The Boardgame Thread

[Bunk]

The difference seems to be almost a hand building and management feel instead of an action space blocking feel for doing stuff. But still ultimately a game about efficiency.


(this is from watching not playing)

I think that's it exactly. It really isn't worker placement per se, as you don't block people out of actions, just out of building spaces.

You've got a board with ten provinces, two or thee cities per. Each city produces a random resource, but all cities in a given province produce at once, so there's lots of piggybacking strategy. The cards are the real key though, as they determine what actions you take as well as your points. Points are based on board accomplishments though (# cities, # provinces, # resources, etc) so you can't just focus on grabbing cards for example, because they won't be worth anything if you aren't placing on the board. Resources are needed to build cities, cards, colonists, etc, but also have a monetary value. You use money to buy additional resources and to place cities. Have cities to produce resources, etc.

I think I like it just because its a nice mix of play dynamics.

[schild]

Anyone played the pc beta of twilight struggle?

If by played you mean downloaded to Steam like I do with all Steam games and then fire it up, adjust video, find out I can't adjust video, and close it - then yes, I played it.

[Sky]

New Cave Evil game, WARCULTS. Standalone and also integrates into the original, they're basically expanding with a new class (the Warlord).

Pre-order is up: http://summoning-of-evil.myshopify.com/

[Ard]

Ordered so freaking hard.  Thanks Sky, was wondering what happened to the expansion.

[Yegolev]

I found out yesterday that board games are the size they are because that was the size of Milton Bradley's lithograph machine.

[sickrubik]

I found out yesterday that board games are the size they are because that was the size of Milton Bradley's lithograph machine.

Watched Drunk History, too, eh?

[eldaec]

I wish board games actually were a standard size.

[eldaec]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jameystegmaier/scythe

Scythe! Kickstarter for a game about farming and giant robots stealing your shit, inspired by some artist who likes drawing farmers and giant robots.

Kemet and Terra Mystica are liberally referenced. Probably more accessible and certainly prettier than either. Sceptical that it is as deep, but it is really pretty.

[Sky]

I wish board games actually were a standard size.

No way! I love non-standard games, tile-based stuff where you can change up and adapt the map (Imperial Assault, Zombicide) and big static maps (though both 'static' size games I've played really aren't - Cave Evil just limits the border of construction and Kingdom Death: Monster just uses the big board for the boss fights).

[eldaec]

I meant the boxes, tiles are cool, and would be happy with being a standard size unless there is actual reason to make them different.

In fact I'd even settle for the the boxes being the size necessary to store the contents and no larger. But what I have is a shelf full of odd and over-sized boxes of mostly air.

[lamaros]

I don't get why people are interested in Scythe, it looks like a FotM mess.

But I don't get why people like Terra Mystica either, so eh.

Playing an 18XX for the first time next weekend, interested to see how it goes.

Played Tesla v Edison the other day. Pretty underwhelmed, won fairly easily by ignoring most of the game and just playing the stock market. Game feels a bit half cocked.

I don't care about boxes being different sizes, but I hate oversized ones. I'm looking at you Queen games.

[Sky]

:) (That's a standard heroic scale 30mm mini)

Awesome game btw.

[Chimpy]

They spelled backers wrong!

[Ghambit]

When is the retail release of the game supposed to be?

[Sky]

They spelled backers wrong!

Running joke.

Retail release, no idea. It will be $400, though.

[schild]

I skipped on Kingdom Death when it ended up about 3cm away from being Futanari: The Tabletop game.

It looked fun though, all things considered.

[eldaec]

Pandemic Legacy arrived today and is great.

It is more scripted campaign than the open ended 'craft your own world' that Risk legacy was.

But we're about half way through, and loving it.

[Soln]

I worry that Stonemaier is overrated, media creation.  I can pick up their stuff anywhere.  Not so with Cave Evil and Splotter.

New Splotter game BTW.  Get it while it exists (on 3rd printing last few weeks already): https://www.splottershop.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=FCM

Edit:

Food Chain Magnate is our 2015 release. We orginally opened up orders for this game on september 1st 2015. A few days later, we decided to have a second print run. Just before the Essen SPIEL tradefair, 84% of the combined print run had sold. All remaining games were sold in Essen and immediately afterwards. We are working on a 3rd reprint with some small improvements. We expect this reprint to be available by end of December.

Orders up to and including 1158 have been/are shipped between 8-16 October 2015. Orders with numbers higher than 1158-1461 will be shipped in the last week of October. We expect orders numbered 1462 and onwards will be shipped sometime between 20-31 December....

Food Chain Magnate is a heavy strategy game about building a fast food chain. The focus is on building your company using a card-driven (human) resource management system. Players compete on a variable city map through purchasing, marketing and sales, and on a job market for key staff members. The game can be played by 2-5 serious gamers in 2-4 hours.

[schild]

Thank you for pointing out Food Chain Magnate. Should I order from Splotter or Funagain? I don't know the shipping costs from Splotter to make an educated decision.

(Edit: The answer is order from Splotter)

[lamaros]

I don't really understand the appeal of Food Chain Magante.

I get the appeal of Roads and Boats and Indonesia, sounds like some interesting dynamics there. But in all the readinging on FCM I don't see what the hook is?

[schild]

Who knows, will play it if I hate it I'll flip it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[ghost]

New Cave Evil game, WARCULTS. Standalone and also integrates into the original, they're basically expanding with a new class (the Warlord).

Pre-order is up: http://summoning-of-evil.myshopify.com/

Fuck you and your computer.   

[Sky]

I blame schild. Also tempted to try the food chain game, because I know a guy who would buy it in a second...

