SaskGames

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I am borrowing this idea from another site that I belong to. The basic premise is you post what games are hitting your table. It let's others know what is being played and can be a way to learn about new games or campaigns. Applies to boardgames, wargames, role playing games, etc.

So, what game is hitting your table?

Where this is the first entry, I will post three weeks worth of plays here to get things rolling, I will try to make smaller posts in teh future as we play various games. Have a question about what we played? Ask away...

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War of the Ring Collector's Edition
I have owned this for awhile and it is really just recently that I have been able to get some quality time in with the game. I am the first to admit that I am a real sucker for great game components. This game is a treat to behold. I bought all of the custom Strongholds made by user "Fubar Awol" on this site to pimp the game out even further. I now have 6 plays logged for this game and I am a solid 0 wins for 6 plays. Even though I apparently suck at playing, I am really enjoying the game play.

Santiago
I logged my first play of Santiago this past week. It is an interesting game that involves some negotiation / screwage. I am also not a skilled negotiator so I did not do well at this. Had fun and look forward to more plays.

Endeavor
Played this game for the third time. It is really a gem. I like the mechanics and the theme. My wife enjoys it too so I am sure we will be playing more of this in the future. I think this game is best played with 5 players.

Tsuro
This is a quick little filler with gorgeous components. We knocked off three quick games while waiting for our fifth player to show up for Monday night game night. This plays quick and would be a good game to play with kids.

The Settlers of Catan
We spent Friday night at a friend's house. They had us over for a wonderful meal and we ended the evening with a four player game of Settlers with the Cities & Knights expansion. I burnt out on Settlers years ago, and we have slowly been bringing it back out to the table. I like the addition of Cities & Knights. Fun evening.

Cyclades
We had no plans on a Saturday night, so a friend popped over and brought Cyclades. We played a three player game. This was my second play of the game and I quite enjoyed it. It is heavy with theme and allows for conflict. I look forward to playing this again.

Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas
After Cyclades, we played this game. It is quite unlike any other games I have played. I like the theme and the components. It is always a hit when I put this on the table.

Infinite City
We ended our Saturday game session with a 3 player game of Infinite City. This is another quick game that is easy to teach and easy to play. I like the components and feel of the game. Enjoyable evening of play.

Poker
We had 17 people join us for a benefit Poker Tournament. It was a fun evening that started with a gathering around the firepit in the backyard. Kathy cooked up Hamburgers for the crew and we socialized for an hour or so before the main event. We played a standard Texas Hold'em freeze out format for the game. It is a deep stack game so everyone has a lot of chips for game play. If you are not too over the top, you can rally back from some bad hands and still be in fine shape. I was eliminated in 10th position and got banished to the loser's lounge to prep the xBox for some Rockband. My wife Kathy came in second so she actually placed in the money.

Lords of Waterdeep
We pretty well had all of the things done for the Saturday Poker Tourney in advance, so we went out to dinner on Friday night and then played a couple of boardgames with a friend who came over. Our first game was Lords of Waterdeep. This game is an interesting fusion of D&D theme with Eurogame mechanics. It is my second play, and I quite enjoy the game. It plays quick too. It has been years since I played D&D so this is a nostalgic theme for me.

The Castles of Burgundy
We also played this on Friday. This is one of my favourite Euro games right now. I really like the mechanics. This game is always a hit at our house. My only complaint is that I wish Alea would make thicker / better game components.

Trajan
Got this game to the table with three players for our learning game. There are a lot of options in the game and it will take a few plays to reveal the intricacies of strategy. We all enjoyed the game. Got a second play in and we are really liking the options and various paths to victory.

Diamant
I have played Incan Gold a fair bit and had not tried the German version before. Diamant is mostly the same game with better bits. Played 2 three player games of this on Monday and 2 six player games of this on Friday night.

Kingsburg
A friend of ours wanted to play this game so we scheduled a session. It is kind of a house favourite in these parts.

Alien Frontiers
In addition to playing Kingsburg, he wanted to try this game as well. It ended up being an evening of Dice Allocation games. I really liked this game my first couple of plays but find that the end game is quite anti-climatic. I hope some of the future expansions add hidden VP for players to address the predictability of the end game. I like the mechanics and theme, the end game is rather dull though.

Citadels
On Friday night, we had some friends over to sit around the firepit and have a few beers. We eventually wound up in the games room and broke out Citadels. Three of us had played before and the other three had not, so it was an opportunity to teach some friends a classic.

Crokinole
We organized our first ACT (Annual Crokinole Tournament) on Saturday. We only had eight players so it was a small group and we played on two boards. We played 5 rounds and each round you had a random draw for table and seat. Each game meant you would potentially have different partner and opponents. We started the tournament with a gathering at the firepit and fed everyone Pulled Pork sandwiches. The Tournament structure worked well and everyone wants to gather for another one. This will likely be a semi-annual event. Great friends and a Great time.

Well I can not top Matt's list but here is what is hitting my table.

Caveman Curling
Played with a group of youth people, everyone really liked it.  Fun and easy.

Viktory II
If you have not played this game you are missing out.  It is a light conflict game (it is a war game if you think Risk is a war game) that plays well with 2 to 7 players.

Cosmic Encounter
I host a game afternoon on every third Saturday, this is the game we played last game day.  It is a fun light game the only negative is that it felt a little long.  If anyone is in the great city of Moose Jaw on a third Saturday (our next game afternoon is June 16 starting at 1:30 p.m.) please come on down, I also bribe people with food.  Hold on, if anyone is in Moose Jaw at any time and you want to play a game let me know. (I know that sounds desperate but I am)

Some games I hope to bring to the table..... Mechanisburg, Grand Conquest, Paris Connection, and any game that is requested

No love for Formula De, Matt?  Trying to purge the memory of crashing not one, but 2 cars in a single night from your brain?

Wow. Caveman Curling and Viktory II are two games on my want to try list. I have been thinking about Viktory II for a year or so.

@Jason: Right you are. I think I blocked that out. Poor Willie Survive needs therapy again. :)

Flames of War
Playing in some local fun games (in Regina) but I also have been attending tournaments in Saskatoon this past weekend and will again return there - not this weekend but the following weekend for a doubles tournament. Excellent way to get started on the tournament scene.
Also, there is a singles 1750 point tournament I am hosting in Regina on July 14th @ Tramps.
Battletech/Mechwarrior
Dusting off my old collection of 'Mechs my son has gotten me back into the later half of the 60's - that's 3065 for all you non-'Mechwarriors.

Quote from: Lance on May 24, 2012, 08:25:37 AM
Flames of War
Playing in some local fun games (in Regina) but I also have been attending tournaments in Saskatoon this past weekend and will again return there - not this weekend but the following weekend for a doubles tournament. Excellent way to get started on the tournament scene.
Also, there is a singles 1750 point tournament I am hosting in Regina on July 14th @ Tramps.
Battletech/Mechwarrior
Dusting off my old collection of 'Mechs my son has gotten me back into the later half of the 60's - that's 3065 for all you non-'Mechwarriors.

Cool. Flames of War is certainly gaining in popularity in the Prairies. Do you play any other WWII minis games?

Alhambra
Played two player Alhambra last night with my darling better half. We played with the following expansions in play: Currency Conversion Cards, Change (Coins), Bazaars, and The Camps. Fun game with a very good mix of the expansions. The game was very high scoring and Kathy beat me 269 to 247. We are gradually experiencing the variety of the expansions in the Big Box version of this game.

Most of my plays lately have been over at Matts, but I will add in a few others from the last couple weeks. My games are almost all played with my children. Alex is 14 and Amanda is 9


HELLAS

Good little 2 player tile laying conflict game. One of the Kosmos 2 player line. You get to do one of three things on your turn: attack, explore or build your forces. First one to 10 points wins. There is enough strategy with the cards and rules regarding exploration that this will be worth a few replays.



RANKING

Think Dixit light.........not that Dixit has much depth, but this is along the same vein. Everyone gets 6 random tiles with various things on them. You might have a knight, flashlight, sportscar, pencil, suitcase and and a keg. One person draws a random question out of a bag and then you put in your tile that you think is closest. A couple of sample questions are: What would be a good wedding present? or What would a Yeti have the most use for.

Not a bad little game, gets lots of play because of Amanda. This is her current favorite, just beating out Quarriors.




SHIPYARD

This is solid euro. Everyone is building ships to fulfill government contracts. You score points based on how well you meet your own hidden contracts. What makes this game work so well is system, it has 4 rondels that are used for gaining your needed parts as well as an action selection track which works very well together. There is alot of open information (almost too much) and making decisions each turn can be a little daunting. Alex did very well in his first game. I need to get this out with 3 or 4 next.

I would like to thank my friend James Sanheim for turning me on to this one.



SABOTEAUR 2

Fun little card game. Dwarves are trying to tunnel through to the gold, but one of you might be a saboteaur trying to hinder everyone else. The expansion added quite a bit, new roles and new ways to screw with your fellow players. A fair amount of "take that" for a family game, but my family enjoys watching each other suffer.........take that for what you will.



FLASHPOINT: FIRE RESCUE

The best co-op game on the market. If you are a fan of this style, this is the one to get next. Played a couple times, we one once and lost once. My mom enjoyed this. Definately for the whole family

Good idea for a thread.  I occasionally post at www.fortressat.com (http://www.fortressat.com), which has similar threads to this (for board games, video games, movies, etc.).  They tend to get a lot of activity.


I just hosted a bunch of friends at my house for the long weekend, so we played games pretty much straight from Thursday night to Monday morning (especially tiring because I'd just gotten back from a vacation/work conference).  Games played were:

Summoner Wars  Got in three games of this.  Love it, but I'm wincing at the number of expansions there are.  Only $10 a pop, but there are a lot of them.

Sentinels of the Multiverse  Also three games of this.  Very fun, but can go a bit long if your only plays are to slowly whittle the villain by 1 or 2 points (of like 100) at a time.  Good variety in the number of characters and scenarios, but strangely very little variety within the characters and scenarios because there are so many duplicate cards.

Blood Bowl: Team Manager  Got in two games of this.  Despite the name, I think it does a better job of simulating the micro-level "coaching" of your team more than the "manager" part, since player placement is in my control but the management enhancements are random card draws.  Gets a bit busy near the end once you've got a bunch of team upgrades in front of you.

Mord im Arosa  Also two games of this.  It's a gimmicky novelty (only game I can think of that's based on listening for pitch), though I appreciate that it's novel more than I deride it for being a gimmick.  I surprisingly dominated both games I played.

Chaos in the Old World  First time I've played this since it first came out, but I was playing against a few guys who had much more experience.  About halfway through, I realized I wasn't going to win on dials or VP (I was playing as the blue magic dudes), so I was playing for the total corruption with all players losing.  I managed to squeak out my "win" with one player one dial advancement from winning and another at 48 of the needed 50 VP.

A Game of Thrones  First time I've played this in almost four years, but the TV show had us ready to brush the dust off.  I was playing as the Lannisters in a five-player game.  I was never in a position where I could attain seven cities, but I ended up finishing third at the end of 10 turns with four cities, with the winner having five.

Citadels  Played once.  I never feel like playing Citadels, but then I always enjoy it when we break it out.  I think I finished in the middle of the pack.

Red November Played once.  I passed out.  A fire killed me.  I think the sub was destroyed by the Kraken but I had run off to do some hosting duties once my gnome bit it so I missed the end.

Twilight Imperium 3 First time I played this in three years.  I truly forgot how much I love this game.  My sleep-deprived, beer-addled brain made the stupidest move in the history of board gaming, decimating my fleet and greatly limiting my mobility for the rest of the game (which took about 10 or 11 hours), so I finished in... fourth or fifth out of six.  Still, had immense amounts of fun.

The Resistance  Played three times.  I can't act, and I have no poker face, so I can be easy pickings when I draw a spy card and I try to act like I'm part of the Resistance.  My new strategy, which worked pretty well, is to do the opposite and act like I'm a spy when I'm actually a part of the Resistance.  A bit nonsensical, but necessary for me to not get picked out everytime I draw the spy.

Space Hulk: Death Angel Played once.  This is quickly climbing my list of favourite games.  Very fun co-op that also is a very fun solitaire game.

Quarriors Played once.  I like the idea of a dice-based deck-builder, but I'd need a few more plays to see if it's got the same kind of legs as a game like Dominion.

I'm tired again just looking at that list.  Games that were played that I missed out on included Merchants & Marauders, Eclipse, and Red Dragon Inn.  I also wanted to get in a game of Earth Reborn with the last fella to leave on Monday, but I was too wiped.  I was asleep within an hour of the last guy leaving.

Incredible weekend.  I hope to do it again this year.

Very cool. Quite an assortment of games!!!

Board game weekends are good for the soul. I have been doing this on the Family Day Weekend (February) for a few years. It is a weekend I very much look forward to every year. I really need to look at having it more than once a year though. :)

Much like Mr Newell, I used to post on FortressAT what I played, but since it got blocked at work (what?) I have not in awhile. So here is what I have been playing.
May 23rd
Vegas Showdown  -  I really enjoy this game, it has nothing new, but it is a really enjoyable play. Last night we played 5 player and "Big Money" Conal beat me by one point. We had some time left so we finished with
For Sale in which Brent "Gary doesn't lie" beat me by a buck...

May 16th
Rolling Freight - new game from APE Games that I got on KS. It is my third play since I received it and all three have been enjoyable, although my dice rolling ability sucks... Did I mention I finished last?

May 9th
Miskatonic School for Girls - a light deck building game in which you build your deck plus the deck of the person to your left, you put good things in yours, and bad in their deck. We played

Next Month!
Descent: Road to Legend

Here is what has been hitting the table at my home lately...

Space Alert
My six year-old (Breton) and I have bent this one to our own needs. We don't play with the CD. Instead, I set a mental time limit for planning our 13 actions. We also play campaign style, meaning we've named our two human characters and our two android sidekicks. When a section of the ship is destroyed, anyone in that section is lost (killed), and all other crew make it to the escape pods and return to base. We've played four games in this style and only 1 crew member has made it through four missions: Liam (as named by Breton). Playing in this way scratches a growing RPG itch I've developed-- this need to create a character and watch him / her develop. And I find Breton has a keen sense of "story" so this style of play suits his imagination. But, damn, it makes for tense play when you know the lives of your veterens are on the line!

Heroclix
Does this count as a "board game"? Probably not, but its on the table a lot these days. I think we've got 7 or 8 games in since Breton learned the game at Free Comic BooK Day on May 5. We play a modified game-- scaling to our needs. We don't use some of the more complex powers / abilities of the characters, but our basic gameplay has been expanded slowly to include some additional rules. Once Breton had the basics I introduced a few more of the rules. We've had some good scraps! And the superhero-based teams pleases both me and him.

Alien Frontiers
Played this for the first time last night. What a great game-- I'm digging these dice mechanics games. All three players pretty much ignored the alien artifact cards until late in the game so I suspect the next time we play the game will be quite a bit different. I like a good sci-fi themed game (seem to be few and far between to me) and Alien Frontiers fits the bill.

Survive: Escape From Atlantis
We love the squids in our house. Watching those tentacles yank a victim off the beach or out of a crowded boat is a great feeling.

1989: Dawn of Freedom
Just finished off my first game of this Twilight Struggle pseudo sequel. It's a pretty awesome game, very much like TS but focused in the Eastern European Communist countries.

Nightfall
Have been playing Nightfall and its expansions for the past couple months. Its actually a lot more fun than I thought at first and is really growing on me. Basically like Dominion except with werewolves, vampires, etc and more direct conflict against each other.

Betrayal at House on the Hill
Played this a fair bit a couple years back, but we got our own copy so starting playing it again. A fun exploration haunting game with a good twist part way through, but I still find it lacking in the strategic area.

Horus Heresy
Have been working our way through the 6 scenarios of this one. A surprisingly fun warhammer themed wargame, which is a big surprise for me since I don't really like the warhammer universe at all.

@Chad:
I think the expansion for Space Alert actually has sheets for characters (campaign play). Your missions sound fun. :)
Also, if you enjoy Alien Frontiers, I bet you would really enjoy playing Kingsburg and Castles of Burgundy. I like all three. I am realy looking forward to the expansions for Alien Frontiers.

@Kurt:
1989 sounds like a great game. I am interested to see how your enjoyment of the game progresses with more plays. Some of these games are like wine and get better with age.

Twilight Struggle
Our oldest daughter, (26), saw Twilight Struggle on my game shelf a couple of months back and proclaimed that she would like to play it. She is not an avid gamer and enjoys an occasional game of Alhambra, Catan, or Carcassonne. I explained that this game was a little more "meat and potatoes" and she just said "so what, I am interested in the Cold War era and I want to play." Music to my ears. Last night I set up two boards of Twilight Struggle. My daughter Krystal and I played one game, and my wife Kathy played Bob, a friend of ours. Bob played a partial game about a year ago, and Kathy had not played the game. I went through the rules, and off we went.
Krystal (USSR) vs Matt (USA) - She won by getting 20vp in Turn 4.
Kathy (USSR) vs Bob (USA) - Bob won by getting Europe Control at the end of the game, Turn 10.

I can say this was a proud moment. :) Kathy slogging it out to the end in a very close game and Krystal handily beating me by turn 4. Fun times.

Battle Line
Since Krystal made quick work of me in Twilight Struggle, we had time some other games. Played 2 games of this. This is a great two player game. We have sleeved the cards to make the game "pub proof" so we can take it on our travels.

Tsuro
Introduced this to Krystal as well. Played 1 quick game. It is ok with two, but is much better with 4+ players.

Kogworks
Krystal and I played three games of this to end the evening while Bob & Kathy finished up on their game of Twilight Struggle. This is a clever little abstract game that has great components. It is fun to put this on the table every once in awhile.

Poker
I run a poker league for friends. I played in a League game on Friday night and played 6th out of 9 players. I am currently in a slump in my poker play, so it is time to mix it up a bit. I like the deep stack format for our tournaments and the group is awesome to play with.

Loopin' Louie
Once you are knocked out of the poker game, you are invited to stick around and visit the "loser's lounge" where you can play Loopin' Louie or RockBand. Loopin' Louie has been such a hit with people that we have ordered in 7 more copies for people. Fun times. Got to love games designed for 4 yr olds. :)

Got a couple games to the table with the family this weekend.


SETTLERS OF CATAN
Saturday night we decided to skip the TV and pull out the old classic. My daughter took us down easily, 4's and 10's where hitting all night for her.


MAORI

Picked this up on Friday and taught Alex. We got a couple games in. I really like the mechanic that all players use the same ship going around the tiles to pick their island pieces. There is a fair bit of strategy in what looks like a light filler game.

great idea for a thread!  I don't think I 've checked this site for a few years and was directed to it from a thread on BGG.

I have a small group that meets 2-3 times a month for short sessions of 2-3 hrs and one to two weekends per year.  All of us are relatively new to the hobby although I have gone all in so I have a closet full of games that half of which will nver get played.  Democratically we takes turns choosing the game we will play, so I may get a chance to introduce 8-10 new games per year.

I've been able in recent months to introduce:

AGE OF EMPIRES III: which I loved and I think the group enjoyed as well.  The bits are quite nice and I am ken to get a few more plays in.  I won the game by a small margin without gaining a single discovery token.  I simply kept flooding the new world with missionaries and colonists to gain control of the colonies.  I am interested to try again and send a number of soldiers to the new world and explore geting the win by using the war action.  However, my group may not ask to play this again because they love...

SHOGUN: I introduced this about a month before AoE III, and we have played it twice more since.  There is just something so fun about  dropping those cubes into the battle tower.  I think we will get quite a few plays of this before it gets old.  However, a game that might be our new favorite (supplanting Puerto Rico), is

HANSA TEUTONICA.  I think it took us 6 or 8 plays to get all the rules and all the scoring correct, and we still enjoyed every play of it.  the newer edition has a better rule book, the earlier edition I have is not a great translation to english, and finally now we are playing correctly.  The amazing thing is that this game is actually ridiculously simple to teach, but there are just so many ways to win, and you can switch strategy on the fly.  We love Power Grid too but we end up playing this because we can rip out a game of HT in about 1/3 the time, and after every game we want to play again, to try out a new srategy we thought of during th elast game.  We haven't even bothered to unwrap the expansion for this game because we are still having so much fun with the original.

