The Boardgame Thread

[lamaros]

I played Leaving Earth tonight. I thought it was quite a terrific game!

[lamaros]

But really, everyone should buy it. Bugger off that High Frontier business.

[Sky]

Banner Saga is live: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/megacongames/the-banner-saga-warbands

Looks content light, but really easy to lift content from the video game. Definitely calls for drawing up custom battle boards based on the video game. Solo-friendly, iconic minis (and I don't have to worry about color schemes!), I'm in.

[Goldenmean]

Looks content light, but really easy to lift content from the video game. Definitely calls for drawing up custom battle boards based on the video game. Solo-friendly, iconic minis (and I don't have to worry about color schemes!), I'm in.

I'm in also, because I'm an idiot, but people should be aware that Megacon games does not have a great track record here. Their flagship project Myth had an infamously bad rulebook, almost unplayably so. Apparently the 2.0 version which is shipping out now is an improvement, but only because they got help from outside the company from one of the guys who worked on Descent 2nd edition. Their second kickstarter project, Mercs: Recon has been delayed even longer than usual for a kickstarter project, and they just managed to completely gum up their pledge manager for the myth expansions kickstarter. So that's three out of three projects that have been screwed up in some form or another, so caveat emptor.

[Sky]

Yeah, reading further I got concerned about how much they were changing away from the Banner Saga game itself. Why fuck with something that was pretty awesome? Also, the solo thing was a typo and now they're scrambling to bolt on solo rules to reduce funding loss...I'm out again.

[Teleku]

Err, not that I've played very far into it, but while I think Banner Saga is fun, its not the depest of strategy games.  This game looks like they literally just play on one big square grid and fight.  That's.... kind of boring.  Miniatures are in the same style as the graphics, which means they aren't incredibly detailed either (like some of the cool stuff from Blood Rage, for instance).

Add that along with all the megacon issues....... having a hard time finding a reason to back this.

[Sky]

http://www.miniaturemarket.com/clearance/sales-bf/board-games-bf.html

[Teleku]

Wow, those are some pretty big discounts.  Quick, somebody tell me if anything in there is actually good!  

[Hawkbit]

Trains for $20 ($25.95 w/ship)
King of New York for $22 ($27.95)

Those are decent prices, but Trains seems to hang around $27 on Amazon.

[Stewie]

For those of you that live in Canada's Mexico, apparently Target has a buy 2 get one 1 free on board games right now. You have to wade through a lot of crap but there are some good ones in there and they have a pretty decent selection.

Also have played a bunch of new (to me) games recently and I gotta say both Belfort (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/50750/belfort)  and Caylus (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18602/caylus) are pretty swell.

Belfort was a b'day gift for me and it is surprisingly deep. Good mix of work placement and area control. That being said if you have AP players in your group you may want to steer clear as there a number of tough decisions to be made. Overall a pretty good game.

[Lucas]

Here's a let's play of Twilight Struggle Digital Edition (currently in beta for KS backers):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86iySG38eSk

Another one (not an official channel):

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1LdhDPR3OWQU-G2Gp6BOJg

[Hawkbit]

Has anyone played Blood Rage yet? my local FLGS has a few copies; was thinking of snagging it because the art is awesome. That price tag is steep though.

[Goldenmean]

Has anyone played Blood Rage yet? my local FLGS has a few copies; was thinking of snagging it because the art is awesome. That price tag is steep though.

Couple of us have. There's some talk about it a page or two back. It's a great game. Shame you can't buy it without the minis to lower the price, but it's worth it in my book.

[Sky]

Amazon has a 40% off deal of the day on a bunch of board games.

[Goldenmean]

Amazon has a 40% off deal of the day on a bunch of board games.

What a weird mix of games. That's clearly a "We're sick of having this in our warehouse" sale with Illuminati and RoboRally included.

[MrHat]

I wanted to pick something up, but I looked at my current boardgames and realized I haven't opened a box in 6 months.

What's an easy way to unload these? Anyone want to buy them at half off?

[Goldenmean]

I wanted to pick something up, but I looked at my current boardgames and realized I haven't opened a box in 6 months.

What's an easy way to unload these? Anyone want to buy them at half off?

Depends on what you have. Probably ebay or the board game geek marketplace, or if you have a good local games scene, there might be periodic game rummage sale type events you can take them to.

Unless you've got some out of print rarities, I suspect that it might not be really worth your time trying to get rid of them online. You can get games new from coolstuffinc or the like for pretty close to half off retail price with free shipping if you order in bulk. Hard to compete with that. If you do have rarities, I (or someone else on the thread) might be interested in some of them.

[Hawkbit]

I've got about 5 or 6 games we'll never play, but they cost as much to ship to someone as it would be for them to buy a new copy.

Pathfinder card game is about to go into the recycling bin. :/

[Morat20]

I've been slowly picking up more board and card games. Finally tried Bang! with my in-laws, and Masquerade with my friends. Rather fun.

Then we went to the old standby of Pit. Pretty sure the set we used dates back to the 60s.

[lamaros]

Played Cthulu Wars today.

Actually a decent game. Would buy it if FFG or someone somehow got the rights and made a version with reasonable components and not the over the top minis.

At its current price its not worth it, component quality wise ( outside of the minis the quality and design is a bit meh) or just game to price wise.

[lamaros]

I've got about 5 or 6 games we'll never play, but they cost as much to ship to someone as it would be for them to buy a new copy.

