to pick it up down the line.

[ezrast]

Oh, sweet. Thanks for that link.

[Soln]

Very interesting Mean, thanks for the write-up and link!

[Hawkbit]

Found a cheap copy of Race for the Galaxy recently, finally got to give it a play yesterday. It's kind of... not good. Virtually no player interaction and takes at least a few plays to really understand all the fiddly rules.

It wore thin in our first playthrough, not sure we'll even give it another shot.

[Goldenmean]

Found a cheap copy of Race for the Galaxy recently, finally got to give it a play yesterday. It's kind of... not good. Virtually no player interaction and takes at least a few plays to really understand all the fiddly rules.

Yeah, lack of player interaction is a pretty common and entirely justified complaint about Race for the Galaxy. That, and some obtuseness from the iconography. Some of the later expansions in the first expansion cycle add more player interaction (though they also add even more confusing iconography), but it's always a multiplayer solitaire type game at heart. If you didn't like the base game at all though, they aren't a magical panacea that will fix things for you.

I don't mind the multiplayer solitaire type games so much, and I do like the core "Pick an action, but try to guess what other people are going to pick so you can take advantage of their actions as well" mechanic, but ever since Roll For The Galaxy came out, I can't imagine going back to Race again. It's basically the same game, but a lot faster playing.

[Hawkbit]

What is the cost like on XWing?  Are we talking thousands of dollars to get to the point you can play whatever you want or just hundreds?

Roughly 10 dollars per model if you hunt for discounts. You need 3 to 6 models for a team.

To play competitively you also need to grab specific upgrade cards that will inevitably be packaged with models you don't want. This will drive you up into the low hundreds. But you do not need any of that shit for casual play, where it is trivial to print your own copies.

To have everything I imagine it costs something in the low thousands. But you need to ask yourself whether you genuinely need to be able to field something like a z95 pirate swarm as well as a TIE swarm as well as y wing swarm (you really don't).

I bought a dozen space ships. It gave me a handful of competitive lists for local serious business tourneys and more options than I will ever use for casual play. Further purchases will be made as and when I see anything too awesome for me not to own.

Looking only at casual play for X-Wing, what is the best sub-$100 purchase for beginners? I was going to grab a core set, a few small ships and maybe two large ships if budget holds. Just to play with my kid, likely nothing else.

EDIT: Found this, which pretty much answers my questions. But posting for others, if it's helpful. https://www.reddit.com/r/XWingTMG/comments/4jzov0/any_advice_for_a_noob/