QUARRIORS has become our "go to" filler game, with occasional games of Citadels and Innovation.  I was lukewarm on Quarriors but it is better with the expansion, and I hope the latest exansion will improve it more.  I also hope it expands the game to 5 players, which is the usual size of my game group, which is why I plan to get the Innovation expansion.

I will probably start a separate thread, but In case someone sees this and can help me: 
I have acquired a copy of Space Alert in a BGG trade and was dismayed to find out it is a French edition.  I have downloaded the english rules and sound files for the CD, and even the missions logs, but Rio Grand won't help me out or even sell me a card set.  Would anyone be willing to make a copy of their english card set for me to paste up on my set?  You could suggest a  reasonable reward.  On BGG I posted a request offering up a trade of my extra unplayed copies of Anomia and the Resistance.

any takers?  heck I will even trade my french set for the english one although I can't imagine anyone taking me up on that offer.

Wow, there's a lot of gaming going on out there! That's awesome!

Lords of Waterdeep

I played this one late into the morning. We played three games & each one played quite a bit differently from the others. We had three players for all three games as well. It is playable by 2-5 players & I really think that, without playing anything but a 3 player game yet, the game will really change, as far as strategy is concerned, with the different group size. It is very simple to explain the rules & was surprisingly easy to jump into & play. Very simplely, it is a game of acquiring adventurers to complete quests with the goal of scoring the most victory points. As a incredible fan of the forgotten realms & specifically the Drizzt series of books, I was going to buy this game on pure subject manner alone. I was so happy to get a game that is one of the most well rounded I've played in along time, nevermind incredibly fun! The components are top shelf as well. I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to give it a try.

Carabande

I absolutely love this game! I purchased it on the German eBay site. It is by far the most expensive game I've ever purchased, but it is more then worth it. It is the early version of Pitch car, a DEX game involving flicking the wooden disc around the track. I usually use it as a ice breaker for new gamers. not the usually "board game" people think of & I love to break that stereotype with new gamers. Other then Matt, I don't usually hear much excitement when it comes to the DEX game category but I really enjoy these games.

4th Edition D&D

This is a bit of a curve ball but I figured I'd throw it in here anyway. In the last 6 months or so I've gotten back into playing a bit of D&D after about a 2 decade hiatus. I was very impressed with the new rules & mechanics of the game. It is much more of a tactical game then when I last played with the attacks of opportunity & flanking rules. The addition of the skills, feats & powers make the characters much deeper & really give you a chance to customize they characters to your own particular style of play. Now, with the books & adventures offering double sided maps & punch outs for the monsters(minis are a million times better but also much more $), wizards has really gone the extra mile to help players visualize what is happening in the game.

As a side note, I'm looking to recruit some players or even a DM. There are 3 of us & we'd like to play at least once a month but hopefully more. Let me know if you are interested.

The Legend of Drizzt

Another example of my love of the forgotten realms material. A very solid game with multiple replay value. All the favorite characters from the Drizzt books. The game comes with an adventure book with 13, or so, adventures varying from mostly cooperative adventures but also having some team options & one me vs the world adventures. Excellent component again. One of three similar games games by wizards. I haven't played the other two but I hope to in the future.

Catacombs

This is a DEX based dungeon crawl game. This game blends my two favorite genres. The board could be bigger. This does add to the difficulty of the game but would probably be a huge improvement for the game if it was bigger. The different size disc add an unexpected level of difficulty I wasnt expecting when I first played it. Things like arrows or fireballs shot by the players or monsters are about half the size & weight of the other pieces. It makes for a different & more difficult shot, especially at first. Tons of fun to play. The variant rules & gameplay I found online were excellent & I encorporated a bunch into my regular games.

Descent: Journey in the Dark

I've purchased all the expansions for this game & I've gotten more then my money's worth out of this game. It is another dungeon crawl game with one of the expansions offering a larger & continuous adventure. The components for tis game is why I purchased & immediately loved this game. It has puzzle like tiles to build the dungeons as you go but the real attraction was the 3D pieces(no glasses required). Instead of just having a punched out piece to represent the doors they take a punched out foot, put it in a stand so it give you a better image to help immerse yourself in the game. The game also has excellent minis. I use them whenever I can in other games & especially D&D. There is so much stuff in the box that I had to buy a 30 drawer tackle box just to fit all the pieces so I can take it out of the house. It is pretty involved game with just about, but not quite, as many rules as D&D. This game was actually the spring board for getting back into D&D. It's an awesome game if you have 3-4 hours to kill.

Willow

If you liked the movie, you will love the game. I played with some people that hadn't seen the film(I don't know what rock they've been under) & they still enjoyed the game. It plays out like the movie, the good guys try to save Alora & the bad guys try & capture her & take her back to the castle where she is to banished from the plane of existence. It's an old school style game with the stand up cardboard player pieces. I have a soft spot for these game, especially when they are in such good condition. Willow is about a two hour play & I think I've had a few games go longer & left unfinished but we all still thought it was a fun experience even though we ran out of time.

Wizard/Extreme Wizard

I was never one for trick taking games or card game in general but these games changed that for me. These are basically the same game with some tweaks to how you bids on the tricks you hope to take. The two new cards from the standard game are the wizard & the jester. The wizard is the beat everything card, even trump & the jester is a free pass card if you don't want to play a card. I like to use these games as openers for the night because they're quick & easy to explain so you can start playing & they are less intimidating then the other games we usually end up getting into. Good game, give them a try.

Happy gaming everyone!

Mac

Battletech: I haven't painted all the pieces I have, and I haven't played all the pieces I've painted, yet I want more. We had a lovely evening just painting stuff and talking about the game recently. The painting, while totally optional to the game, is in some ways as much fun as the game itself. For me, anyway.

Forbidden Island: my brother just picked this up at ComicReaders, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

Smallworld: this and Catan are simple and accessible enough I've gotten some of my older relatives to try it out. Fun was had by all.

Chaos in the Old World - one of my favourite games!
I finished last as Khorne as Nurgle pussed his way to victory

Due to the usual stuff (work, life, etc.) my gaming these days is limited to playing Squad Leader, including the Cross of Iron expansion ruleset, via email using the really excellent Vassal module for it.

I had a rare opportunity to play ftf recently and tried out C&C Napoleonics. Nice little system - very fast, very simple.

Quote from: Jamie Shanks on May 31, 2012, 05:05:00 PM
Due to the usual stuff (work, life, etc.) my gaming these days is limited to playing Squad Leader, including the Cross of Iron expansion ruleset, via email using the really excellent Vassal module for it.

I had a rare opportunity to play ftf recently and tried out C&C Napoleonics. Nice little system - very fast, very simple.

Have you played Conflict of Heroes? If so, what do you think of it?

Hi Matt... I haven't played it, and I don't really know much about it, although I've read some good things - particularly about the action point system it uses being relatively innovative.

Quote from: Jamie Shanks on June 01, 2012, 05:20:23 PM
Hi Matt... I haven't played it, and I don't really know much about it, although I've read some good things - particularly about the action point system it uses being relatively innovative.

I would like to work through some more scenarios if your schedule frees up. Let me know...

Castles of Burgundy
May was a light gaming month for me, but it seems like I was focused on Dice Allocation games. This game quickly catapulted to my all time favourite list. Castles is a well-balanced game; it plays well as a 2-player, and gets better with 3 and 4.

Alien Frontiers
I like this weird Sci-Fi Dice game. It was on my "to play" list since it came out, and I begged and begged some friends to teach it to me. I played three times in the past few weeks and I enjoy it more every time I play.

Kingsburg
This is the lighter of the three Dice Allocation games on the list. Fun and quick to play. I enjoy it more with the expansion, which I'll need to pick up soon.

Hive
Best game ever. Play in a pub while drinking a couple beers. That's what I do...

Other games I had the pleasure of playing: Trajan, War of the Ring, Turf Master, Micro Mutants, Starfarers of Catan, Leaping Lemmings, and a few filler games to round out the month.

In June, my priority is to get a game of 1989 in.

thanks Dana for that input.  two of us in our game group have Kingsburg, but I find it a bit light for my tastes.  my buddy has the expansion but we haven't opened it, but I have heard it adds quite a bit to the game.  I have been wanting to get a dice allocation game with a little more complexity and maybe we should start with the kingsburg expansion.

I have found myself slightly disappointed with Alien Frontiers and also it only plays 4 and my game group is usually 5.  I think we need to play it a few more times so I can decide if I like it

I have been eyeing up Castles of Burgundy, if I recall it plays 5.  also looking at Troyes

opened my copy of Wiraqocha last night and played a learning game by myself.  It looks promising, the board art is a little crowded and busy, and the rule book is way too long for what the game really is, but I can see it having similar replay value to Alien Frontiers.  I may like it better after a few plays. deinitely more opportunity to screw your opponent and I think game time and build-up will be shorter than Alien frontiers.

Anyway. I was thinking of picking up 2 or 3 new games over the summer, and Castles was going to be one of them, along with Eclipse and Manhattan Project, but maybe I will get Glen More instead of Castles.  Troyes was another dice game I was thinking about, but something tells me castles would be better   

I'd recommend Castles, doc, but just so you know it only goes up to 4. And the upcoming expansion for Alien Frontiers will allow a fifth player, though I'm thinking it's best as a 3-player.

Last night it was Descent: Journeys in the Dark with Descent: Roads to Legend. We are rolling along through Silver level, almost 3/4ths the way through. This is my second campaign and is one of my favourite games.

I think Castles of Burgundy has a lot of appeal for many plays. Kingsburg is a lighter game, but it plays well and the expansions do breathe more life into the game. I like Alien Frontiers, but I find that the end game is very anti-climatic. I was thinking awhile ago that the game really needs hidden victory points conditions for each player to mitigate some of the end game disappointment. I hope the expansions re-invigorate the game, as I quite like the mechanics & theme.

Now, what have I been playing...

Powerboats
I played a 6 player game of last night. The game has a very cool race / move mechanic with the dice. You can get yourself into a whole lot of trouble in a hurry. This is a game that I like to play once or twice a year. It is a bit long for what the game does, so maybe only playing 2 races instead of 3 is the way to go.

Dixit
This was a 6 player game. Just add laughter. The game is a wonderful social game. It has some very creative aspects that let you get in touch with your inner story teller. I think the game is very group dependent. I cannot see this game going over well at a gathering of lawyers, but it has been a hit with the groups I have played with.

7 Wonders
We finished up the evening with a 6 player game of 7 Wonders. I have played this a number of times. It is a great light filler game that seems to work for most people. Last night the cards were really weird how they came up. Made for some interesting combinations. Fun way to end an evening of games at a friend's house.

Pretty light gaming week for me this week. Working evening shift will do that.


Did get PANTHEON to the table last night.


Decent medium civ building euro game, a fair bit going on in a 2 hour game. Pretty good mechanics and quality pieces. I haven't heard much buzz about this one, but I have been pleasantly surprised after a couple plays.

Quote from: Jolo on June 03, 2012, 08:58:03 AM
Last night it was Descent: Journeys in the Dark with Descent: Roads to Legend. We are rolling along through Silver level, almost 3/4ths the way through. This is my second campaign and is one of my favourite games.

Hey Jolo

I agree whole heatedly! It was a great game prior to the Roads to Legend expansion but I always felt a bit empty after playing out a dungeon & not "leveling up" if you will. This expansion fixed that issue & made the game even bigger & better then I could of hoped for.

Mac

Last night we played a 6 player game of Merchant of Venus.

I ordered and received the fully pimped out print & play versions with all of the expansions. The game looks great. This was only my second play of the game and my first time teaching the game. I had the game set up in advance, it was just a matter of teaching it to the other 5 players. About 2/3rd's of the way through the rules, the power goes out and we had to get lanterns and flashlights to finish the explanation. Even then, the power was likely out for close to 2 hours. Did not stop us.

We played  until about 10:30 and called the game. It was a learning game to get the mechanics down and let everyone have a taste. We will be playing again soon as a 4 player game to get a full game in. I really like this game and the replayability is high with the variable board set up each game. When we stopped play, Colin had the edge on net worth, but all 6 players were ramping up their economic engine.

Been playing a lot of Risk Legacy lately. Out of all the Risk variations out there, it's definitely the most appealing one to this guy. Before I picked that up though, I had been playing a little bit of Small World, which is almost like a much simpler version of Risk, and is really fun.

Quote from: Tempest on June 06, 2012, 05:54:19 AM
Been playing a lot of Risk Legacy lately. Out of all the Risk variations out there, it's definitely the most appealing one to this guy. Before I picked that up though, I had been playing a little bit of Small World, which is almost like a much simpler version of Risk, and is really fun.

Risk Legacy is a hoot. We are 6 games in in our world and plan on getting a few more games in this summer. Are you playing with Glen V by any chance?

played two games of RATTUS last night. the first time we have taken that one off the shelf.  We quite enjoyed it and I think it makes a nice filler game, in a small box.  Requires a decent amount of strategy,  and compared to Kingdom Builder, another light game our group has been playing lately, I think it gives a much more "gamey" experience, in a smaller box, with a better price point for sure.

I highly recommend it!

Last night we played:

Trajan
We played a4 player game of Trajan. Last game, I focused on Military, so I wanted to change it up and I focused on Workers. This is definitely a game where you have to have a blended strategy. My focused efforts have taught me more about the game, but have not resulted in great scores. Lots more play in this game.

Safranito
After we finished Trajan, we pulled out Safranito for a quick four player game. This is light, fun, has a dexterity component, and an opportunity to foil the plans of the other players. What's not to like? :)

Last night we played a 4 p game of Empires of the Void. It is a 4X game but playable in 3 hours, which is what it took us with 4 new players (inc rules explanation). Robert emerged victorious with his "Crush all before me" strategy, while my "Hey, let's you and me be friends" finished a close second.

John, I really enjoyed my game of space empires 4x but how the hell did you finish a game in 3 hrs?  Hitting a base planet is pretty damn hard until you get some serious fleets happening..

Michael

Not Space Empires 4X, but Empires of the Void

Next time I will read your post... lol

I have a bunch of stuff I played fairly recently:

Beep Beep - a speed type game which has very simple rules and is super fun.

Linie 1 - the original version of Mayfair's Streetcar.  There are a bunch of new rules which supposedly fix the train running segment of the endgame... I didn't really care for them and we switched back to the original rules instead.  Still a very fun screw you kind of rail game.

Supergang - have wanted to get this out for a long time.  It is a game made by the same group who did Full Metal Planet.  You have three characters running around town trying to steal, sell, and do all kinds of nefarious activities.  Very tongue in cheek and I think we got some minor rules wrong.. but the addition of the dart gun for shootouts made it bearable.  Time hasn't been kind to this old guy.

Whiskey Traders - After a pretty long hiatus I am ready to get playtesting again with a specific goal to strip the game of a few rules.  I know this is biased but it is my favourite game over the past two years.  I can play this anytime.  After 100 plays I still very much enjoy the game.  Not many games have that staying power in my collection.

Cheers,
Michael

QuoteRisk Legacy is a hoot. We are 6 games in in our world and plan on getting a few more games in this summer. Are you playing with Glen V by any chance?

If it's the same Glen I'm thinking about, I started out playing with him, his friend and my brother. We got a few games in, and haven't picked up that world since. Started a new one with my brother(s) and a few random joiners and we made it to 15 games, now I have a new game going with my brother and a few of my M:tG friends.

Last night we got a couple of games in...

Shipyard
Dude, you got rondels in your rondels. Yep. If you are a fan of games with rondels, you need to set sail with Shipyard. I was introduced to this game last night as a 2 player game. There is a lot going on in this game. Lots of replayability as you explore different ways to approach ship building. Enjoyable.

Innovation
After Shipyard, we put Innovation on the table and stumbled through the rules. Interesting mechanisms. We need to play this a bit more before I form any true opinions on the game.

Last night at the German Club I managed to get three games in:

La Citta - the designer worked on this for over four years before it made it to publication.  La Citta is a wonderful lighter civilization/city building game.  It is intuitive and very cut-throat.  Your citizens are constantly migrating from one location to another as they seek different aspects each year.

For Sale - An absolute classic.  Games take 10 minutes and the ruleset is easy as pie.  Players bid to purchase houses.  The houses are then sold to collect cheques.  Most money at the end wins.  This really deserves to remain in print (not sure if someone picked it up after Uberplay went out of business).

Cheers,
Michael

Got in another round of Twilight Struggle with a new player who did really well and it almost came to final scoring.

Quote from: Matt Robertson on June 08, 2012, 07:34:00 AM
Innovation
After Shipyard, we put Innovation on the table and stumbled through the rules. Interesting mechanisms. We need to play this a bit more before I form any true opinions on the game.

I have Innovation and while it is not a bad game, according to Vasel it is better with the expansion.

THanks for the heads up on that Jolo. I have the expansion, but it is still in shrink. Perhaps I will open and give it a read.

 Mage Knight the board game.  Real cool game. Highly recommended.

Quote from: zikkuratt on June 09, 2012, 08:25:59 AM
Mage Knight the board game.  Real cool game. Highly recommended.

Cool. How many plays have you logged on this? Is the game getting better with more plays? It is on my radar to "try before I buy".

Saturday afternoon+rain=boardgames.

It was a good day for some light filler games at our house.

BATTLE LINE
I was pleased when Alex pulled this off the shelf and asked to learn it. We played a couple games of this great little two player war/card game. I remember not liking it much after the first play but it has slowly risen into my top 10 all time for two player games.


QUARRIORS (with RISE OF THE DEMONS EXPANSION)
THe light dice building game still is enjoyable after a dozen plays. Had a 4 player game featuring Dragons and Hags. It was Michelle's first play and she did enjoy it, especially when her dragon ate both my Goblins. Played with the new rule from the next expansion that you have to cull any dice that scores......nice change.


GEM DEALER
A very light little auction/trick taking game with enough strategy to keep it interesting for the adults. Highly recommended for gamers with younger kids.


INCAN GOLD
Push your luck to gain more treasure than your opponents. Plays up to 8 and a game takes maximum 20 minutes. Great fun, especially when Dad pushes his luck and gets taken out by a rockslide, twice.

Just started a game of Talisman last night, which was good, since I haven't played in a while. I think I need to purchase that rules update though...

Descent Journeys in the Dark, along with Descent: Road to Legend, this is a continuation of a campaign that started last year. We took a hiatus of 6 months but have gotten back into the swing of it. THe group is currently at Silver level, and in two sessions will hit Gold

At Strategy Saturday I was able to play a game of Dominion (with cards from all the sets).  it had been quite a while since I played this last and I really quite enjoyed it.  I find it a neat puzzle.  Trent had an assassin card (or something of that ilk) which kept hitting my stack... I lost a province (6 vp card), an estate?? (3vp card) and also a gold... this set me back enough to give John a win.

We finished the night with a game of Powerplay (slapshot).  I wanted to get this in once before the hockey season ended.  Powerplay is extremely light but it always generates a bunch of laughs.

Cheers,
Michael

I got in a few sessions of some Victory Points Games solitaire games in the past week or so: Nemo's War and Astra Titanus (both by the designer of the Fallout computer game).  I think I prefer Astra Titanus, a game in which my fleet of starfighters is up against an invading, AI controlled Titan starship.  I'm now 4-0 playing the first 2 (of 9) scenarios, so I'm having an easier time than I thought I would, but I can see looking ahead that the good times for my fleet are about to come to an end.  Nemo's War is also a good one, but it seems that, no matter how well I think I'm doing, my ending narrative is always (and I'm paraphrasing here): "You suck."  (I've also been itching to dust off my other solitaire game, Hornet Leader, before I forget all the rules.)

I also got the wife to indulge me and put off cleaning out the basement storage and instead trying out Mansion of Madness.  We ended up playing through the first scenario twice and the second scenario once, with me as the Keeper and her playing two investigators.  Very fun, with some very cool narrative moments, but boy is it fragile.  It's also a quicker game than I expected it to be, though the set-up is a chore.

Just got the newish Zooloretto Wurfelspiel which is a dice game similar to Roll Through the Ages. It isn't quite as fun as RTtA but still offers a fair bit of enjoyment in a short 10 minute game.
Also still playing a fair bit of Stone Age and Twilight Struggle, and played a TS game couple nights ago winning with USA with auto victory point win at the start of turn 5 which seemed really quick, I think mainly to some good dice rolls for me and bad rolls for my opponent.