Pathfinder card game is about to go into the recycling bin. :/

Donate them to a charity shop.

[eldaec]

Been playing some Assault on Doomrock.

Comes across as a roguelike made cardboard. The hack and slash parts are far more interesting and puzzly than a typical dicechucker.

However, there are a lot of typos, balance issues, bad art and an awful lot of stuff that is supposed to be funny but just isn't. With a professional publisher this could be great. As it stands it gives me a warm hipster glow, but I haven't decided if the gameplay completely trumps the poor production values.

[schild]

Kingdom Death came in. As well as the first set of Cave Evil Figures. Looks like I browbeat them into making a set just for me since I missed the pre-Warlords run.







Makes me wish I'd gotten the Crafter Set of the Warlords figures as there's gonna be a mismatch going on (I got Varnished), but such is life.

[Goldenmean]

Cthulhu Wars with all of the bits is just such a ridiculously satisfying behemoth on the table though.

[lamaros]

Cthulhu Wars with all of the bits is just such a ridiculously satisfying behemoth on the table though.

I don't really agree, but then I'm not that kind of gamer, I've met many who would agree though.

[Goldenmean]

I don't really agree, but then I'm not that kind of gamer, I've met many who would agree though.

I'm not really either. I'd have been just fine if all of the miniatures were cardboard tokens instead, but seeing as they aren't, I can at least appreciate the ridiculous scope of the game as it sprawls all over the table.

[lamaros]

They're too big, though. It makes it hard to fit everything on the board, and can obscure sight.

Sure, they are interesting to look at, but I think even half the size would have been OK for most of them.

[Goldenmean]

They're too big, though. It makes it hard to fit everything on the board, and can obscure sight.

Sure, they are interesting to look at, but I think even half the size would have been OK for most of them.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. A 33-50% size cut across the board still would have made for some suitably impressive figures and would have knocked some money off the price (though it would probably still be extravagant), and increased usability.

[lamaros]

According to Sandy Peterson they made the minis as they are so they could be used in miniature gaming also. I guess that's what funds these things, so I can understand it, but I prefer my board games to be about board games first and foremost.

[Mosesandstick]

Has anyone seen this Resistance/Mafia/Werewolf variant: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maxtemkin/secret-hitler? I'd be pretty happy with a quicker The Resistance, the people I play with don't seem to always have the patience for it.

[eldaec]

I could be wrong and have not played it, but that looks like a slower, gamier resistence or faster, streamlined BSG.

Difficult to trust reported durations on this sort of thing - as they can vary wildly by your group's shoutiness coefficient.

[Teleku]

Heh, I kickstarted it back when it was first announced.  Looks amusing, and I love traitor games.

[ghost]

Got the new Star Wars Risk to play with the boy.  It's fairly simplistic, but I really liked it.  It's nothing like Risk and more like Commands and Colors or Memoir '44, with card driven orders.  You can get it for 20-30 bucks and it has decent little miniatures.  Supposedly it's a distillation of The Queen's Gambit, which I recently acquired......

[jgsugden]

Mysterium joined my rotation recently as a filler game.  There is a lot of pomp and extraneous materials in the game that you can bypass.  If you go quick and dirty, it can be a nice 30 to 45 minute game for a few players to enjoy while others wrap up a longer game.  It is the love child of Dixit and Clue, with more Dixit than Clue in the bones. 

Rampage / Terror in Meeple City entered my queue for dexterity games.  I have four basic categories for my games: Dexterity, Luck, Knowledge and Strategy.  Each game I own gets shelved based upon which is the most dominant feature in determining victory.  My dexterity (Toc Toc Woodman, Jenga, etc...) and knowledge (Trivial Pursuit, etc...) shelves have very few entries on them, but I like to have them as options.  I find that the dexterity games are great ways to palate cleanse after longer strategy games.  For this one, it works best when you have a certain type of table (playing on a pub table can be hard).   Further, setup takes too long for what the game is.  However, if you set it up before players arrive and have it ready to go it can be some quick fun while having a few beers between rounds of something more intense.  It is definitely one of those games that is best when people don't mind acting like idiots - like Robo Rally, it works best with the right audience and doesn't work at all with people that take themselves really seriously.  I'm hoping it gets some expansions so that you can mix up the city a bit - the base city isn't terribly well balanced - a couple starting spots have a big advantage.

Dice Masters I tried with a friend.  It seems like a fine quick filler for two people to play, but I'd honestly rather just play something like Magic the Gathering.  Magic fits the same mold and is much faster to set up and complete.  The main reason one might go with this over Magic would be that there is a higher luck component, meaning that newer players have a better chance to win... but a lot of people would consider that a disadvantage.  There are also lots of themes to this game: D&D, Marvel, DC, etc... that can be mixed and matched.  I suppose if you really like the idea of playing in those sandboxes this can appeal to you, but the theme is so transparent you don't really get the feel of a powerful wizard, of Superman, or of Iron Man...

[Soln]

I picked up the MouseGuard Boxed Set to introduce RPG's to our kids.  It's gorgeous.  Very impressed.  It's a simplified version of Burning Wheel and the art and materials (dice, paper, cardboard) is top shelf.

And then there's this on the inevitable-amateur-hour-disappointing Kickstarted-front.  (yes, I don't play Eklund games for the materials and components, but these are bargain store quality).