[schild]

I bought both. And the varnished figures for Cave Evil. And emailed the creator of the figures to get other figures.

[Sky]

Wait, they had miniatures?  

edit: oh...those do not look very well sculpted :( Man, if only Allan Carrasco or Roberto Chaudon had been commissioned instead of an amateur. DAMMIT

[schild]

amateur

[Sky]

Amateur is not commissioning a good sculptor for such radical concepts, not including any info about the material or casting methods. Really a wasted opportunity to do something awesome.

Of course, a Roberto Chaudon set of hand-poured resin, just necros and end game monsters would probably run close to a grand )if done to scale)

[lamaros]

Played my first 18xx. What a lot of fun.

Edit: Specifically 1830 which, after reading a bit more about 18xx games in general, I think was probably a good place to start. Much of the game just passed me by while playing it, as I tended to pick up on certain subtleties and mistakes an action or two after they burnt me, however I still got to pull of a good surprise move, which nearly bankrupted another player and pretty much knocked him out of the game. Had I been a bit more switched on I might have capitalized on that to finish second, but I'd already made too many mistakes and missed too many things to touch first place.

For a game that took 5 and a bit hours it really flew by. Take out lunch and the rules and we would have been done in around 4 hours for a 5 player game, which was very very fast for the depth and fun of the experience.

[Goldenmean]

Got to say that Pandemic Legacy is some of the most fun I've had with a boardgame in some time, and I'm not a huge fan of the base Pandemic style play, but I'm always itching to see what happens next, and there's been enough new mechanics tossed in every month to keep us on our toes. I can't wait until there's finally a legacy style game where the base game would actually be something I wanted to play even without the legacy components. Hopefully Seafall or the Chronicles series end up being good.

Also, Blood Rage finally showed up and is deserving of the hype it's been getting. Highly tactical card drafter/area control type game on an ever-shrinking board. Feels like a euro, but has some pretty decent minis if you're into that kind of thing.

[jgsugden]

...
Also, Blood Rage finally showed up and is deserving of the hype it's been getting. Highly tactical card drafter/area control type game on an ever-shrinking board. Feels like a euro, but has some pretty decent minis if you're into that kind of thing.

+1.  Enjoying this game.  I got all the Kickstarter perks and am glad I did.  I just wish it all fit into one bog a bit more nicely while still protected in the plastic. 

[Ghambit]

So I finally completed my 1st printing PACG:RotR collection (minus the minis).  Have a concerted group of gamers willing to complete the entire campaign, along with a lot of doodads to make the game less bland... playing mats, adventure guide, etc.  I must say, it does make a difference.  The 1st 3 games have been entertaining nailbiters since our party isn't well balanced (we formed a religulous party; pally, druid, monk.)  We bleed, we pray, we win...  basically.  And understanding out-of-turn abilities is paramount to the fun once you have more than 2 players.

We'll be tracking progress on ObsidianPortal to make things a bit more rpg-centric.  There are surprising thematic occurrences here and there that are worthy of journaling.

[Goldenmean]

+1.  Enjoying this game.  I got all the Kickstarter perks and am glad I did.  I just wish it all fit into one bog a bit more nicely while still protected in the plastic. 

I'm just glad it fits into one box without the protectors. I'm not a big mini guy, and would have been just as happy if they were just tokens instead of figures, so I'm not terribly concerned about scuffing them up; I'm certainly less concerned about that than I am about finding space for extra boxes in my board game collection. On a related note though, man am I sick of all of the excess packaging that all of the single box add ons and kickstarter exclusive stretch goals etc end up creating. Blood Rage was bad enough, but Rum and Bones came in like a three foot tall crate of a dozen individual packages that I eventually managed to compress down to two boxes.

The winner though, is one of the Krosmaster products that individually wrapped each of several dozen tiny metallic coins in plastic.

[Goldenmean]

So I finally completed my 1st printing PACG:RotR collection (minus the minis).  Have a concerted group of gamers willing to complete the entire campaign, along with a lot of doodads to make the game less bland... playing mats, adventure guide, etc.  I must say, it does make a difference.

The adventure guide for that is just flavor text prologue and epilogue pieces right? More or less like the boxed "Read this aloud to your players" parts of old D&D modules? Or are there tweaks to gameplay as well? I liked the games of RotR I played well enough, but I could definitely see it getting samey after a while. The general consensus seems to be that Skull and Shackles and Wrath of the Righteous had more varied scenarios.

[Ghambit]

There are no tweaks to gameplay other than getting hints at what's to come; which is easily divined by just reading the cards most times.  The guide is actually fully endorsed by Paizo, as they recognized they erred with the lack of theme and fairly bland art.

Definitely a repetitive game, but it helps if your party changes from time to time.  Bring in a new player every now and then etc. 

I would have definitely played S&S instead of RotR as it's a much more streamlined and well writ game (bring the 2nd iteration), plus SHIPS.  But I'd already invested in the 1st set heavily... and I wanna get it done.

[Teleku]

...
Also, Blood Rage finally showed up and is deserving of the hype it's been getting. Highly tactical card drafter/area control type game on an ever-shrinking board. Feels like a euro, but has some pretty decent minis if you're into that kind of thing.

+1.  Enjoying this game.  I got all the Kickstarter perks and am glad I did.  I just wish it all fit into one bog a bit more nicely while still protected in the plastic. 

Kick started this also, but still waiting for it to arrive (shipped to my parents address in the US first).  Glad to hear it's fun.  Though what was the kickstarter add ins?  As I recall, there was basically only the option to buy the game, which then came with any random stretch goals they unlocked.