JUst finished a three player game of Airlines Europe. Neat game which I will play again.

Monday Night I played a four player game of Merchant of Venus. I am really seeing a lot of replay value in this game. We played to $1500 and I did very poorly. I think I was prepping my ship and route for a $3000 game and was just getting rolling when the game ended. Will be playing this again soon. PS. Love the pimped up version of this from Print & Play Productions.

We finished up Monday night with a four player game of Ingenious. This is a clever quick game with decent components. Would not want to make an evening of this, but it is quite good as a filler game.

Tuesday night I went through the basics of Wings of War with Morty. We will likely set up a six mission league this fall with him running the league. That is great news. I think this game really can benefit from league play.

After that we played a quick two player game of Quarriors with the new expansion. I enjoy this game as a filler game. This is another game that I doubt I would want to make an evening playing, but I enjoy it as a condiment to other games.

The main event Tuesday night was HeroScape. Took our new map for a three player Test Drive.
Check out the map Here (http://sask.games/index.php?topic=1841.msg7530#msg7530)

Quote from: Jolo on June 10, 2012, 09:32:37 AM
Descent Journeys in the Dark, along with Descent: Road to Legend, this is a continuation of a campaign that started last year. We took a hiatus of 6 months but have gotten back into the swing of it. THe group is currently at Silver level, and in two sessions will hit Gold

Another week of Descent, and the party is currently 3 points from Gold level (see, I told you 2 sessions!). It has been tough slugging for both sides as they have discovered that the third level is not always a place they want to go.

Fighting Formations: Grossdeutschland Motorized Infantry Division
Cavan was over on Thursday and introduced me to this game. I really like the activation matrix and how it alters the initiative track. Would like to play this a couple more times to get a solid feel for the game system. This was a first play for me.

Dominant Species
Another first play. We had a Saturday full of boardgame goodness that started with a game of Dominant Species. Four player game. Very enjoyable and I would definitely like to play this again.

Risk Legacy
We played game #7 of our Risk Legacy World. Kathy has now got her name on the board. The fortress I have built in South America is getting dismantled, brick by brick. Brick by stinking brick I say. This was a five player game.

Cosmic Encounter
Played a five player game of this. Goofy race combinations and abilities. Three players tied for the win leaving Alex and I to despair in the icy cold vacuum of space.

Lords of Vegas
Another first play. We had four players. This game is best served with beer. Fun times with a bit of hosebaggery added for good measure.

After a weekend of friends and family visiting, played through a few games of Apples to Apples and Things in a Box, both are really good large group party games, especially had fun with Things in a Box when the mother-in-law for things you shouldn't do in a crows and wrote, "scratch your pecker" which resulted in wrong guessing and then hilarity.

Also played a few games of Betrayal at House of the Hill. A fun mansion exploration and then traitor revealing and monster attacking game. I generally find it hard to win as the heroes but we had a quick solid win once.

And also played a couple games of Survive, and one of my favourite card games: Coloretto

HeroScape
Played a three player game of HeroScape tonight. Played on our large map and I was eliminated from the game. Greg ended up beating Morty by a decent margin. Thank goodness we will not be seeing the Venoc Vipers back in the game anytime soon. :)

I am playing a lot of games lately. Yay.  :excited

Nuts!
Nuts! is an interesting WWII Minis game. Each mini represents a man instead of a squad or platoon. It is at such a low level of detail that each figure gets a name, reputation, and possibly some attributes like cowardly or nerves of steel. This system sets itself up for the feel of a role playing wargame which is kind of awesome. Last night, I had Sarge, along with Able, Baker, and Charlie. Charlie was a pretty green and not very combat seasoned so he stuck pretty close to Sarge. The four of them were part of a paratroop drop and had to meet at a rallypoint which was a small house at the edge of the woods. They broke from the cover of the woods to cross the road as they made their way to a small group of trees next to the house. Turns out there were some Germans at the house and they drew fire. The two Germans were dispatched quickly and the stalwart team made for the group of trees. Once there, Sarge and Charlie took left with Able and Baker taking right. They were making their way through the trees when a machine gun in the house opened up. Sarge took a hit but brushed it off.

Able & Baker kept moving forward to try to take the pressure off but were spotted by the Machine Gunner. Poor lads. They got cut up pretty good. Had to pull their tags. Brave souls. Good thing Charlie didn't witness that mess as he likely would have broke rank and fled. Sarge and Charlie spit some lead into the small window of the machine gun nest and silenced the bastards. Take that.

In a bold move Sarge gave the order and he and Charlie rushed the house. They made it without getting shot at and went around the the door on the left side. Screw it said Sarge and the bust through the door. Standing next to the dead machine gunner were two krauts holding grenades. Holy shite! One of them was so surprised by the door opening that he dropped his live grenade at his feet; the other lobbed his straight at Sarge and Charlie. Keeeerist what a boom. Poor Charlie lost his nerve and bolted out of the house and bunkered down behind a fence. Sarge gave a steely gaze to the remaining German and squeezed the trigger. That is for Able and Baker you bastard! All in a day's work.

FUN GAME. This game even allows for campaign style play. I think I will be playing some more of this. :)

---

Hey folks, if you are reading this, post here to share what is hitting your table. I am enjoying this thread immensely and would like to know what others are playing.

And now Nuts! is on my "must own" list.  I love games that tell such a strong narrative.

Matt -are the figures pre-painted in NUTS?  Do you have to setup a table similar to a standard miniature game (with scenery)?

Michael

The nice thing about the game is it is just a rule book. They do not care what minis you use or where you buy them. I like rules that are not attached to minis or the marketing of minis. It means they just focused on the game play and not trying to push people to buy minis. I happen to have a metric tonne of Axis & Allies Miniatures game from their series of Minis games. The minis are aquired cheaply and they are all pre-painted. So far we have used them to play:

Nuts!
Crossfire
Metal Warriors

I also own rule sets for:
Spearhead
Disposable Heroes / Coffin for 7 Brothers

So, when will you start playing DBA?

Quote from: Jolo on June 20, 2012, 11:33:28 AM
So, when will you start playing DBA?

Is that an invitation? :)
Actually, I know very little about the game.

Go here, Tim talks about it a lot.

http://saskminigamer.blogspot.com/


PS
I don't have a DBA army, but Tim has several including Hordes of the Things (fantasy DBA).

Quote from: Jolo on June 20, 2012, 11:40:16 AM
Go here, Tim talks about it a lot.

http://saskminigamer.blogspot.com/

PS
I don't have a DBA army, but Tim has several including Hordes of the Things (fantasy DBA).

That is pretty hardcore. I had a glance at a couple of DBA sites and it appears it is more focused on older historical periods and not as much focused on WWII. My minis are all WWII and I am reluctant to entertain other periods. $ and Time you know. :)

If you are into fantasy miniature wargaming Mantic currently has Kings of War.  The rulebooks are free to download.  I think it is around 25 pages.  Very, very easy system where you can use any scale or models. 

The game is trying to encourage the movement aspect of the game.  Side and rear flanking have some pretty incredible advantages.

It is still relatively new system designed by a bunch of ex-GW guys.  Kind of looks good imo after having bought ALL of the army books for Warhammer Fantasy Battle over and over and over again.  I have almost everything they ever made for the sytem - from 1st ed - current.

Michael

5 player Power Grid on the US map. I squeaked out a win by building to 15 and powering 13 of them. I am such a stinker!

Great day off yesterday.


Star Trek: Fleet Captains The best star trek game out there, too bad the Federation was victorious again. Their new warp experiment went well and of course the Ferengi and Q made their presence felt.

Quarriors Got to try out some of the new Quarmageddon cards. New expansion adds some nice touches. Imps and Gnomish Barbarians are solid.

Heave Ho Light filler, but a fun little tug of war in the scottish highlands.

later in the evening with the kids

Gem Dealer and Galaxy Trucker

Hordes of the Things, Tim ran a 4 player campaign, I was Rats, Tim was Japanese, Bob was the Centaurs and Dave was the Anglish. I finished last, but at the end I did hold a city that wasn't mine.

Here is Day One (http://saskminigamer.blogspot.ca/2012/06/hott-summer-2012-part-one-campaign.html)

Year One (http://saskminigamer.blogspot.ca/2012/06/hott-summer-2012-part-two-year-one-of.html)
Year Two (http://saskminigamer.blogspot.ca/2012/06/hott-summer-2012-part-three-year-two-of.html)
Year Three (http://saskminigamer.blogspot.ca/2012/06/hott-summer-2012-part-four-year-three.html)
Year Four (http://saskminigamer.blogspot.com/2012/06/hott-summer-2012-part-five-year-four-of.html)

p

At the Frag Games Day I was able to get in a few plays:

Wiz War - The more I play the new edition the more I like it.  I started playing this game in high school... so I have a special bond with the system.  I tend to play the game with all of the old school rules - i.e. using the entire deck of spells, and creations which are on the map do not need to be maintained (i.e. they do not work against your 7 card hand size).  We also play with victory conditions that if both of your treasures are placed onto opponents home squares you go poof, and that you need two opponents treasures or to kill all opponents to win the game.

Pastiche - a neat game and my first play.  You play tiles to gain colour resources.  You then can then trade these resources to get what you need to complete your paintings.  If anything it offers a good lesson in pigment blending... lol  Weng ran away with things as he had played a few times before.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle - I own way too much stuff for Warhammer... like 5 display cabinets of mostly unpainted but built stuff... and boxes and boxes and boxes of blisters and boxed sets still in packaging).  I am actively going to start playing and painting again.  I honestly dislike painting figures.  I want them to look like something in the pages of White Dwarf but don't want to spend the time taking them there.  I like building terrain much better.  Even so... it was my second game of 8th edition (played a game when the new rules came out about a year ago).  The game was Orcs vs Orcs and Stu my opponent.  I like the system quite a bit.  The game was going very well for me... my big unz destroyed his big unz... and then pursued and caught his force.  This led me straight into the line of fire of two bolt throwers.  Eight causualties later I failed my panic test and they moved a 1/4 inch over the table edge.  Our moderator insisted the unit was removed... although I thought that was a very wrong call...  In the end Stu won by 104 points (pretty close game for 1000 points).  And I am excited to start playing on a regular basis again.

HeroScape
We played our second official game of HeroScape on Monday night. The accelerated draft cost system is working well. (Each time a card is used in a game, the cost of that unit goes up by 5 points. If all six cards get picked on 1 night, a unit's cost shoots up by 30 points.) This encourages all of the players to explore new units to field and explore different synergies in game play. We played a four player game on our large map and I managed to pull off a decisive victory. I think I just made myself a target for the next game. :)

Star Trek: Fleet Captains
I have always been a bit of a Star Trek fan. I think this game really captures some of the feel and tension from the franchise and it is an enjoyable game to play. I played the Federation and was able to squeak a 10-7 victory over those pesky Klingons. I look forward to the Romulan expansion for this game.

Quarriors
I got my second play of the game in with the Quarmageddon expansion. The expansion adds value to the game and brings some freshness to an ok game. I enjoy this as a filler game, but would certainly not want a full evening of it.

Heave Ho
This is a fun light filler that represents three bouts in a Scottish Tug-of-war. I think I will sleeve the cards to make it pub proof. This needs to show up at our weekly Guinness Breakfast club meeting at OHanlons Pub.

Poker
What? What is going on in the universe? I actually won a game of poker!!! I have had a long dry spell in our poker league so it was refreshing to actually win a game. We run a freeze out style tourney with a $40 buy-in and a $5 optional bounty. I took first place for $160 and cashed in four bounty chips for an additional $20. Felt good and long overdue. :)

Venture
A card game of taking over corporations and building conglomerates. The basis of the game is trying to make "sets" of cards that match letters but not colours. This is a nice game with interaction and was close at the end. The game does show a bit of it's age, it being published in the 60s, but I think it is still pretty solid.

Sleuth
A deduction game by Sid Sackson, you are given a hand of gems and you have to use deduction to resolve which is the missing card from the game. Good fun, especially if you like deduction games. This is also from the 60s but seems to have aged a little better.

King of Tokyo
Chad brought this one over Saturday and Kathy cleaned up. We played two games of this silly Monster Yahtzee-type game... I'd play it again and again.

Castles of Burgundy
My ninth time played this year and I'm not bored of it yet. It has a lot going on but it does drag a little with 4-players. Still #1 on my hot list though...

Safranito
Fun disc throwing game to finish the night. A hoot if you get your throws right, but a bitch when you don't...

Railways of the World

A 6 Player game using the Eastern US Map, needless to say, the board was crowded, and there were 2 players in the NE, 2 in the South and 2 around Chicago.

One of the Southern players ended up connecting Minneapolis to New Orleans (ok he was only sorta in the South) and he crushed us, mainly me, with a resounding 68 points. Everyone else, except me, finished in the 45-50 range.

Played a bunch of games last week. It was a wonderful week for gaming...

HeroScape
Played another game on our large map. This was a four player game. I had an army called Phantom Menace which basically had 6 squads of the Phantoms. I dominated in the game. Everyone would fear the phantoms in the future. Unfortunately, with the accelerated draft cost, they went WAY up in price. :)

Formula De
My driver, Willie Survive, finally won a race. He is a bit of a crowd favourite because of his tendency to blow up. Everyone is quite surprised when he wins a race, including him.



Played some games at a friend's place on Saturday (June 30th). He was celebrating his birthday and had a few people over for an Epic Meal and some games. We played...

Incan Gold x2
Two games of this. This is a solid push your luck game. Always a hit.

Junta, Viva El Presidente!
This was my first time playing this. What a fun cheesy game of backstabby goodness. I quite enjoyed it. The game goes well with beer.

Lords of Waterdeep
A five player game of this was next. I enjoy the game and it's roots in the Forgotten Realms D&D setting. I never seem to do well at this game, so I see lots of replay as I explore ways to improve my play.

Get Bit!
This is another quick, fun filler game that evokes lots of laughs and shouts of dismay as players get torn apart by sharks.

The Red Dragon Inn
We ended the day with a five player game of Red Dragon Inn. This is another one of those games that is enjoyable with the right group. It brings out a feeling of nostalgia harkening back to my days playing dungeons and dragons.



On Canada Day, I hosted the second annual Bixby's Canada Day Backyard Lobster Boil and Dexterity Games Extravaganza. We had a dozen people in attendance and had a hoot in the backyard playing games, drinking beer, eating lobster, shooting darts and some other fun dexterity games.

Pitchcar x2
We set up a large pitchcar track in the backyard and had that as the opener for the day. I really enjoy this fusion of Crokinole and Slot Car racing.

Tumblin' Dice x2
I played a couple of games of Tumblin' Dice. This game is always a hit and especially so in the backyard on a sunny day. I know this was played a number of other times throughout the day.

Werewolves of Miller's Hollow x3
The last game we played in the backyard was Werewolf. After the meal, we gathered around the firepit and decided this would be a good game to play while we digest our food. I changed the playlist to play some tense, thematic soundtrack music. To add to the ambiance, a HUGE storm was brewing on the horizon. So with full bellies, rolling thunder, some sheet lightning, and a brilliant horizon with a multi-hued sunset, we played werewolf. I played two games and ended up being a werewolf both times. The last game I tried my hand at narrating. I immensely enjoyed all three games. What a perfect setting for the game. It will be very hard to duplicate for future sessions of werewolf.

Cosmic Encounter
We ended Canada day by playing an eight player game of Cosmic Encounter. I was worried about this many players, but the game played well and was a fun way to end a wonderful day of gaming.

I am already looking forward to next year's gathering!!!

Descent 2nd Edition Preview
5 hours today, 5 hours tomorrow and 5 hours on Sunday at the Dragon's Den. The game goes pretty quickly, the players 2 of the starting party were new to Descent completely did the Introduction and the FIrst QUest in less than 5 hours.

Gameplay is slightly different. You get characters and they can choose a class, warriors can choose to either be Knights or Berserkers, which determines the starting weapon and the skills you can get from XP.

Combat is faster, roll the blue die and the enhancement die you get, one or two red (melee) or yellow (range), add up the damage and the defender rolls the defence dice which will subtract from the damage. The Overlord only gets 15 cards in his deck, so Dark Charm comes out wayyyyyy faster  :D

No Conquest points, you get 1 XP for completing the dungeon and possibly a bonus for winning the scenario. Everytime the Overlord defeats a character he gets an Overlord card, and the other characters can chose to revive him (spend an action and roll the two red dice for health) or the player can "Stand up" which leaves him at 0 health but upright.

Talisman

Played my 2nd game of talisman on friday night. It was a 2 player game with the dungeon expansion. I used the priest & my buddy Derek had the thief. The priest can add a +1 when praying & also can dismiss any enemies that are spirits. The thief can steal a card from the market as well as any player it moves into contact with. The stealing ability managed to keep me at a safe distance for most of the game. This resulted in Derek roaming the entrance of the dungeon getting super powerful while I only got in there a couple of times before he chased me out leaving me to wander the normal board growing at a much slower pace. I lost quite badly but that is the way it goes. I don't mind this game but I do find it a bit slow moving. I've only played twice, like I mentioned, so I may have to wait before I pass judgment. Derek plans to purchase the other expansions so I'll see how that goes.

played more 1989:Dawn of Freedom.
Now have 3 games under my belt and finally won and got that monkey off my back. So far 2 games to final scoring, and 1 game won auto victory half-way through. Mainly through the poor democrat power struggle victory rolls, giving the communists a lot of power victory points as the game went on. I can never decide if this is better than Twilight Struggle, but it is definitely different enough to warrant having both. TS is a grander game obviously since it is on the world level while 1989 is focused around Eastern Europe, so from that standpoint I prefer TS, but the game seems less scripted in terms of events and strategies than TS, but maybe that is because I am new to 1989. And I am really enjoying the little power struggle mini-game in 1989, it makes the game run a bit longer than TS but adds another interesting layer.

Last Thursday at the German Club I manged to get in a few titles:

Lords of Waterdeep:  My first play.  Very puzzle like game where you really need to manage resources to score victory points.  Very thin theme based on the beloved Forgotten Realms setting.  I was hit with two "forced" missions and this took me out of the running for a very close end game.  No other players recieved any forced missions this game so that left a very bad taste in my mouth.

Vegas: This one is up for SdJ.  Again my first play.  I managed to get a win by a fairly considerable margin.  I was quite hesitant to play this to be honest.  But it was good fun and on a similar weight scale to Alea's Royal Turf.  A lot more fun than expected and yet another good dice game with simple rules.

Euphrates and Tigris.  This was one of the first true German Games I purchased.  I bought it right after it was released by Hans Im Gluck.  Had to search the net for the rules translations.  I love this version a million times better than the more recent Mayfair editions.  One of my favourite games of all time.  Ryan managed to score duel monument points for a few turns and won by a slight margin.  Jim mentioned that he plays this all the time online - can't remember which site he plays on though... and that a normal score is around 40 points... Obviously they have created new rules or mistranslated the game online.  Our games usually have a winning score of 7 - 10 points with four players.

Cheers,
Michael

Last night there were four of us, and since it was Reiner night we played 2 Knizias, the first was the FacetoFace version of Royal Turf called Winner's Circle (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12279.phtml). This is a horse racing/gambling game. A set of 7 horses are placed on the board, with different attributes (from 1-20), and all the players place bets face down on each horse they prefer. A die is roll and based on what is rolled (Horse's head, saddle, jockey cap, horseshoe)  the player picks a horse to move that distance. Now no horse can move twice until every horse has moved once, so there is some jockeying for position.  If you have bet on a horse you may want to move it the best speed it can go, but if you have not bet on a horse such as Regret (who has a 20 saddle attibute) you may want to spend your action moving Regret only one (his head attribute).

Secondly we played Titan: The Arena (http://www.panix.com/~sos/bc/titan.html), a Knizia game that was published by Avalon Hill, back when they were still TAHGC. This is a lightly themed card game about a series of battles between creatures, with betting (of course!).  Players are all dealt 8 cards and 5 betting chips on which to bet on the 8 creatures. You play a card with a value of 0-9 on a creature and when every creature has a card, the lowest is eliminated. Play continues for five rounds. Whoever makes the most wins. I enjoyed this, there was tension and a lot of opponent screwage.

tried a first game of Lord of the Rings living card game on Tuesday this week.  my buddy owns it but wasn't ready to teach it so we watched the handy tutorial on the fantasy flight website which got us started.  Need to get a few more plays of this in but I think I will enjoy it more than Thunderstone, although with all the expansions it could be a more expensive option and I will happily play it but won't be investing in it myself.

I have just unboxed copies of Eclipse and Manhattan Project which hopefully will make it to the game table in the coming weeks....

Quote from: doctorb23 on July 12, 2012, 12:22:38 PM

I have just unboxed copies of Eclipse and Manhattan Project which hopefully will make it to the game table in the coming weeks....

Eclipse is awesome

Received my order from germanboardgames.com at the start of the week.


Mostly light filler to play with the kids. We managed to get a few plays in this week.

Survive:Escape from Atlantis (30th anniversary edition)
I was surprised by the quality of the components in this version, it was listed at around 15$ cheaper than the regular version and has superior components. The artwork on the tiles is much better and the iconography is much easier for new players to pick up.

This is the best backstabbing family game ever.......yes, there is nothing more fun than sailing away from your wife and daughter as the sharks close in.



Mamma Mia

A fun little card game about making pizza. Managed 4 plays this week already, quickly becoming a family favorite.



Hare and Tortise

A very interesting little race game. Easy to teach, but has some levels of strategy. 2 steps forward, 1 step back........but moving back at the right times is crucial.

Played a game of Peurto Rico last night.

Easily one of my favourite games.  And having been there once as well helps bring back some great memories.

I picked up coffee and the small market quite early.  I managed to lock up a ship for 1/2 of the game as I was the only person with coffee.  Add in 5 corn production, a small warehouse to ensure no spoilage, and a wharf and I sailed to victory by a 10 point margin.

Amazing game that I could happily play anytime, anywhere.

Michael

2 games of Dominant Species: The Card Game, both with 5 players. It is an ok game, but not one I would consider great.

3 player game of Power Grid: First Sparks followed by a 4 player game of 7 Wonders, both solid games although 7 Wonders is starting to wear out it's welcome

On Saturday night I managed to play two games: High Society and Dominate Species.

High Society is a light filler.  Basically everyone starts with a bunch of money.  A prestige card is flipped and a bid begins.  If the card is a positive card (riches and fame from 1 - 10 points) only the highest bid pays.  If it is a negative card (-5 points, 1/2 score, or a thief) any money bid is lost when someone finally takes the penalty ccard.  The player which takes the negative card keeps their bid.  That is really all there is to the game but the tension is amazing.  And the player who has the least amount of money left in their account (hand) at the end of the game cannot win despite their score.

Dominate Species - This was my second play of the game.  The first play was with the full compliment of players and it was ruthless.  This time we had four players and the game allowed a bit more freedom.  I think there are a few too many cards in the game.  Taking out 5 - 10 at the beginning of the game would probably shave an hour.  The first play was a bit overwhelming... there is lots to consider each turn.  I found that your positioning is quite volatile.  You can have a huge lead in species on a territory and the next second your tokens are wiped...  So there is a fair amount of chaos in the cards.  But the game is very well put together.  The theme is wonderful.  And I really look forward to my next play.

Michael

Been awhile since I posted anything in here...

I was in BC/AB/ID/WA for a week. While in BC I played 7 games of Hive at Johnston Creek Provincial Park. Seems like this game was made to take camping.

Last night I played a 4 player game of Pastiche. It was my third play of this game. I enjoy playing it occasionally, but would not want to make it a regular gaming item. We followed that with a 4 player game of Zooloretto. I forgot how much I enjoy this game. Has some opportunity to screw over the other players. Well done. We finished the night with a game of Quarriors. I almost did not get on the scoreboard. Boy did I have a bad game. Fun filler though.

I agree with your assessmemt of Pastiche. Fun little game, but a little bit of a brain burner for what should be a lighter game. It was fun getting another play of Zooloretto too, that one just has so many opportunities to mess with your opponents.


Also got in a couple games of Neuroshima Hex with Alex today. We have been adding terrain tiles and trying out the new armies that came from the print and play forum on BGG. So far they have been very balanced and have added some very cool options.

Robert was in town, so we cracked out a Wallace game, his redesign of Brass, Age of Industry (http://www.gamersalliance.com/S10/ageofindustry.htm). If you have played Brass then you have a working knowledge of the game. The big differences are:
No canal phase.
You get points for tiles that are not flipped.
You can do some actions without spending a card, but drawing cards is an action.
There are no income or scoring tracks.
Loans costs interest and can be paid back, so you can get a loan, build an industry, manage to flip it and pay back the loan in the same turn

We played on the Germany side (there is also a New England side), and you know, I am willing to play this again. Of course I have not found a Wallace game I didn't love.

On Tuesday night we player a four player game of HeroScape on the large map.

Robert & Dillon were on 1 team and Greg & I were on the other. Robert & Dillon took a huge lead and inflicted heavy losses to our forces. Greg lost his lead unit (Cyprien). I managed to get my shades next to Syvarris and Theracus and took control of both of them. I never got to use them, but did have the satisfaction of seeing the other team have to put down their own units. Greg & I rallied back and were catching up on points. We took the fight to the mid board and right to the enemy start zones. I managed to take control of another enemy unit (Raelin) and we were well on the scoreboard. At the end of the game, they had too much of a lead for us to catch up and they took the victory. Fun game with back and forth swings.

Last night at the German Club I was able to play two games:

Power Grid First Sparks - Their is something to be said for streamlining a game.  Removing areas which seem to take a long time (auctions) is a great thing.  Unfortunately we played with incorrect additions each round for each food group.  So the market was somewhat way understaffed.  This led to the game being a bit longer than it should.  Also it meant I was nickel and diming my way into more resources to increase my clan.  I would like to give it another go but I doubt the game will surpass a 6 or 7.  There is something I love about the original power grid system (yes I own Funkenshlag) despite the extra length...

D-Day Dice - I had the pleasure of reviewing D-Day Dice when it was part of the Canadian Board Game of the Year challenge.  Everyone who played it back then loved it.  And now that it has finally been released to the world and I think we should rejoice.  I didn't have enough time to go through the rules in the detail I would have liked so we played the very basic basic trial run two player.  Playing without sector rules or specialists or tools left the game way too basic.  We should have added them in.  I forsee this game getting to the table a lot over the next few months.  WIth the line for life I have (all things D-Day Dice will come to me) I have a lot of material to get through.  yikes...  I am really hoping I can round up my nine year old on this one.  My grandfather participated in World War II.  His last name was Zachary (my moms maiden name) - and when my ex-wife and I decided on a name for a boy it was universal and immediate.  Hence my sons first name...   I want to make sure both of my kids learn about the history of WWI and WWII and this will give me the perfect excuse to do so.

Back into a D&D campaign! Looking good so far. I'm a dwarven (protector spirit) shaman, one friend is a human monk/rogue hybrid and the other is a half-orc paladin.

Quote from: Tempest on July 30, 2012, 09:10:01 PM
Back into a D&D campaign! Looking good so far. I'm a dwarven (protector spirit) shaman, one friend is a human monk/rogue hybrid and the other is a half-orc paladin.

What version of D&D are you playing? I got out at 3.5 and have not played in years. I wonder what the new edition will be like.


Last night I played another game of Merchant of Venus. This was a three player game and was quite enjoyable. We played to $3000 and I had a weak start. I felt under the gun from the beginning of the game. I managed to use the Teleports effectively and get a number of large payoffs. I won with Colin being just 1 turn away from winning. I am really digging this game.

4th ed, lots of the extra books, but not the essentials stuff. I don't want to open up *that* can of worms, but I do enjoy 4th ed quite a bit. There are some things I wish were a bit different, but overall I really have fun with it. I think the most important part is the people you play with anyways, as well as how you like to play. I'm more of a fan of combat and stuff, so I really enjoy the new system; it makes it interesting for non-mage characters in combat.

@Tempest:

Do you play The D&D Boardgames (Drizzt, Ashardalon, Ravenloft)? Also, have you looked at the new Dungeon Command Games?

That'd be a double no there. I was considering checking them out, they just haven't been in my budget lately.

I have them all. I just need to get a group, pick a date, and get them to the table. :)

Played a 5 player game of Power Grid: Factory Manager last night. I failed to win but I think this game was a little hamstrung by it's name, it has some PG elements, but is not PG.

All in all, a game I plan on playing before 2015 again...

Quote from: Jolo on August 02, 2012, 09:03:15 AM...
All in all, a game I plan on playing before 2015 again...

that good huh?  :lol

Quote from: Matt Robertson on August 02, 2012, 10:25:33 AM

Quote from: Jolo on August 02, 2012, 09:03:15 AM...
All in all, a game I plan on playing before 2015 again...

that good huh?  :lol

Well I last played it in 09 IIRC, so I would like to play it more than once every three years...

We had some friends in town this weekend and played:
Power Grid: First Sparks, three of them had never played before, Rob bought himself a copy at the Den on Sunday.
Through the Ages, we played the simple game twice (training for ToonCon you know), once with three players, once with four. I finished second last both times...

Last night we had 6 people so we switched from our 5 player choice to a 6 person game, the first being Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix, one of many games in this category (others being Daytona 500 and Niki Lauda's Formula 1) which is a straightforward (but not always high speed) auto racing game. I like this series (I have 2 of them) and I am always willing to play it.

One of the players left so we kept the racing theme going with Mississippi Queen, which is a paddle wheel racing game where you avoid beaching your paddle wheeler and pick up ladies at docks. This race was faster (there are less ways to screw people over with narrow track locations) and is a faster style of game. I am missing the Black Rose expansion, which I hope to find someday.

We finished the night off with Attribute, which has been described as "like Apples to Apples, but better". Everyone gets a hand of four adjectives e.g. venal, opaque, anal-retentive and gorgeous. You also get handed a positive or negative sheep card. If you have a positive card, you want people to take your card, with a negative, you don't want them to. So using the above hand and assuming you have a positive sheep, you could state "Wall" and play the opaque card face down, everyone else plays a card based on their hand and their sheep and you all flip your cards over. The first thing you want to do is grab a card that matches "wall"  eg wooden. When everyone is finished grabbing cards, the sheep are turned over. If you have a positive sheep and someone took your card, you both get a point, if your sheep is positive and no one took it you lose a point. If your card was negative and no one took it, you gain a point, if someone did, you both lose a point. The game is played to about 15-20 rounds. Winner has the most points.

played three games of Princes of Florence over my vacation last week.  Wow!  I was very impressed wirth this one.  for a 12 year old game, this has a nice mix of mechanics, with the auctions and the limited number of priveleges creating some interesting player interaction, combined with the puzzle-like element of fitting your buildings and landscapes onto your game grid, and then the resource management of watching your cash supply and deciding how many VP's to take and hopw much cash to take every time you create a "Work"

I am glad I got a chance to try out this gem!

Through the Ages again, just the simple game, as all but me were new to it. So I finished last...

I just bought 7 Wonders from Dragons Den and played it for the first time. First I watched the video series on youtube by watchitplayed which helped enormously for our fist round. The game is fast (about an hour for the first one) and fun, and it's a wonderful challenge trying to think ahead about what to keep and to pass on. Even though I knew the most about the game I proceeded to lose epicly.  Id rate the game at 8.7/10 so far.

7 Wonders

I played my first 2 games of 7 Wonders last night. I was pleasantly surprised at the length of the game. It's nice to play a such a solid game without having to put in 2 hrs. I love long developing strategy games but 7 Wonders was refreshing in that it has many strategies to potentially follow but plays so fast. It feels like Lords of Waterdeep meets the speed round. We played with only 3 & i'm looking forward to playing with 6-7 people in this game.

Mac

Through the Ages, round 3...
We played the advanced game three players, and I am horrifically bad at this game. I like the game, but it sure has a lot of bits!

Carson City
Played a 5 player game of Carson City the other night. Worker placement with gun fights. I quite enjoyed the game and look forward to a few more plays.

Downfall of Pompeii
We followed up Carson City with a 3 player game of Downfall of Pompeii. There is something to be said about the visceral joy in throwing another player's meeple into the Volcano. Does that make me a bad person?

Mage Knight

I recently bought this because I have no will power and should keep my credit card at home.  I played about half a solo game on Friday night before quitting because I was overly distracted by Ghost World, which I haven't watched in about ten years.  That and the table at the family cabin was too small to fit the game properly.

I really liked what I played (and I hardly scratched the surface) but I just don't like Vlaada's (the designer's) style of presenting complicated rules.  It's too... conversational for me, and I don't like that he spoonfeeds the reader for an initial neutered game rather than giving me the tools right off the bat to play the game as it was meant to be played.  I think next time I try to teach it to myself I'll use its other rulebook, which looks more traditional in its presentation.  (Yes, this game comes with two rulebooks.)

I would really like to give Mage knight a go this fall when my schedule opens up a bit.
I am even willing to host... *hint hint*
I have beer... *more subtle hint*

Quote from: Matt Robertson on August 28, 2012, 11:14:50 AM
I would really like to give Mage knight a go this fall when my schedule opens up a bit.

That'll work, since it'll take me the rest of the summer to figure out "how to do what when" with these two rulebooks.

Steel Driver, Martin Wallace's redesign of Prairie Railroads. There were 5 of us, and it took about 90 minutes. None of us had played it before, and they let me win ;)

I just bought a copy of Blood Bowl: Team Manager at Comic Readers South. Never played the original tabletop game, but I loved the theme and the game has pretty good reviews on BGG. Read through the rulebook and played it with my fiancee's brother. I never play sports games, and he rarely plays board games, but we both loved it.

I was really impressed by how much the mechanics reflect the theme of the game, while managing to abstract an entire season of football down to a series of "highlights." This is a fantasy sports game that will appeal to those who don't like football, so long as they like fantasy themes. Great game. I look forward to picking up the "Sudden Death" expansion when it comes out.

The latest game to hit my table has been Descent, Journeys in the Dark 2nd Edition.  I never played the original Descent, but I was big player of HeroQuest in the early 90's.

I am now a full-on addict.  The game has a fantastic campaign system with tons of replay value, not to mention the inevitable expansions.

That's good to know. I've been really thinking about picking this up because I'm sure I can convince AT LEAST one of my friends or my fiancee to play Descent with me, whereas if I were to buy Chaos in the Old World, which I'd also like to get, it's a total crap-shoot and likely I wouldn't be able to play with anyone I know.

I know it's a very subjective question, but is there enough story in Descent to satisfy for an RPG-lite experience?

Iv'e been looking into the new Descent the last week and from what I see/hear it looks like a really fun game. Do you find the game easy/fast to set up and is it fairly easy to learn?

Last night at the German Club I managed to get three games in:

Tichu - a staple with our group.  It has been a while since I last played and it is still the premier trick taking game for four (besides Bridge).

German Railways - there are a bunch of really neat things happening here..  First of all there are eight train company's.  Up for grab are three shares per company.  One share is auctioned from each at the start.  On your turn you can only do three things: 1) auction a share (the third share of a company cannot be auctioned until two of all the others are sold).
2) place track to increase the railways value (i.e. by connecting cities).  This action may also trigger a dividend round if railways connect.
3) pass

Each company has a unique rule when it comes to dividend payouts and placement of track.  Some build faster, some pay less for different terrain, some don't pay dividends until they reach Berlin, etc.

Like many money games having the correct shares in companies which are likely to merge is a key.  And having more shares than your opponents helps as well.  I felt my opponents overspent their cash in the opening sell.  I had a bunch of money so everytime my turn came around i bought a new share for relatively cheap.  This in essence helped me lead most of the game and I won with a large margin.

There is only one other caveat.  Your current position in the game determines how many tokens you put into the bag for turn order. 

Example: Let's say I own one share of the blue, red, and black lines.  If the value of these companies is 18 that is my current position.  If opponent a has a value of 10, opponent b has a value of 15 and opponent c has a value of 19 here is what would happen: opponent c puts one token in the bag, I put two, opponent b three, and opponent a four.  Four tokens are then pulled one at a time.  This determines the turn order for the next round.

With my early jump I likely played only half of the game and I still won.  Only one token was going into the bag each turn.  I deliberately created some ties with my opponents to mitigate the effects of the system (i.e. they put less tokens into the bag).

I am not sure if this runaway leader problem would happen often.  It did in our first game but that definitely wouldn't stop me from playing it again.  Simple and fun!!

The only thing I want to gripe about is the colour choices made.  Player colours were the same as railway company colours.  And the yellow and orange were hard to tell apart as were the brown/black.

I am sure next game the money will remain much tighter.

On a different note, I cannot get Wings of War out of my head the past few days...!!

Michael

I forgot to mention the third game:

The Bottle Imp.  This is another trick taking game but their are only three suits (red, yellow and blue).

The price of the bottle at the beginning of each hand is always 19.  The player left to the dealer leads the first trick.  Players must play in the led suit if possible.  If all players play above the bottle value high card takes the trick.  If one or more player plays below the bottle value it is sold to the highest card below the current value.

Example: The bottle value is 19.  The lead is a yellow card above the bottle value.  Second player plays a yellow 14 (not sure if the 14 is yellow - just as an example).  Next player plays their yellow 3 and the fourth player plays their yellow 2.  The second player takes the trick and now owns the bottle and it's value changes to 14. 

In the end you want to avoid ending the hand without taking the bottle cause  you only score negative points.  All other players score all cards (coin symbols) earned.

First player to 200 or 500 points wins.

Some players cannot get their head around the game.  There is a certain groupthink that needs to be altered especially if you are used to more standard trick taking games.

I think it is beyond clever and it is a wonderful three player experience!!

Michael

Quote from: Mike Friesen on September 07, 2012, 11:22:18 AM
Iv'e been looking into the new Descent the last week and from what I see/hear it looks like a really fun game. Do you find the game easy/fast to set up and is it fairly easy to learn?

I find most of its rules to be fairly intuitive and simple.  I also had a background in at least two similar games, so I am coming at from what might be called an "insider's" perspective.  That being said, I've taught the basics of the game in under half an hour.

Setup, from opening the box to taking the first turn, I would say takes about 10-15 mins.  There are a lot of tokens and card decks that need to be set up, especially if you're playing a campaign.  It helps that my wife and I added several baggies to the equation, and labeled them for specific purposes.

Quote from: XtianHardy on September 07, 2012, 11:20:49 AM
I know it's a very subjective question, but is there enough story in Descent to satisfy for an RPG-lite experience?

I would say so.  The games comes with 19 Quests, 9 of which are played in any one Campaign, and each has it's own story blurb (or two, or three).

King of Tokyo with three players. One guy was eliminated early. The other guy was holding Tokyo and had a card that enabled him to use energy to heal while he was in there. He had 19 VP and 8 health to my 13 VP and 4 health. If I failed to get 7 VP in one turn, he had the win. Lucky for me I had a card that gave me 9 VP for rolling all different die faces, and I got it without even having to reroll. There was much screaming and fist pumping. I can't imagine ever getting a bigger come from behind victory than that.

Ghost Stories with four players on normal difficulty. I love co-ops that have you thinking victory is well within reach right before drawing a card that screws you royally. Ghost Stories seems to do that pretty well. I hope my friend breaks it out more regularly.

Small World with four players, using elements of SW, Underground, and Realms. This game took FOREVER. Open information + a million options + AP-prone players is a bad combination. Not a bad game with the right players (read: fast players) I'm sure, but I'd rather be playing Cosmic Encounter with this group.

I played Game of Thones: The Board Game, Second Edition this weekend with some close friends. This was my fifth time playing Game of Thrones with this group, and it was our most aggressive game yet. Alliances were forged and broken within the first two turns, and everyone was at each other's throats for the rest of the game. It ended very close, with Baratheon (my fiancee, Courtney) and Stark (me) each having six victory points, and the Tyrell's (Marcel) narrowly taking the lead with seven. A great game, but tensions ran so high that we all agreed to play something co-operative next time.

I also picked up the Pathfinder: Beginner Box at Comic Readers and Elder Sign on Amazon.ca. Courtney and I have been looking for a good RPG to play with friends and Pathfinder seems like its exactly what we've been looking for. Can't wait to get some friends together and begin the short campaign that comes in the box. For 34.99 it was a wicked deal!

Quote from: Mike Friesen on September 07, 2012, 11:22:18 AM
Iv'e been looking into the new Descent the last week and from what I see/hear it looks like a really fun game. Do you find the game easy/fast to set up and is it fairly easy to learn?

They have a demo copy at the Den, you should check it there.

Dungeon command

I played my first game of Dungeon Command last weekend. I had the Heart of Cormyr squad against the Sting of Lolth squad. I thought that I had a big advantage using the adventurers over the drow just on pure strength & power the characters but I found out how valuable the extra speed the drow possessed. I had the upperhand at the start of the game but as I futilely tried to chase the drow around the board I quickly found out that speed & numbers are no match for brute strength. Needless to say I got smoked. My opponent Zac played a masterful game & even though he crushed me like a tiny little pea, we both really enjoyed the game. With upcoming squads like The Curse of Undeath, Tyranny of Goblins & Blood of Gruumsh, I think I'll be playing this one for a while.

Quote from: XtianHardy on September 10, 2012, 08:57:51 AM
I played Game of Thones: The Board Game, Second Edition this weekend with some close friends. This was my fifth time playing Game of Thrones with this group, and it was our most aggressive game yet. Alliances were forged and broken within the first two turns, and everyone was at each other's throats for the rest of the game. It ended very close, with Baratheon (my fiancee, Courtney) and Stark (me) each having six victory points, and the Tyrell's (Marcel) narrowly taking the lead with seven. A great game, but tensions ran so high that we all agreed to play something co-operative next time.

I have a copy of the first edition of this game, and have been curious as to how the 2nd edition compares.  Can you shed any light on that?

QuoteI also picked up the Pathfinder: Beginner Box ....

I've been circling the D&D Red Box (4th edition abridged rules, tokens, map, mini-campaign) as something to consider getting for my boys (and, honestly, me) for the holiday season. I am now, however, considering Pathfinder Beginner Box, too.

Anyone want to give me their opinion on how the two compare?

Note: I'm an old school DM-- played a heavily modified hybrid of D&D and AD&D for many years when I was younger and could not afford books and modules, Star Wars RPG, Vampire the Masquerade (yes, I admit it), Battletech, a homemade Western RPG, and some other miscellany.

And since this forum is about what has been hitting the table let me add that King of Tokyo is in high rotation at my house, too. My son also recently got Galaxy Trucker and Smallworld Underground for his birthday so we've given each of those a run or two.

I recently got the new Volko Rhunke game Andean Abyss, a 1-4 player war game focused around the Colombian insurgencies, although it plays a fair bit more like a Euro game than a war game. I have been able to get in a couple solo games and it really is quite a fun solo game not like others that are only ok as solo, this one was partly designed with that in mind, and a 2 player game that went all right. Certainly has a bit of a learning curve to it, and I imagine a 4 player game would be outstanding. In some ways it reminds me of Dominant Species and in some ways like Chaos in the Old World.

Chad - my good friend Bruce Beckett gave me a rundown about D&D 4th vs Pathfinder.  I appreciated his commentary.  Here is what he said:

"Second system that I like is D&D, it might not be the best from a lot of people view but it is still the biggest and for some good reasons.  I liked 3.5 and played it a fair amount, switched to pathfinder when it came out, then tried 4th edition but I and most in my group did not like it.  If we wanted to play a video game we would have played a video game.  I still like the D&D idea and still like 3.5

The third system is pathfinder this is the one I have played the most in the last few years and likely the one I will be playing for a while.  I prefer it to D&D 3.5 and 4th edition.  All the reasons I like 3.5 are included in pathfinder but pathfinder has cleaned up a lot of the rules and generally makes the games flow smother.  The player`s manual is very comprehensive and eliminates the need for a DM guide book and it is a good price for people trying to get into the system.  Very good price considering the size of it.  I find the book very well laid out (an index would have been nice though) and easy to read.  It is generic enough that you can adapt almost any D&D world or module to it without a lot of work and that means you have a large library of material to pull from or pick and choose what you want to allow in.  The modules from paizo are really good and the campaigns are VERY good.   I really want to play the kingmaker campaign but it would not work well with my group.

Bad points:

Customization of characters is hard, a fighter is good in combat and not much else a rogue has lots of skill points always.  There is not much difference between an evil or good cleric (at least on paper). 

D&D and pathfinder are combat systems plain and simple.  The standard roll vs. role playing argument.  I tend to disagree with this argument to a degree.  I agree that the pathfinder rules are primarily about combat as is the experience generation but I think they have to be.  It is very difficult to write rules for player interaction for roleplaying this must be handled `on the fly' by the DM and the party has to agree to spend time interacting with the environment but all of this is outside of the rules and cannot be quantified easily.  In short there is as much role playing as the players want, to force them to role play more or less then they want is not desired."

QuoteChad - my good friend Bruce Beckett gave me a rundown about D&D 4th vs Pathfinder.  I appreciated his commentary.  Here is what he said:

Thanks to you and your friend. I think my boy would like some dice-rolling but, yeah, I'd like to encourage some "roleplay" too, some decisions to be made in the mind not the dice, exploration of the world outside of the paper, etc. But I am now going to take a closer look at Pathfinder.

It was Starlit Citadel's review of Pathfinder that pushed me over the edge. Honestly, the components, guidebooks, cardboard minis, plastic map, just the incredible wealth of everything included in the box made it worth it to me. Even if my friends and I only make it through the basic campaign included in the box, I will have got my money's worth.

Everything that I've heard about the Beginner Box makes the D&D Red Box pale in comparison. Also, if you have any experience playing 3.5e, then yeah, Pathfinder is your game.

3 player game of Chaos in the Old World last night, it was good, but I think the game requires Khorne. Khorne adds that extra element of risk that forces players to look more towards planning.

2 - 4 player games of 7 Wonders with the Leaders expansion. I was getting bored of 7 Wonders, but the Leaders may have added enough that I will play it again

Played three games this weekend.

First was a game of Elder Sign. Five investigators vs. Yog-Sothoth. Great game. Ended with most of our investigators beating devoured but in the last moments of our battle with Yog-Sothoth one of our investigators managed to beat him back. This was my first time playing Elder Sign with a group, and it was a lot of fun. It really captures the Lovecraftian theme quite well, and though it isn't as immersive or strategic as Arkham Horror, it's still a very good game and can be played in under two hours. I wouldn't play with more than four though, as people become easily distracted.

Next up was Dixit. I adore this game for its art and creativity, but I absolutely hate the scoring mechanics. Despite having only three rules for scoring, it never fails to confuse people. I really need to develop a few house rules to make scoring less confusing, either that, or write the scores down on a white board so people can remember how to actually score points in this game.

Lastly, we played a game of Cards Against Humanity. I can't discuss the game's particulars without offending someone, but let's just say this is one of my favorite party games and leave it at that.

I also bought Twilight Imperium (Third Edition) and Rex: Final Days of an Empire, and am really looking forward to getting Rex to the table soon.

Discworld: Ankh-Morpork, we played it 4 player (and I lost both times). I like this game, when you play a lot of Martin Wallace games you know them as tight economic games, until you play this, chaos rules and you have to work at it to win.

This summer has been a summer of family and camping trips. I have played lots of lighter fare including Werewolf, Farkle and Mexican Train Dominoes.

A short while ago, four us us got together for a rousing game of Fiasco. Holy crap was that a ton of fun and since I no longer play D&D, this will be an outlet for some Role Playing goodness. Very clever; very fun.

Last night at ChewsDay Challenge, I played the following games:

Battle Line
Played a quick game of Battle Line while I was registering people for the event. This is a great filler game that plays quick and transports well. I think it is a must for most collections.

Antics!
A fun Fragor Games production. This game has rival ants collecting prey and leaves to score. Each player has an anthill which they are building higher to give them more powerful actions. The game plays well and plays quite quickly. The theme and the mechanics tie in quite well together. Great game.

Snake Oil
This was a hoot. Chad brought this out and I played a 5 player game. Lots of laughs and silliness. "Shame Glove" is now a phrase that will live on in infamy.

Mamma Mia
An evening of games at a Pizza Restaurant cannot be complete without a game of Mamma Mia. Played with 5. I got my butt kicked. Fun game that rewards good memory skills.

Looking forward to future ChewsDay Challenge events.

Last night I played two games and was soundly thrashed in both!

First up was K2, a game of climbing Mt Everest (or in my case, making it to 8000 feet and being eaten by the Simpsons). It is an interesting race game, we played the winter side.

Second up was Small Worlds: Realms, we played "A river runs through it" or whatever the second scenario is called. I like it, it should breathe new life into the already great Small World franchise. Maybe next year we will do a Small World: Realms tourney at ToonCon.

Last night I played the following:

Ballonrennen
Played a three player game of this 1977 German Balloon Race game. It is a bit chaotic and luck driven, but was a short fun game to play and the pieces are cool. This was especially topical as my darling wife surprised me with a real Hot Air Balloon ride Sunday morning. Awesome!

Dungeon Command
Played a three player game of this. I am really liking this game and I look forward to additional factions / warbands. Three player was fun, but I think the game will come alive even more in a four player setting.

Sid Meier's Civilization, we played a 5 player game last night with three players that had played before and 2 n00bs.  We played 7 turns and the game probably would have ended on the 8th with a capital crushing

Played a few games lately...

Wed night I played a game of the original Crossbows and Catapults with my nine year old.  What an amazing game.  The rules as listed are pretty vague but imagination takes over.  Flicking those discs and making plastic blocks fly is always fun fun fun.

At the German Club last night I managed to get in two games.  First off was Africanus.  I must admit my second play was a lot better than my first, even though I lost this time.  I think Michael Schacht (spelling) got the balance pretty exact.  I picked up three wild cards through the books but I needed one more turn to overcome the 10 point penalty and alas it didn't happen.

To end the evening we played Union Pacific.  UP is one of my favourite games of all time.  I struggled this time through, however, not able to get any majorities.  You need majorities in some of the larger companies by mid game to stay on top.  For those of you who are newer to the scene I heard Airlines Europe (the third incarnation of this system) is just as good.

Cheers,
Michael

Sid Meier's Civilization, we played a 2 player game last night, The People's Republic of China was two turns from winning when we quit.

Fun game, I like it.

I played my first few games of Carcassonne against the wife.  Nice casual game, but I can see it being a bit nasty and competitive with the right people.

I took the week off to do some yard work but, what with the crap weather, I've had the opportunity to spend some time soloing a few games to learn/re-learn the rules.

I recently bought a bunch of expansions for Arkham Horror, so I now have all three expansion boards.  I tried a solo game with all the fixings, playing as three investigators, to learn the new stuff and refresh myself on the basics since it has been a few years since it's hit the table.  A bizarre combination of Great Old One (who limited the number of clue tokens I could carry and whose strength was based on the number of clue tokens left on the board) and Guardian (who's supposed to make the game easier for me by adding lots of clue tokens to the board) caused an insta-lose when the GOO woke up -- it had a modifier of -24 when it awoke (basically, it would cancel out my first 24 successful die rolls each turn).  Overall, I like the additions to the game, but holy cow does it have a huge footprint now.  It no longer fits on my relatively large dining room table.  I need to surround myself with end tables for the decks of cards.

I also played two solo games of Mage Knight, one with a dummy hero and one without.  I probably missed a fiddly rule or two, but the basics were easier to learn than I thought they would be.  Very fun game, but dense, with all kinds of co-op, competitive, and solo scenarios and optional rules.  This is the kind of game that should be played 20, 50, or 100 times to get the most of it.  Otherwise, you're only scratching the surface (and having to relearn that surface if you don't play it regularly).

Got  a few games in with the kids this weekend.

We started out with Talisman, first edition, they where a little put off by the black and white cards, but soon got into the game. Amanda stomped all who opposed her with the Troll and cruised to an easy victory. It helped that Alex got hit by Raiders and then later was turned into a Toad......poor little Ranger. Amanda was able to scoop all his belongings both times. Forgot how fun and simple this game is, I know it will be coming out again.
8/10

Later on we played Tiki Topple. This is a decent little stategy game. All you want to do is get your colored tikis to the top of the pole. Problem is, everyone has their own order they want. Great quality in the box too. Recomended for families as a light 20 minute game. Works with fairly young ones too.
7/10


Finally Alex had to try out his newest game, FRAG. It is billed as the first person shooter board game. A true dice fest. Shoot and kill, die and respawn.......a little monotonus after the first 20 minutes, but it does let you blow away family members with Gauss Rifles. 
4/10

Quote from: Colin Dearborn on October 22, 2012, 11:09:23 PM

Finally Alex had to try out his newest game, FRAG. It is billed as the first person shooter board game. A true dice fest. Shoot and kill, die and respawn.......a little monotonus after the first 20 minutes, but it does let you blow away family members with Gauss Rifles. 
4/10

I recently picked up this game but I haven't found the time to get it to the table. I'll have to pick your brain on that one.

Played my 3rd game of Talisman as well this weekend. It was a strong showing for this game by the looks of this board. We played with a couple of expansions as well. I like the game but it needs something to speed it up a bit. We haven't finished a game in 3 tries. We've spent so much time trying to build up our characters in the early stage of the game, by the time we're strong enough, we seem to fade & lose interest. I've enjoyed the game each time I've played but, for me, it needs a little help to get moving.

Re: Talisman, I know in 4th edition, they have a rule or two for making the game quicker. I think the basic thing is instead of requiring 7 strength or craft worth of trophies, you can trade in 6 points for a 'level up' or what-have-you. I think t

Last night we had a 5 player game of Chaos in the Old World (now with Rats!). It was awesome, I lost.

CitOW is one of my favourite games, I love that there are multiple paths to victory, and each Chaos God has a different style.

Over the past few days I have been playing a few games of Backgammon with my nine year old.  It is a wonderful way for kids to learn to count (although of course he knows this already).  There is so much depth in this game - way more than most people will ever discover.

At the German Club i managed to play two games of King of Siam.  The end game is somewhat fiddly at times and it may be a bit luckier than I would like but overall this was a pretty neat three player experience.  I love games which have alternate end game scoring.

Finally I managed to play a few hands of Gang of Four.  It was much better than I last remember and I could see myself playing this more often moving forward as an alternate to Tichu or Wizard.

Michael

Last ChewsDay Challenge I played:

Conquest of Planet Earth
Fun game where each player is a race of aliens trying to conquer earth. Card art and flavour text add to the cheese factor. Good times.

Pandemic
I played a three player game of pandemic and it was down to the wire. All measures were close with cards running out, cubes getting low, and outbreaks climbing. We were a mere 1/2 turn away from curing the last disease when a rash of outbreaks ended the game unfavorably. Sorry world. I am no Dustin Hoffman. (Outbreak). :)

Modern Art
I enjoy the auction mechanic in this game. We played a five player game. I really need to play this more than once every 3 years.

Last Thursday I played a 3 Player Game of Railways of the World

We played on the Mexico map as it is smaller and would probably be a better game with more tension with only three players. We were right!. Man do I ever love this game. All of my previous plays were on the Eastern USA map. This was an opportunity to try another map. A few observations:

:scrab-a The smaller map created tension and conflict right away. Every turn had to be considered.
:scrab-b All of us went into debt quickly, taking lots of bonds to build through the expensive mountainous regions.
:scrab-c The game only took about 90 minutes or so, which was a huge surprise. The 3 of us have played Railways of the World before so we were not learning the ropes. I am pleased that I can get a game of this in under 2 hours. WooHoo! Great game system!!!

Last weekend the boys showed up for a day of gaming

Stone Age with the expansion to 5 players proved to be a lot of fun.

7 Wonders with cities and Leaders expansion also proved to be a lot of fun :  We are looking forward to the next expansion where we can finally interact with others at the table, not just who's on your left or right

Hansa Teutonica a fantastic game enjoyed by everyone

I played a 4-player game of Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery this Chewsday (myself, Barry, Cory, and Mark).  It was the first kick at the can for each of us so we played the short version -- we all started off with 7 "influence" out of the 12 required to win the game as the most influential dominus in Rome (if you hold your 12 influence until the end of the phase, not an insta-win).  After a wild back-and-forth phase in which each of us was in a position to potantially win, Barry took the victory in a tie-breaker over Cory, who did not have a gladiator available to send to the arena for a final, bloody battle.  Final scores: Barry (W) 12, Cory 12, Mark 11, Ryan 11.

The short game, which was a learning game for all of us so it started with a rules explanation, took 2 hours from set up to declaring victory.  In a standard game, players start at 4 of 12 influence and, in the long game, players all start at 1.  I imagine the long game would take 4 hours or more and might get repetitive, so the standard game is probably what I'd settle on most often.  I thought it was a great game: the rules were pretty straightforward (though I just realized that we should have increased our hand limit as we gained influence) and I've played few games that have done as well at integrating its theme.

Ryan Spartacus  was a awesome game but only problem I have is the end condition It should b finish out the round then check for victory  because then u can actually  fight or get a 4 way tie and I like the fighting system

Last night we played an incomplete game of Republic of Rome, lots to do in the game, but we ran out of time.

Blackbeard, the GMT edition was played last night. It was ok, not a great game. I felt we didn't have enough time to advance as pirates before the game ended.

I will try it again, maybe playing the long version of the game

Last night was a 5 player game of Container, and it was a tough miserly game. Only one player ended the game without a loan (and he won).

It is an economic game, with a lot going on and it can be confusing to newcomers because of the range of actions.

London, Martin Wallace's card game of rebuilding London after the Great Fire of 1666 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_London) was on the table last night.

The basics of the game are very simple
1) Draw a card
2) Do one of these three actions
   a) draw three cards
   b) play cards to your display
   c) run your city
   d) buy a borough
3) Check your cards to see if you have more than 9, if you do, place on the board until you are down to 9.

With most games by Wallace, the devil is in the details though and these are plentiful...

When you draw three cards, you can draw them face down from the deck or face up from the board.

When you play cards to your display, you must discard a card back to the board of the same colour, this means to play a brown card to your city, you must discard a brown card to the board. This means that you are placing potentially good cards for someone else available for them to use.

When you run your city you get the benefits of the cards (which could be money, victory points or poverty point reduction) but you must take a number of poverty points (more on them later) equal to the number of cards in hand plus the number of card piles in your city, minus the number of boroughs you control. If you have a 5 card display and 3 cards in your hand, and own 4 boroughs, you will get 5+3-4 or 4 poverty points (PP).

When you purchase a borough you pay the cost set on the board, and get victory points (between 3 & 5) and cards (between 2 & 5). You then have to discard down to nine.

The game continues this way until the deck is empty then everyone but the person that drew the final card gets one more turn, then you get into the scoring.

You get VP for every three dollars you have, you lose 7 VP for every unpaid loan you have (hey, it's a Wallace game, of course there is loans)! and here is the fun part, the person with the least poverty points discards all of their's and everyone else discards the same amount, you then cross reference your total with a chart and lose that many points. This was my key to victory as one the last four turns I ran my city four times, losing 6 PP the first turn and 4/turn after that, while gaining only 1/turn. This means my real net was losing 14 PP in the final rounds, dropping me to 1. No one else had less than 10...

Last night I played 2 games of Escape: The Curse of the Temple. It is fairly light and not bad at being a novelty game. These were both 2 player games. I think this is a good title to start an evening of gaming. It is light, fun, and a good ice breaker. I imagine things would be more hectic with 4 or 5 players.

After that we played a game of New York. I won this title at BGG.CON and I am very glad I did not buy it. It is an homage to Alhambra. The rules are the same as Alhambra, so this game does not need to be in our collection. Actually, the re-imagined setting and tiles do not work for us. The contrast on the tiles is not as good as Alhambra which creates readability issues. Long story short; we are glad we have Alhambra with the expansions, New York is just a clone that does not really work for us.

I've played six solo games of Pandemic (so far) this week, playing as two roles each game.  I can never remember that I'm able to remove up to 3 cubes from a location with one action after that strain is cured, so I accidentally make the game harder than it should be.  I think I won once with that self-handicap.  Next game I might try some of the variants from the expansion.

Last weekend I allowed the wife to drag me to the Twilight movie (spoiler: nothing happens and there's no ending), so she owes me.  She's agreed to repay me by playing a game or two with me this weekend.  I'm hoping to break out something from my library that I haven't played before: either Runewars or Mage Knight (only played solo), but if she's not in the mood for anything so dense I'll opt instead for something lighter like Star Wars: Epic Duels , Yomi, or Mr. Jack.

I like Pandemic. I think it is a great co-op game that teaches communication and cooperation. I also think that Flash Point: Fire rescue does a really good job in the co-op arena and integrates the them very well. 

Twilight huh?. Yep, she owes you big time. PS. You may be in jeopardy of having your man-card revoking for watching that. Best thing to do is crack a beer, turn on an NFL game, and play a game that involves death and destruction. :)

Quote from: Matt Robertson on November 30, 2012, 11:06:05 AMTwilight huh?. Yep, she owes you big time. PS. You may be in jeopardy of having your man-card revoking for watching that. Best thing to do is crack a beer, turn on an NFL game, and play a game that involves death and destruction. :)

If that's the price I have to pay to get her to sit in on a game of Runewars, I'll gladly pay it. 

Wait, not gladly.  Grudgingly.  I'll grudgingly pay it.

Got my first play in of Mission Red Planet tonight.

Hidden role selection like Citadels, partial hidden victory conditions, some excellent chance to screw with your opponents and everything is wrapped up in a cool steampunk/martian exploration theme. Plays in about an hour and has very high replayability.

Only one play so far, but I can see this being a go to game for a long time.

by the way, Amanda crushed her older brother and I (45-33-28)

Been able to get a few more plays in this weekend.

Played a 5 player Mission Red Planet last night, game felt much different than the previous 3 player game. It scales fairly well, although it did get fairly crowded in a couple of the zones on mars. As an added bonus the opportunities to screw over your opponents seemed to increase more than I would have thought. Also of note, the rule book and component quality are both top notch.

Still giving this one a 9 rating so far.

Next up was Fearsome Floors. It is an older Friedmann Friese design. The whole game is getting across the board while avoiding the monster that moves in set patterns. It is a fun light game that goes on just a little longer than it should. There is a fair bit of fun in the box and average component quality for the price, probably will make an appearance around halloween each year.

A solid 6, but again, it does go a little long for a light filler.

Finally have gotten a couple plays in of Voluspa. One 3 player, another 2 player. This is a tile laying game with a Norse Mythology them, fairly straightforward rules with many tiles having special powers when played. When I bought the game at BGGcon I was told to stick to 3 or less, it doesn't scale well to the 5 player game listed on the box. Seems there are less tactical choices the more you play with. I am finding there is a decent amount of game in this little box and am looking forward to a few more plays to see what kinds of strategies will work. The artwork is fairly average but the tiles are the nice and thick.

This one is coming in at 7.5 for me and will get a more play soon with some of the expansion tiles getting used next time. (expansion comes with the base game)

The wife and I played a game of Mansions of Madness: the Yellow Matter scenario from Forbidden Alchemy with me as the Keeper and her playing as two investigators.  All the negatives that have been thrown against this game are absolutely true, but I still love it for giving me moments like this:

Jenny Barnes finally made her way past the alien vegetation blocking her entrance to the greenhouse.  Inside, she finds Dr. Faust and his fellow cultist, both seeming to suffer from some sort of mutation, performing dark rituals with pieces from a corpse lying beside a blood-stained altar.  Jenny tried to kill the cultist but, in her panic, fumbled her handguns to the floor before she could fire a shot.  The cultist touched her shoulder, thus passing on his strange mutation.  Her skin instantly split and stretched where he touched her.  She looked down in horror as she saw a head breach the split in her shoulder.  Her horror became blinding terror when she realized that the face on this head was her own.  Within a matter of moments, an exact duplicate of Jenny had emerged from her own body -- an exact duplicate apart from an evil yellow glint in her twin's eye.  And the axe.  Where'd she get that axe?

Dr. Faust, in a panicked stupor, watched Jenny's wounds heal as rapidly as they emerged following this most unnatural birth.  Panicked because he was as much a victim as Jenny, having been forced into these abonimable experiments by the Ones in the Yellow Masks.  He now began to realize the full scope of what they were heralding into this world... and what they would do to him if he allowed this woman to thwart their plans.

Dr. Faust screamed out an incantation!  A fireball appeared in his palm and he hurled it towards Jenny.  However, she had somehow regained her wits enough to dive out of its path.  The fireball burst against the wall of the greenhouse behind her, and quickly spread into an inferno.

And now I'm tired of writing out the narrative, but the errant fireball lit the greenhouse on fire, destroying the corpse used for the ritual, killing the mutated cultist and Jenny's evil twin, and injuring Dr. Faust before he was able to exit the room.  Jenny was able to exit the room unharmed, but two turns later she succumbed to her mutation and died.  A victory for the Keeper.  We set up another scenario but didn't end up playing again, so it'll sit on the dining room table until we have time.  Hopefully the cat doesn't decide to play Godzilla on it.


I also played a few more solo games of Mage Knight.  I'm now going through the rulebooks to make myself a personal FAQ of rules that I seem to have a hard time remembering, but I now feel comfortable playing the game with relatively few glances at the rulebook.  And four more solo games of Pandemic, this time with variants from the expansion.

Last night was a 4 player game of Railways of Europe. Jason started in Paris and continually moved slowly down the coast, connecting Marseille, Madrid and Milan culminating in making a delivery to Lisbon. Brian, who had the Russian rail baron, started in Moscow and eventually connected Berlin and Constantinople together (via Moscow of course). Brent started in Milan and he and I fought for control of Italy, Germany and Austria for most of the game. He did connect to Russia as well. I ended up connecting Paris to Constantinople and Rome, both of which gave me enough points to finish in last place, one point out of third and 4 points out of 2nd (38 points out of first...).

Great game, Jason was left alone, which hurt everyone else.

Last night me mark dwain and kent played strike Of the eagle a war game about the polish Russian war set just after ww2 it is a block game so me and mark played the polish and kent and dwain played as the soviets after a big descustion about what side  to play because last game me and mark just got hammerd by dwain and kent  so I got to play the polish in the south where their was not that many troups to command and mark played in the north where he had tons of troups to command  then the soviets placed their blocks  and man did it look like we were going to be slaughtered because dwain had like almost double my troups and then in the north same thing the senario was don't let the soviets get to warsaw if the polish does do that the polish team gets five victory points but total victory points wins after ten turns but the victory points are like twighlight struggle style like a tug of war so the sides were set in the south let's just say I accomplished my goal I jut destroyed dwains army with brilliant manovers and great card play but the north not so good but hey after  10 turns me and mark won the south really was important  overall I would give this game  a 8 but a little too long

Two player learning game of Andean Abyss, I was FARC and the Cartels, Rob was the Government and AUC.

There is a lot going on in this game, it plays as follows, turn over a card, which has 2 events on it, one that is good for the government and one is good for the others. This is the active card, you will also turn over a second card to determine what will happen the next turn. The card also determines the play order for the turn. The twists are as follows, only 2 factions may have actions in a turn, and what the second faction gets to do is determined by the first faction, also, you cannot get actions in consecutive turns. This leads to interesting dilemmas as you may want the action in the next turn. There is always the option to pass as well.

Rob has handcuffed by the early propaganda card (scoring card) and then it was followed by a card that prevented him from doing sweeps or attacks until the next propaganda card. This allowed the FARC and the Cartel to run wild.

I like it, what is tough is that there is no real good guy in the game.

Managed to learn and play a couple more of my haul from BGGCON.

First up was Adventurers: Temple of Chac from AEG. This game has been out since 2009, but I had never seen it played before, it had gotten some good comments and reviews so I decided to pick it up. In this game players are braving the temple to loot the treasure....Yup, Indiana Jones the board game, it even has the rolling boulder.

You start off by getting through the opening glyph room trying to grab treasure and examine the glyphs for future safe passage before the rooms walls slam shut on you. Easy enough, then comes a hallway with a choice of entering the lava room or continuing on to some alcoves with locked grates guarding more treasures. If you enter the lava room you need to check the glyphs with the ones you hopefully remembered to examine in the first room. Make a mistake and you drop into the lava. If you try for the alcove treasure there is that pesky boulder gaining speed coming right for you. After these comes another choice, crossing the river. Jump in and swim (maybe finding more treasure if you think you have time), cross the rotting bridge with planks falling off or go the long way down the boulder path. A mistake in the river or on the bridge will send you out of the game over the waterfall.

Game plays in about 45 minutes, it is fairly tense right to the end as you have to exit before the boulder slams into the exit, sealing it. We got three plays in with 2 of the games being fairly close with a couple of deaths along the way. This is Incan Gold's push your luck feel with a pretty solid game overtop. A huge hit in our house.


Next up was Libertalia. Going to hold off the review until I get a couple more plays, but so far it is looking like a pretty solid pirate themed role selection game.

Last night we got a couple of games to the table with BEAUTIFUL components. These were both four player games.

First up was Timber Tom. This is a light race game where your prospector has to climb to the top of two separate mountains, get some gold then make it back to base camp. Other players are hindering you by planting trees in your path. The game is certainly not very deep, but the components are amazing. Glad I finally got this to the table.

Next, we played Poseidon's Kingdom. This is a Fragor Games product, so you know they are over the top with the game components. I really liked this game as there were a number of decisions to make throughout the game. It certainly has a number of plays as I explore the strategy. Not sure how it will hold up after 6-10 plays, but I am eager to play again.

Last night my friends got me Castle Ravenloft as an early xmas gift. It seemed pretty confusing at first, but it actually plays really smoothly. It's almost a lot like Munchkin/Munchkin quest, except in multiplayer (I tested out the solo adventures) you're trying to help each other out; there are some actions that do require you to screw each other over however, and they're kinda hard to avoid. But basically it works like you pick and adventure, pick a character and starting stuff, then you go into a dungeon and explore it (represented with random tiles) and then things happen. The first solo adventure I did has you trying to escape the castle as the head vampire slowly wakes up then comes after you; you have to find the secret exit before he and his minions kill you. I managed to escape after almost dying (you have two healing surges, which are basically like extra lives shared between the party) twice. The other solo adventure (I wish there were more than 2) was actually really interesting; you are busting into the castle to hunt down some of the head vampire's top minions which appear after certain tiles are drawn and placed. The neat thing is, once your character dies, instead of having extra lives, you pick a new character that comes in after you and keep doing the same thing until either you get all the minions or all the heroes have died. I came close but lost to a card that came up.

All in all, I think it's a good game especially if you're a fan of D&D (which is what it's based off of) or are interested in D&D but don't want to make the full investment in books etc. I think it says some adventures take from half an hour to an hour and a half to play.

The wife and I played a co-op game of Mage Knight .  It took a long time (a little shy of four hours) but it was easier to teach than I thought it would be.  We failed to conquer three cities (the goal of the scenario we played).

Quote from: R Newell on December 23, 2012, 10:09:07 PM
The wife and I played a co-op game of Mage Knight .  It took a long time (a little shy of four hours) but it was easier to teach than I thought it would be.  We failed to conquer three cities (the goal of the scenario we played).

I am very eager to try this in the new year!!!

Got a multiplayer game of Castle Ravenloft to the table last night, and it was pretty good. We managed to stay on top of the monsters at first, but it did end up getting a bit tense right up until the end, where I saved the day by throwing out a whole bunch of daggers and getting our quest item to win the game. I also recently got Smallworld Underground; we played with the mini-expansion that allows you to effectively combine the regular map and the Underground map (there were four of us, so we used the 2-player maps from each game) which worked pretty well. It was tons of fun, and we had lots of laughs. I think my favourite part about any of the Smallworld games is the implied narrative that can be created as the game goes on.

Christmas and New Years means superheroes, or at least it did this year.

Over Christmas I was at my brother in laws and we played Sentinels of the Multiverse three times and Formula De' once. I really like Sentinels, it is a fun co-op. I am a huge fan of comics and this has a good heroic feel about it.

I spent part of New Years in Morse at a friend's place and we played Sentinels, man did we play Sentinels. I think I played it 8 times, and slowly developed who I liked as a character (Tachyon). Tachyon is a speedster and her card play encourages extra actions and a lot of card play. This is a very good game.

I played Sentinels at BGG.CON John and did not care for it that much. Probably because I was never really a comic book person.

I played a lot of various games over the holidays. Last night, I started back up with my Monday Night gaming and I played a couple of two player games of Neuroshima Hex. I now own 11 armies for this and felt it needed some table time. Enjoyable game. I would really like to play a larger team game with 6 or 8 players in teams of two. HeroScape terrain could be used to make the board quite easily to accommodate the extra number of players. Who knows, I may do this at a ChewsDay Challenge game night.

Quote from: Matt Robertson on January 08, 2013, 09:09:24 AM
I played Sentinels at BGG.CON John and did not care for it that much. Probably because I was never really a comic book person.

I don't know you

Quote from: Jolo on January 08, 2013, 10:12:19 AM

Quote from: Matt Robertson on January 08, 2013, 09:09:24 AM
I played Sentinels at BGG.CON John and did not care for it that much. Probably because I was never really a comic book person.

I don't didn't know you had such good taste.

Fixed that for you.

Quote from: Matt Robertson on January 08, 2013, 10:37:54 AM

Quote from: Jolo on January 08, 2013, 10:12:19 AM

Quote from: Matt Robertson on January 08, 2013, 09:09:24 AM
I played Sentinels at BGG.CON John and did not care for it that much. Probably because I was never really a comic book person.

I don't didn't know you brain damage.

Fixed that for you.

Which is odd, because I just updated my ks order to get Shattered Timelines in May.

I am a comic book guy and I also found Sentinels of the Multiverse a little flat.


Too little choices, it was usually pick out your best damage card and play it......then wait till it gets back to you. Maybe different characters offer more options. I was playing the female Nick Fury character.
If I am going to play something with Super Heros it will still be Heroclix, although the new Marvel Legendary sure looks tempting.




On another note I got in a couple plays of Eminent Domain this weekend. Much better then I first heard. It is a true deck builder with some very nice options, I look forward to getting in a few more plays in the future.

Did you guys play with the expansions? I find Absolute Zero & the Argent Adept to be more difficult to play. Characters like Ra & Legacy are much easier to play as they are straightforward. Tachyon, because you want to maximise her damage when she attacks, will cycle through the deck fast, Nightmist is very difficult to play, as I still don't have the hang of her.

Munchkin, Maori, Jungle Speed and Dreadfleet.

Managed to play two more games last night - Kingdom Builder and LOTR (Knizia co-op).

I think Kingdom Builder is fantastic.  It is a wonderful puzzle.

I forgot how much fun LOTR co-op is... It has been a while since this hit the table.  It is abstract in exactly the correct way.  We played with the Friends/Foes expansion and got absolutely hammered in Bree and Moria.  This led to a full party demise by Shelob's Lair.  Michael Barnes on Fortress Ameritrash calls it a brilliant masterpiece (although most of us will agree War of the Ring is the defacto Tolkien game).  I couldn't agree more.  It is extremely clever.

Michael

The Christmas holidays provided some good down time & with that come game time. I played a couple games of Wizard which seems to be the go to game for some of the family members that are nervous about some of the big boxes up on the game shelf. I do enjoy the game, especially when I can spoil someone's plans with a timely played wizard.

I purchased City of Thieves & the King of Ash expansion. I was pleasantly surprised with the game. It looked to be a very simplistic game after reading through the rules, but once I was sitting across the table from another person, the game played out much differently than I had expected. The round consists of 4 phases. Draw a card, move the militia, player movement &/or 1 action, pretty straightforward. The goal of the game is to have more ducats than the other player. To get ducats you open chests around the board or lay down some smack on your opponents & steal their goodies. It ends up being a game of reacting to the other players as much as anything.

The base game had some disappointing elements to it. There are 4 gang of theives to choose from but the stats are all identical. The only thing that made them different is the appearance & individual special abilities. To me this is an oversight. With some small tweaks to the 3 stats(move, attack & mind) it could have added some variety & depth to the gangs. The special abilities are great but, for me, it left me wanting more.

The expansion, to my delight, fixed my concerns. Along with a new area to delve into, they addressed the weakness in the gangs' statistical similarities. Each gang had a 5th member that they could substitute for any one of the 4 original members. You still only get to start with 4 members but it adds some variety. You also get the option to, instead, recruit 1 of 2 Mercenaries if you would like. Variety, I like it. This completely resolved the earlier complaint for me.

The expansion also adds a number of twist from the base set as well as an option for a campaign, stretching over multiple game scenarios. The base game is good, but for me, you must have the expansion to really enjoy what this game has to offer.

The wife and I tried out Eclipse.  She creamed me (31-24), largely due to my stubborn insistence on taking control of the centre hex.

First off, it's a great Euro game, borrowing almost as much from Through the Ages as it does Twilight Imperium 3 (good pedigree).  Secondly, *phew*, it's not a TI3 killer like it's so often been advertised, so I'm not going to have to worry about "retiring" one of my favourite games.  I think people who think Eclipse has made TI3 obsolete probably weren't fans of the latter to begin with.  Playing them actually doesn't feel all that much alike, despite the similarities.   So I'm quite content to own and play both.

If there's one thing about the game that surprised me, it's how simple it is (partly thanks to a great rulebook and player aides).  Super easy to teach.

Lucky for me, the wife's feeling indulgent this weekend.  A day after playing Eclipse, we played two games of Mage Knight: one competitive scenario (Mines Liberation) and the Full Cooperation scenario, in which she was the Wayne Gretzky to my Harold Snepts. 

We incorporated everything from the expansion except General Volkare (though this figure is the bulk of the expansion).  So far I'd say Lost Legion, while it adds plenty of variety, is unnecessary.  I've become a huge fan of the game (possibly a new favourite?) so I'm still glad I own it, but it's not something a Mage Knight player would miss much if it was removed.

Games Played Last Week 2013-01-13 to 2013-01-19

---

Express x1 @ Bixbys
This is a cool little card game that I have played a couple of times now. I would like to try the team variant. Good filler and solid game in the collection. This play was three players.

Core Worlds x1 @ Bixbys
This is my third play and I enjoy this game more with each play. I do not think I will ever have a deck builder in my top tier of games, but this has some interesting decisions to explore. This play included the expansion. This one is certainly climbing the charts.

Guillotine x1 @ Bixbys
Fun little filler. I enjoy this as an appetizer once in awhile. I played a lot of this with my Nephew in Nova Scotia a few years ago. Good fun filler that is quick to teach and play.

Las Vegas x1 @ ChewsDay Challenge
I really enjoy this as an ice breaker at public gaming events. It is quick and easy to teach. I really like the copy I made and carry it around in a Crown Royal bag.

Kakerlaken Poker x1 @ ChewsDay Challenge
Another silly ice breaking game that gets played at ChewsDay Challenge. This was a four player game. I lost; which means everyone else won. :)

Guillotine x1 @ ChewsDay Challenge
Played this again at ChewsDay Challenge.

King of Siam x1 @ ChewsDay Challenge
Got to try this at ChewsDay Challenge and I think this game is a real gem. As I was learning/playing the game, it became obvious that the simple game has hidden depth. Would like to play a few more times to explore this one.

Fighting Formations x1 @ Bixbys
Mark M and I are learning this game and decided to play this again. (We played a couple of weeks back and butchered the rules). We played scenario-0 again and this time the rules pretty much fell in place. With the mechanics now in place, we hope to play a few more times to delve into the strategy of the game. I really like the Order Matrix.

1st & Goal x1 @ Lancaster's Taphouse
The location says it all. This is a pretty decent game for a pub. I think it will be one of my "go to" pub games for awhile. We only played a half. That seems the right length for a game.

World Without End x1 @ Bixbys
This was my second play of this. I am really impressed with this game design. The event card and how it is oriented when played creates some interesting choices. Definitely want to play this one some more.

Aton x2 @ Bixbys
Learned this game and played a couple of quick games. Clever 2 player game. This is perhaps pub worthy.

On Saturday I had a games day in my home, we played a total of 6 different games.

We started with Small World, which we played 4 player. It played more like a wargame than the usual area control game it is, with players picking up their entire army and moving it around the board continuously. We finished with scores of 59,59,59,50. I lost the tiebreaker to finish second on the last turn when the Sorcerers took one of my Elves.

The second game of the day was Rails of Europe, the expansion based on Martin Wallace's game Railways of the World, which we didn't play like a wargame. I built between Berlin and Rome for the most part and won the tiebreaker to finish third.

Container was our third game of the day. Now Container can be difficult the first time it is played, so we played the basic game. I like this but others don't...
I won the tiebreaker to win the game.

Game four was London, Martin Wallace's card game about rebuilding London after the Great Fire. I cruised to a bare victory (no tie breaker) and was sitting in third place overall.

The fifth game was Brass, considered by many to be Wallace's best. This was a tough slugging game, as we all had played it several times, there was no tiebreaker, and I finished third.

The final game of the night was Power Grid, we played on the Portugal/Spain map. I didn't know this but three of the players colluded to hose me over. Well I got even with them! I finished 4th, losing the tie breaker for second.

Got in a few this weekend.


World Without End and Aton with Matt and Kathy. I really enjoy World without end, it has tough choices throughout the game and there aer many twists and turns with the events. We had a very close game with me winning on the tiebreaker. Who would think I was more pious than virtually anyone? Aton is a decent 2 player, kind of regret trading my copy off now.

Qwirkle with the family. Pretty neat little tile laying game, I see now why it was up for the game of the year award. You lay tiles and have to match either colors or shapes. Amanda has found her new favorite I think.

Spin Monkeys was a surprise hit. I played a 3 player game and it was great to see my wife getting into it and enjoying herself. I took it off my for sale list and am now thinking it would be fun to see what a full 8 player game would look like.

Also got in a couple game of the old standby Hive with my daughter.

Matt, Robert, and I played a game of Mage Knight using the Cooperative Blitz scenario.  We lost, big time -- either the victims of an incredible string of bad luck or we weren't great at adapting to the map/hands/dice we had available, I'm not sure which.  Matt had the most success, potting in the garabage goals after Robert's hard work.  For hockey fans, Matt was our Ryan Smyth.  I had built up a great hand, with multiple spell cards and an artifact or two (arguably the best cards in the game), but never really got much chance to use them in the truncated Blitz scenario.

Was able to make it over for Games Day this past Saturday for a few hours.

We started off with a game of Escape, The Curse of the Temple.  It was my first time playing it.  A few things - the base game without the curses or treasures is a bit too easy of course.  Your group must stick together to likely have a chance of success.  The downloads, however, are not great.  You have ten minutes to get out of the Temple before it collapses.  Every three minutes you have to go back to the starting area to be safe (otherwise you lose a die and that would make things crazy difficult).  On the full speaker settings on the phone we still found it very difficult to make out the gong and door slamming sounds.  These sounds are critical to the game and should be not only loud but also very distinct.  They are neither.

With this being said I still am excited to try out the more difficult versions.

Next we played UP.  I used to have a pretty amazing win record in this game.  My last two attempts have been nothing short of disasters.  Failure to get a majority in anything for most of the rounds left me in a sold last place.  Oh well - I still enjoy the game very much; it is one of my top 30 for sure.

Finally we ended the night with a game of Sticheln.  This game flips trick taking on its head.  Experienced players of the genre will usually make a few critical mistakes.  But the game is genius.

And finally I have been playing a lot of Blood Bowl.  I am going to be setting up a fixed group league to try some stuff out.  If it is successful I will launch it to the greater population.  Our tentative website is here: www.reginaflatland.bloodbowlleague.com 

Please ignore the top log - it is just a placeholder until I get something firmed up.  Check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Michael

Quote from: R Newell on January 29, 2013, 09:57:53 AM
Matt, Robert, and I played a game of Mage Knight using the Cooperative Blitz scenario.  We lost, big time -- either the victims of an incredible string of bad luck or we weren't great at adapting to the map/hands/dice we had available, I'm not sure which.  Matt had the most success, potting in the garabage goals after Robert's hard work.  For hockey fans, Matt was our Ryan Smyth.  I had built up a great hand, with multiple spell cards and an artifact or two (arguably the best cards in the game), but never really got much chance to use them in the truncated Blitz scenario.

Thanks to Ryan and Robert for guiding me through this. I think during the last 15 minutes I started to "get it". Man o' man, is there a lot going on in this. I certainly want to explore this some more. By the way, I had to look up the Ryan Smyth reference... funny. :)

BTW... Ryan Smyth broke my wrist with a butt end in bantam... FWIW I think he is an asshole.

Michael

Quote from: celticgriffon on January 29, 2013, 11:39:56 AM
BTW... Ryan Smyth broke my wrist with a butt end in bantam... FWIW I think he is an asshole.

Michael

So, then, I guess that implies I was the Mage Knight asshole in our game last night...
...fair enough. :)

lol Matt... I wasn't implying you were one... (and you know that). :) 

Smyth was far from the best player on his team.  There were a bunch of players who could outskate and out handle the puck.  One player on his team, Stacey Roost, should have made the NHL in a heartbeat.  He led the league in assists and goals year after year...  Two of us were assigned to shadow him every game.  Nobody shadowed Smyth... lol

Smyths size (he is tall) was his (imo) only asset.  But good for him for perservering and getting to the big leagues.  He is still an asshole though... butt ends are dirty and should have severe consequences in hockey.

Michael

The other night a few friends and I played one of the newer Marvel tabletop RPGs... I couldn't tell you which one because I forgot. In any case, it was pretty interesting. Basically depending on who you pick, you're given your power set and some character features to keep in mind. When it comes down to combat, your effectiveness is essentially determined by how well you can incorporate your powers and features. In other words, you are rewarded for role-playing well. There aren't really set stats and stuff, so it seems like you can just drop in to the game pretty quickly. Combat uses a comparative dice pool type system, so instead of trying to hit someones armour class or something, you just roll all your dice (determined again by which power you're using, plus any other relevant features you can add) and compare it to your target's die roll.

We were initially going to use existing Marvel characters, but we all pretty much had the same qualm about not wanting to RP an existing character. Instead we each took an existing character and re-templated them to our own style. The first person took Victor Mancha (an apparent cyborg son of Ultron, for those not familiar) and made him into this weird nanite-swarm thing, the second made a female version of Collossus (minus the Russian part), the third made a speedster that also happened to be a stoner and finally I re-templated Shadow Cat into Ghost Dad, the father figure of the team who was indeed a Bill Cosby fan, and also a ghost. Needless to say, lulz were had. I'm almost considering keeping a log of our adventures online somehwere.

Last night at ChewsDay Challenge...

Played a five player game of Coloretto. Well, I have the same track record I always have when it comes to push your luck games. I push my luck, I push it right out the door. :) This is a quick fun filler that is great for an evening opener.

After that I played a four player game of Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar. This was mostly taught by Robert Kuster with me filling in a couple of spots from the rule book. This was my second play and the mechanics have started to fall into place for me. I seem to like these Euros with multiple paths to victory (victory points). The mechanism of the gear wheels is a novelty, but I think it works well. Enjoyable game.

Quite a weekend. On Friday, I played a four player game of the FFG version of Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game I played the Indians and adopted a non-aggression game mode similar to Ghandi. Colin played the Germans, Alex played the Egyptians and Kathy played the Arabs. Colin focused on Military and the the rest of us did not, it gave him free reign to decimate our units. Kathy & I both tried a heavy culture track approach and culture cards allowed me to prevent Colin from overrunning Alex's capital city. I was setting up for the win on the culture track and the turn order was going to support the win, when I realized Kathy had the ability to advance on the culture track at the start of the turn if she invested coins. She won. Great game. Kathy immediately wanted to play again. Gotta love that girl.

On Saturday, I played a 5 player game of Supremacy. We played with a set of hybrid rules involving Warlords and Pirates, Fortuna, Resource Decks 1&2, 2:1 Market ratio, Mega Map, and Turn order bidding. I enjoyed the game. It was a real trip down memory lane for me. We are going to play an 8 player game in the next couple of months. We will ditch the Fortuna cards as they randomly really hurt players to the tune of $1.6 billion  with earthquakes and the like. We will also introduce the random market modifiers than tend to push the market up a bit. Rotating sell orders would balance the market issues as well. There is a decent and solid game hiding there. The right mix of expansions and a couple of market fixes and I think we have the makings of a solid game with staying power. Looking forward to playing this again.

PS. South America would like to apologize the the super powers formerly known as Europe and USA. Oops. That is what the big red button does.  :bump  :neener

Matt, Supremacy definitely gives me nostalgic feelings as well.  What we found, however, was the market would take wild swings.  It would go from a bull to a bear market constantly.  I recall we put in a few things to fix it but to be honest I cannot remember what they were.  Other than that the game was definitely fun - even if 80% of the games for us ended with nuclear winter...

Michael

Quote from: celticgriffon on February 04, 2013, 09:06:02 AM
Matt, Supremacy definitely gives me nostalgic feelings as well.  What we found, however, was the market would take wild swings.  It would go from a bull to a bear market constantly.  I recall we put in a few things to fix it but to be honest I cannot remember what they were.  Other than that the game was definitely fun - even if 80% of the games for us ended with nuclear winter...

Michael

The market fixes we used fixed most of the problems. I think the next game will see the market stabilize. We never got over a value of $400 million so the Market never got close to bear. It almost hit bull a couple of times though.

Last Night at ChewsDay Challenge...

Coloretto
Played two quick games of Coloretto. Quick light game that is easy to teach and quick to play. I like push your luck games, although I tend to do poorly at them.

Kakerlaken Poker
Played a four player game of this. This is a game where everybody wins except one player who is the loser. I lost. :)

River Dragons
Very clever game that involves programmed planning and offers the opportunity to screw over the other players. WOuld like to play this some more.

Masquerade
There is a lot of game packed into this tiny box card game. more interesting decisions than I would have first thought. Clever design.

I was on vacation last week in the Dominican and between gin & tonics we played some games:

Zombie Dice
- simple push your luck

San Juan
- just like Puerto Rico but better

Venture
- Sid Sackson set collection game from 1970. It was recently reprinted by Gryphon & Eagle Games (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/167427101/sid-sackson-signature-series-sleuth-venture-and-mo). I quite like it, I never do well at it, but it is a strong game.

Leah kept asking to play it again.

Quote from: Jolo on February 27, 2013, 10:47:59 AMVenture
- Sid Sackson set collection game from 1970. It was recently reprinted by Gryphon & Eagle Games (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/167427101/sid-sackson-signature-series-sleuth-venture-and-mo). I quite like it, I never do well at it, but it is a strong game.

Leah kept asking to play it again.

I have the original and think it is a brilliant design. Lot of game in a small box there.

Quote from: Matt Robertson on February 27, 2013, 10:59:50 AM

Quote from: Jolo on February 27, 2013, 10:47:59 AMVenture
- Sid Sackson set collection game from 1970. It was recently reprinted by Gryphon & Eagle Games (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/167427101/sid-sackson-signature-series-sleuth-venture-and-mo). I quite like it, I never do well at it, but it is a strong game.

Leah kept asking to play it again.

I have the original and think it is a brilliant design. Lot of game in a small box there.

The SPI one in the little green box? (http://www.amazon.com/Vintage-VENTURE-Fascinating-business-bookshelf/dp/B001KYHBTS) That is the one I took with me.

Quote from: Jolo on February 27, 2013, 11:02:26 AM

Quote from: Matt Robertson on February 27, 2013, 10:59:50 AM

Quote from: Jolo on February 27, 2013, 10:47:59 AMVenture
- Sid Sackson set collection game from 1970. It was recently reprinted by Gryphon & Eagle Games (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/167427101/sid-sackson-signature-series-sleuth-venture-and-mo). I quite like it, I never do well at it, but it is a strong game.

Leah kept asking to play it again.

I have the original and think it is a brilliant design. Lot of game in a small box there.

The SPI one in the little green box? (http://www.amazon.com/Vintage-VENTURE-Fascinating-business-bookshelf/dp/B001KYHBTS) That is the one I took with me.

That is teh one. I have a whole series of 3M Gamette Games.

A buddy of mine recently moved from Saskatoon to Regina.  We (along with the wife) celebrated with games.  First we played a Co-op Blitz of Mage Knight.  We stupidly spread out instead of taking out the cities as a group and so only managed to defeat the weakest of the cities. 

Next we played Pandemic.  I screwed up the set-up and added all 13 special event cards into the draw deck instead of just 2-per player.  Despite my accidental assistance, we still lost just before curing the fourth and final disease.

Two games on the table tonight

Cargo Noir
- worker placement, I hate WP....

Ave Caesar
- bowb your buddy game, awesome as usual (and I finished last)

Four of us decided to play some games this past Friday. We started with:

In the Year of the Dragon
I had played this once before and was considering selling it but wanted another play. I am keeping it. Something about Stephan Feld designs. They kind of rock!

World Without End
You always feel like yo are getting beat up by the game itself with this title; some games worse than others. The cards that came up were so unforgiving that it was hard to worry what the other players were doing. Resources were always scarce and much in demand. Fun game. It is climbing the charts for me.

Poseidon's Kingdom
The Lamont Brothers, (Fragor Games), really make some interesting designs. This is a game that is hard to get your head around the first game. In many ways because they take a very different approach with their game mechanics. This was my fourth play of the game and I think I have a solid grasp on how to play and adjust my strategy. I enjoy playing this once in awhile. It has great bits and a novel design. Not my favourite game in the collection, but definitely a keeper.


On Saturday night I met with another group for a six player game of

Eclipse
I really like the design in this game. So much so I bought a copy for myself. I can't help but feel that initial exploration tile draws can really hamper your play / strategy. I will withhold judgement until I get in a few more plays though. In the six player game, I had a really hard time getting my resource engine going and I was physically cut off from the other races. Fun game with lots to explore. I would like to play again soon.


On Sunday night, Kathy and I played 3 games of

Kingdom Builder
I had played this once before and thought of it is a very light Euro design. I have since come to recognize it for a very clever abstract design. I enjoyed the three games, but I think Kathy will pass on future plays as she does not enjoy abstracts that much.

Saturday night we played

Battlestar Galactica
We ended up playing twice.  Andrew Quach came over late and we played the 2nd game with 6 players and ALL expansion rules.  Despite the humans loosing and barley getting half-way this was probably the most entertaining game of BSG I have ever played.  And that is saying something since this is probably my favourite board game.

We had one new guys playing it and he thought it might be smart to try and ditch one of his crappy cards.  It was an honest mistake but this just sent everyone off the handle with accusations of being a cylon.  And this new player was human at the time.

This led to a string of executions, including me shooting the new player (who was Helena Cain and the admiral anyway) all because he Air locked me last game.  But we don't hold grudges game to game.  So, in retaliation picked Baltar and looked at my Loyalty Cards.  One happened to be a final 5 and executed myself if someone looked at it.

My wife says she loves just sitting back and watching.  Everyone was so paranoid.  All because of 1 simple card toss into a skill check.

See what happens when there are no metagame players.  :popcorn     

Got in on Year of the Dragon, World Without End and Posidens Kingdom with Matt.


In the Year of the Dragon and World Without End.
If you like games that occasionally kick you in the teeth and destroy your plans then these are both worth trying out. There is more replayability in World with only using 6 of 11 of the random events, but i will play either one almost anytime.

Posidens Kingdom is fun, but there is a runaway leader problem.

Have also gotten in a couple games of Can't Stop with Amanda over the weekend. Both games came ended with her winning 3-2, her slow and steady approach seems to be trumping my gambleing style. The design is so simple, but the pushing your luck part just makes this so much fun.

My wife has become a Mage Knight junkie.  She literally wants to play it every night, at least once.  So it's hit the table about 5 or 6 times in the past week.  I've finally started counting scores at the end of the game.  Twice now it's seemed like she should have won but I'd end up squeaking out a narrow victory by having a few less wounds or a few more spells or higher level units... none of which have much to do with the scenario victory conditions.  She's beginning to resent the end-game scoring since she does a better job than I do at achieving the main scenario goals.

We also played a learning game of Runewars, her as the elves and me as the undead.  She reached the requisite 6 dragon runes in the final year (round), despite my occasional rules mistake that tended to hurt her more than me.  (She spent 3 rounds trying to take a hex from neutral units that, if we'd been resolving battles correctly, she'd have taken her first turn.  Oops.)  Unfortunately, no end-game scoring in this one to allow me to steal her win.  I didn't get much of a feel for her elves, but I thought my undead were pretty thematic (necromancers can raise skeleton troops during battle; vampires can can destroy routed opponents to create more vampire troops).

I was also in on Friday games at Matt's.  I enjoyed all three games, but preferred Poseidon's Kingdom: cute and unique, though strangely unintuitive for what is basically a family game.  Both In the Year of the Dragon and World Without End are a bit too much about players trying to make the best of the diminishing options being offered by the game instead of players interacting with each other for my tastes.  I enjoy playing games like that on occasion, but they're not the ones I gravitate to.

X-Wing: Star Wars Miniatures Game

My son wanted to play so I put together a scenario.

Imperials (5 Tie Fighters and 1 Tie Advanced) are escorting three transports of goods vital to the Imperial cause. The Rebels (Dutch Vander, Luke Skywalker, an X-Wing Rookie, an X-Wing Red Squadron Pilot, and a Y-Wing Grey Squadron Pilot) come out of hyperspace and surprise the Imperials.

The three transports have 6 hull points, no shields, and an agility of 1 (but do not get a defence bonus when attacked from range 3). The transports act as obstacles.

The Rebels need to destroy the three transports to win. The Imperials need to protect the transports. If the transports cross the play-mat (moving a 2 straight template each turn), the Imperials win.

As the Rebels approached, I kept my fighters close to the freighters. My son had his ships in two separate squads. One, led by Luke, came straight on down the one side of the play-mat. The other squad started to cut toward the middle. My Imperials were flying in a defensive formation close to the transports but by the third round I had gotten my ships ahead of the transports. The one squad came straight at Luke and his wingman. My other Imperials angled ever so slightly and let the second squad cut across their front.

The X-Wing Rookie flew straight across the sights of the Tie Advanced and Tie Fighter. My son was excited because it looked like the Rookie would get a shot off at one of the Ties as he passed, but during my move I did a barrel roll that put the Tie Fighter out of the Rooke's arc of fire without compromising my chance to nail the Rookie at range one! (Yeah, yeah, we play for keeps with our kids!) At the beginning of the next round, I executed a nice manoeuvre that brought the two Imperials directly behind the Rebel Rookie. First blood goes to the Imperials. The Rookie is stardust.

The slow-moving Y-Wings were trailing the action and as my Tie Advanced cut one direction I cut my Tie Fighter the other, the idea being one ship would end up behind the Y-Wings. It did not work as planned. The Tie Advanced shot past all Rebel ships and would, in fact, be ineffective for most of the remainder of the game, as I made a couple bad turns and ended up way out of the action.

Meanwhile, down the far-side of the play-mat, Luke and his wingman exchanged fire with the approaching Imperials and then angled toward the Imperial transports. This was a great move by my son because all Imperial ships near the transports were out in front trying to get the Y-Wings. This meant Luke and the other Rebel were swooping in on the transports' unprotected flank. My Tie Fighters on that side of the gaming area (having flown past Luke and friend during the initial head-on salvo) swung round but would have a hard time catching up to Luke before some damage was done to the transports.

Dutch Vander, leading the Y-Wings, got peppered with Imperial fire getting close to the transports. The Ties were coming at him from all sides, but he weathered the blasts and opened up on the transports. Also, an X-Wing got close to the lead transport, successfully avoiding a collision and then flying just above its surface, strafing it with fire. The severely damaged transport was destroyed by a following Y-Wing.

With the Rebels so close to the transports, the Imperials had no choice but to follow. The Imperial pilots proved to be less effective pilots then the Rebels. Several Imperials grazed the transports, taking minor damage. Also, in close quarters I got my ships all bungled up and thus had to abort several moves before completion, meaning I could program no "actions".

My son took some great risks with Luke! The boy from Tattooine had R2-D2 and could replenish a shield whenever he executed a "green" (easy) manoeuvre. But with Imperials closing fast behind him and the transports unprotected on the side, my son kept the speed high and the turns as sharp as possible. There was no chance to replenish shields! When Luke's X-Wing took a couple direct hits I thought for sure he'd lay off and let R2-D2 do his thing. But no! Luke went in hot, and lit up the last remaining transport.

Game over. Rebel victory!

Brilliant write up Chad.  :thumb-up
I want you to write all of my after game reports.

Last night I played two games.

RuneWars
This was a learning game for two of us. We played with a full complement of four players. I ended up winning due to a very lucky quest draw and initial tile placement. The game is dripping in Theme and I like the decisions that you make in the game. There is a fair bit going on. I would like to play it again in the next month or two to get a better grasp of game play. I am really liking games like Eclipse and RuneWars, but I am left with a feeling that the draw of exploration tiles (Eclipse) and quest cards (RuneWars) can really lead to some unbalanced games. Perhaps some of these imbalances would be mitigated in games with experienced players. That is what I would like to explore.

That's Life
The four of us finished the night with a quick game of That's Life. This game is a gem that is easily taught and plays quick. It is generally a hit with gamers and non-gamers alike. I only wish I could find the two expansions for the game. :(

Quote from: Matt Robertson on March 05, 2013, 08:32:41 AM
RuneWars
I am left with a feeling that the draw of quest cards can really lead to some unbalanced games.

That's Life

Re: Runewars.  There are some options/variants that I believe will mitigate that.

Re: That's Life.  I'm still basking in the glory of my domination.

2 games, 4 players

Game one was Kings of Air & Steam (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/michaelmindes/kings-of-air-and-steam-a-steampunk-themed-board-ga), a game I kickstarted last year and it arrived last week. KoA&S is a steampunk pick up & deliver game. In it, you have an airship that picks up goods from the factory and delivers them to your train depot for shipping to a town. The game lasts five turns and on each turn you have 4 moves & actions for your airship. The airship uses pre-plotted movement and can be upgraded to haul larger cargo and use better cards for movement. Trains are also used, and can be upgraded to move further.

It is a fun game with no track laying and a little bit of player screwage.

game two was the DC Deck building (http://www.cryptozoic.com/games/dc-comics-deck-building-game). It is weakly thematic (Superman beat Ras Al Ghul using Green Arrow's Bow) but where it really shines is that it is simple, light and fast. It has a feel of Dominion, but Ascension players tell me it is closer to that.

Robert was over for some hard core Greek action, wait, that doesn't sound right.

We played Polis: Fight for the Hegemony, a two player game on the battle between Athens and Sparta for Greece. This is a tough game, especially since Robert and I floundered around trying to figure out a good strategy for it. We played two games, the first I won at the end of the first turn because Robert ran out of Prestige Points, the second Robert won because I conceded at the beginning of the 4th turn when I had no Prestige (but would get two later) and no food.

We decided to finish the night with the DC Deckbuilding Game and Brenda joined in for some three player bad guy bashing. Aquaman rode the Suicide Squad (why are they villains?) to victory over both the Flash (if he is so fast why was Aquaman "The Fastest Man Alive"?) and Cyborg

Another game of Mage Knight with the wife.  I find my play style has changed a bit now that I'm actually doing the end-game scoring, especially on my last few turns as I scramble to gain positive points and shed negative points (wounds).  I won our game of Full Conquest by defeating the green city by myself and then managing to sprint across three tiles in one turn to cut off the missus and defeat the final enemy in the white city that she'd already been chipping away at the past two turns.  That move was enough to give me a narrow victory, 88-85.

For me it has been 100% Blood Bowl lately.  7 league games so far and about another 10 where I was teaching/moderating. 

Our league is really moving along quite well (imo).  www.reginaflatland.bloodbowlleague.com

Check us out and let me know what you think!!

Michael

I would love to have a blood bowl league, but then I think about starting one and think about the work I do on other things (like ToonCon)

Epic Saturday came and went, and it was EPIC!

Sword of Rome (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7480/sword-of-rome), which I optimistically suggested 4 hours for, took an amazing 10 hours. It was grand, with the Gauls leading for a wile, the Greeks hanging in there and eventually the Romans prevailing over all.

I love this game.

Yes, epic, including my EPIC FAIL Greek turn. Dreadful...just dreadful...Archimedes is turning in his grave and bringing fetid water to the surface.

Weekly sessions of GMT's Panzer/Exp#1/Exp#2 most every Tuesday.

The wife has been kind to me recently by offering to try games if she sees me reading the rulebook.  This weekend, that meant getting in two games of Through the Ages.  I won the first game when she became resource poor and had a hard time recovering and I lost the second game when I became food poor and had a hard time recovering.  The lesson: your resource engines (blue tokens) need to be producing sufficiently or, ideally, efficiently before doing pretty much anything else.

Brilliant game that reminds me of spinning plates.  Or maybe juggling chainsaws.

Time for another installment of games played :)

Cleopatra & The Society of Architects x2 @ChewsDay Challenge
This game has great components, interesting game play, and has the most corrupt player thrown to the crocodiles before final scoring... What's not to like? I need to play this more often. I think it is an underrated gem.

Poseidon's Kingdom @ ChewsDay Challenge
Game bits don't come much cooler than this. The Fragor team really have unique games. As this gets played a bit more, the game play is becoming more balanced and competition tightens up a lot.

The Earth Shook x2 @Bixbys
I am liking the design even more these days. We took a break from playing this and have played a few sessions lately. We tested a power up option on the map as well as having one uber Mech take on three smaller Mechs. Quite happy with the replayability and extensibility of the game. Will add our findings to the collective rulebook and get ready for a final publish this summer.

Glen More @Bixbys
This is one I have wanted to try for awhile now. I think the tile selection / turn order is clever and enjoy how it is integrated into the game. I would like to play a few more times to form a final opinion. Enjoyable.

Maori x2 @Bixbys
I had never played this before. Very simple game with ease to learn mechanics. Engaging play with an opportunity to hose over other players occasionally. Great gateway game.

Taluva @Bixbys
An abstract game disguised as a Euro. It is no secret that I would like to play more abstract strategy games, so I really enjoyed this three player session of Taluva. I think the strategy unfolds after a number of plays, and I am not there yet. Lots of strategy to explore in this title.

Neuroshima Hex! @Bixbys
This is simple and fun. I know that many people bemoan the randomness of the tile draws, I think it creates situations that you have to react and adjust to. I like the game and plan to make it a regular on the gaming table. Especially so since I ordered a bunch of fanspansions from Print & Play Productions.

Venture @ Bixbys
I have the old 3m Gamette version of this game. Played a three player game and I think the design is very clever for a small portable card game. I happen to stink at this game and cannot see the patterns that others can readily see. Does not stop me from enjoying and playing it though. I would like to see how a six player game of this goes.

Cards Against Humanity @Bixbys
Yes, alcohol was involved. Some friends were over and we have shoveled the snow away from our fire pit in the back yard. We had a very enjoyable evening of sitting around the fire visiting over a few beers, (ok, more than a few). We eventually went inside and a random game of CaH broke out. Kind of wrong, but kinda right too.

Mage Knight @Bixbys
Got my second play of this under my belt. Thanks Ryan. We played a four turn cooperative blitz game and lost. Ryan managed to take out one city. He and Dana were mounting a combined assault on the second city while I was getting my butt kicked by the third city. Again, this is a title that has a lot going on. A phenomenal amount of game to explore. I need a few more plays of this in before I feel comfortable with all of the rules and intricacies.

Played another game of the newest Marvel RPG (WHAT IS the name? Keep forgetting.) The adventures of Ghost Dad, Ilsa the nanite swarm, [name pending] the girl Colossus, Burnout the Speedster and newest addition Nicola Tesla the electric power guy continued. We cleaned up the break out at The Raft culminating with a showdown with the Hulk... combined with the Carnage symbiote. (Caulk for short) It was intense, we almost lost Burnout, and everyone else was on the precipice, but I was able to end things by phasing a piece of metal into Caulk's brain. ...Bruce Banner might have brain damage now, we're not sure.

This is one heck of a game, not focusing too much on a strict system, but rather rewarding people for RPing their characters in a fitting manner. (Of their character, not of the rules) If you're looking for a super hero RPG, this is worth checking out. If Marvel's not your thing, I could see it applying to another universe rather easily.

2 games last night, as we had two dropouts, and so we played some light stuff

The first game up was Marvel Legendary, a deck building cooperative, competitive game.  In this game you have a group of randomly chosen heroes (we had Spiderman, Gambit, Emma Frost, The Hulk and Captain America) vs a villain (Red Skull). You build a players deck by combining the heroes 14 card decks together and build a villains deck by combining the villain's henchmen (Hydra), along with another group of villains (we used Spider foes) and a henchmen group (henchmen are like villains, just weaker), along with some bystanders, plot twists and master strikes. Draw five cards from the players deck and place them in the HQ.

You start the game with SHIELD Agents (which give one spending point) and SHIELD Troopers (which give one combat point)

Game play is simple, fill your hand to 6 cards, flip over the top villain card and put him in the sewer, moving any villain card in the sewer to the next spot (and so on). If the villain goes through five spaces without being defeated he escapes (there are penalties for this). You then decide if you are going to fight a villain or not using your combat points. If you defeat the villain he goes to the Victory Point pile.
After this you can then buy one of the super heroes cards in the HQ using your Agents points and put it in your discard pile.

The game ends when the Master Villain is defeated 4 times and you count up your points.

It was ok.

We then played DC Deckbuilding game, much simpler (only one power) and faster.

I prefer it to Legendary, but both are weaker than Sentinels of the Multiverse

Quote from: Jolo on March 14, 2013, 09:10:29 AM...a bunch of stuff...

I prefer it to Legendary, but both are weaker than Sentinels of the Multiverse

The buzzkill line of the decade. I think Sentinels is pretty weak, so I guess I will be passing on the other two huh?!?!?  :neener 

Quote from: Matt Robertson on March 14, 2013, 09:14:15 AM

Quote from: Jolo on March 14, 2013, 09:10:29 AM...a bunch of stuff...

I prefer it to Legendary, but both are weaker than Sentinels of the Multiverse

The buzzkill line of the decade. I think Sentinels is pretty weak, so I guess I will be passing on the other two huh?!?!?  :neener

It all depends on why you don't like SotM really. Legendary is a mixture of co-op and competitive play with a reasonably good theme, and DC is pure competitive with a weak theme (Superman beats Ras Al Ghul using the Green Arrows Bow). I think SotM is the best themed but is a co-op.

Twilight Struggle League Game @ChewsDay Challenge
Last Tuesday night, I played the closest and most tense game I have played of Twilight Struggle. (Mark Macza tells me I say that about every TS game I play). :) The game was very fun and very tense. It went the full 10 turns and before final scoring, the VP marker was on 0. I had the wargames card in my hand for turns 9 and 10 and almost pulled off a wargames victory twice but was thwarted once in the space race by missing a roll that would have given me 4vp. Another time I managed to get my VP to 7 and was going to play the card and Ryan scored all of his battleground countries in Central and South America. This game is full of decision tension. I can feel ulcers forming in my stomach when I play. Such a brilliant design and so tightly woven with the theme. I am very thankful Mark has established the league, it helps me get this game to the table more often.

Also speaking to how close that game of TS was, I had to discard two random cards in the final turn, so, with seven cards needing to be played, I couldn't hold an unplayed card.  The final card I played in the game, a card I managed to withold for multiple turns, was Fidel, giving Matt (as USSR) control of Cuba, which took away my control of Central America.  The next card Matt played was Central America scoring.  Between that scoring card and Central America being scored again in the end-game scoring, Fidel was a swing of 12 points.  Matt won with 9.  Oh, Fidel...

Found out about this awesome sounding game called Panic Station

Well never before have I seen a game with such a great idea be the 4th worst game in the history of gaming.

This game is so broken I can't even comprehend its existence.

I don't even know if I can get my money back.  I've never dreamed I would ever want my money.
Even as much as I hated Acquire, I never dreamed of actually asking for my money back.

Quote from: Kage on March 24, 2013, 02:17:33 PM
Found out about this awesome sounding game called Panic Station

Well never before have I seen a game with such a great idea be the 4th worst game in the history of gaming.

This game is so broken I can't even comprehend its existence.

I don't even know if I can get my money back.  I've never dreamed I would ever want my money.
Even as much as I hated Acquire, I never dreamed of actually asking for my money back.

Ha. Games are a real Love/Hate relationship with you aren't they?
Your game rating average must clock in at about 5 (The average of all the games you rate 10 and the games you rate 1)  :neener

Quote from: Matt Robertson on March 24, 2013, 02:25:08 PM

Quote from: Kage on March 24, 2013, 02:17:33 PM
Found out about this awesome sounding game called Panic Station

Well never before have I seen a game with such a great idea be the 4th worst game in the history of gaming.

This game is so broken I can't even comprehend its existence.

I don't even know if I can get my money back.  I've never dreamed I would ever want my money.
Even as much as I hated Acquire, I never dreamed of actually asking for my money back.

Ha. Games are a real Love/Hate relationship with you aren't they?
Your game rating average must clock in at about 5 (The average of all the games you rate 10 and the games you rate 1)  :neener

ya figured you'd say something like that.  but this isn't like that.  this game is seriously broken.

the faq and the rule book contradict each other.

apparently they are trying to release a 3rd version of the English rules.

I'm wondering if there was a Language conversion issue here?

I do want to try it a couple of more times.  but I've never had a game collapse on me this badly.  Even a game where I read the rules wrong.

oh and actually my average rating is 7.65.

We also played Railways of the World last night.  Man I love this game.  I won by only 2 points.  It was super close for only 2 of us.  but it was a battle for the bottom 4 players.

I think Railways of the World and BSG have to be my favourite games right now.

I also purchased Werewolf this weekend.  We didn't get to play it but I sure can't want to play it.  Thanx for introducing me to that one Matt.

Finally got in a play of Beowulf the Legend: the movie board game.

Bought this game for a beer a year ago at BGGcon from my now good friend Brian Fenners. It is a Kinizia design and is actually a remake of one of his older hits Kingdoms. It is pretty fun, played over three turns you compete for points by laying tiles or scoring pieces of different values. If you have played Kingdoms it is essentially the same, but with better components and a bit of a stronger theme to it. There are also more pieces with special powers and more replayability due to tje larger tile selection and varying sized boards.

Played a 6 player game of Supremacy on the weekend. I quite enjoyed it.

We played the advanced rules game with the following expansions in play:
...Warlords & Pirates
...Resource Deck Two
...Mega-Map

We also played with the following rule variants:
...Random Market Modifiers
...Spies
...UN Sanctions for players building/using Nukes

Matt - North America
Greg - South America
Dana - Africa
Jeff - China
Mark - Europe
Bryce - Russia

The game play was better than last game, and the last game was enjoyable. The UN Sanctions was a sufficient deterrent for nukes for the first two turns.  Matt and Greg started the game with a minor misunderstanding about the Caribbean Sea on the first turn. Apparently Greg just wanted to vacation in Cuba and Matt interpreted the 800 naval ships and troop carriers parked off the coast of the USA as an act of hostility. Matt always was a bit touchy about stuff like that. The conflict looked like it would abate somewhat then South America added another 2500 ships to the Caribbean Sea and added a standing force of 300,000 troops in Venezuela ready to convoy to the USA. (At least that is how Matt interpreted the presence of ships. Perhaps he did not see the Carnival Cruise Line logo on the ships as that part of the world is merely a popular tourist destination).

On turn three, North America thumbed its nose at the UN and decided to embark on some research & development for Nukes. The USA was successful in obtaining the technology, but unfortunately all five other super powers managed to infiltrate the research and obtained the technology as well. There goes the neighborhood.  The USA built four nukes as a cautionary measure. The next turn, South America built 7 nukes. Oh boy.

The USA decided to test the resolve of their southern neighbor by sending a small fleet to the Caribbean to tackle the Latin Armada. Apparently, their oppressive dictator overlord did not receive that fondly and opted for a nuclear first strike on the expeditionary fleet. The USA decided to kick the ball to start the next half of the game and Venezuela received the 800megatonne ball basically eliminating everything in that country: people, oil production, grain production, any last remnant of goodwill between the two continents.

What followed was the "rockets red glare" as six nukes came streaming from the southern hemisphere to take out most of North America. The only part of the superpower left functioning was the Southeast corner or the USA where an emergency HQ was established. South America then tried to come in with a naval force and the US retaliated with a 3 nuke cluster. 1 took out the naval force, and the others took our Peru and Argentina. That one's for you Maggie Thatcher!!!

Not to be foiled, South America air dropped some reserve troops into the Southeast USA to take over the superpower and eliminate Matt from the Game. It was at that point that Africa and the rest of the remaining world decided that South America was looking a bit weak from their extended vacationing in North America and pounced.

That was the real cool interesting part of the game. What followed was Greg & Matt watching 3.5 hours of ballet between Africa-China-Europe. Somewhere in there, Russia got tired of watching the ballet and closed the curtain on the world in the form of a Nuclear Winter. Good times.

I will happily play again!!!!

 if Russia cant have the world no one will.

:bump

Quote from: Matt Robertson on March 24, 2013, 06:27:55 PM
Played a 6 player game of Supremacy on the weekend. I quite enjoyed it.

We played the advanced rules game with the following expansions in play:
...Warlords & Pirates
...Resource Deck Two
...Mega-Map

We also played with the following rule variants:
...Random Market Modifiers
...Spies
...UN Sanctions for players building/using Nukes

Matt - North America
Greg - South America
Dana - Africa
Jeff - China
Mark - Europe
Bryce - Russia

The game play was better than last game, and the last game was enjoyable. The UN Sanctions was a sufficient deterrent for nukes for the first two turns.  Matt and Greg started the game with a minor misunderstanding about the Caribbean Sea on the first turn. Apparently Greg just wanted to vacation in Cuba and Matt interpreted the 800 naval ships and troop carriers parked off the coast of the USA as an act of hostility. Matt always was a bit touchy about stuff like that. The conflict looked like it would abate somewhat then South America added another 2500 ships to the Caribbean Sea and added a standing force of 300,000 troops in Venezuela ready to convoy to the USA. (At least that is how Matt interpreted the presence of ships. Perhaps he did not see the Carnival Cruise Line logo on the ships as that part of the world is merely a popular tourist destination).

On turn three, North America thumbed its nose at the UN and decided to embark on some research & development for Nukes. The USA was successful in obtaining the technology, but unfortunately all five other super powers managed to infiltrate the research and obtained the technology as well. There goes the neighborhood.  The USA built four nukes as a cautionary measure. The next turn, South America built 7 nukes. Oh boy.

The USA decided to test the resolve of their southern neighbor by sending a small fleet to the Caribbean to tackle the Latin Armada. Apparently, their oppressive dictator overlord did not receive that fondly and opted for a nuclear first strike on the expeditionary fleet. The USA decided to kick the ball to start the next half of the game and Venezuela received the 800megatonne ball basically eliminating everything in that country: people, oil production, grain production, any last remnant of goodwill between the two continents.

What followed was the "rockets red glare" as six nukes came streaming from the southern hemisphere to take out most of North America. The only part of the superpower left functioning was the Southeast corner or the USA where an emergency HQ was established. South America then tried to come in with a naval force and the US retaliated with a 3 nuke cluster. 1 took out the naval force, and the others took our Peru and Argentina. That one's for you Maggie Thatcher!!!

Not to be foiled, South America air dropped some reserve troops into the Southeast USA to take over the superpower and eliminate Matt from the Game. It was at that point that Africa and the rest of the remaining world decided that South America was looking a bit weak from their extended vacationing in North America and pounced.

That was the real cool interesting part of the game. What followed was Greg & Matt watching 3.5 hours of ballet between Africa-China-Europe. Somewhere in there, Russia got tired of watching the ballet and closed the curtain on the world in the form of a Nuclear Winter. Good times.

I will happily play again!!!!

Got a proper game of Smallworld Realms to the table for this last Chewsday Challenge, running the "A game of gods" scenario, and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. We tweaked the rules slightly, but essentially the way it works is everyone is dealt 3 random race and power tiles in secret, and you may use them for your combos throughout the game in any order you choose (as opposed to the standard 6 combos that everyone has access too). The map starts off with a tile selected by each player (each tile containing up to 3 regions... the spaces used to score victory coins) which increases each turn until a set number of regions are present. I really love the element of building the board to try and make it more beneficial to your races while simultaneously trying to make it difficult for your opponents. Most of the other scenarios in the book use pre-determined maps with different set-ups, conditions and bonuses, so it'll be interesting to see how they play out. This will definitely be making a return showing in the future.

6 player game of Age of Gods last night, too many races on the board, too much randomness and the board is not that well designed.

It seems to incorporate some from Vinci, some from Small World and has a combat system that is similar to Chaos in the Old World.

All those games are better...

Been a very busy gaming weekend.

First played a quick game of X-Wing.  Game is just getting better they more models they add.

then we played a 7 man game of Battlestar Galactica.  The funniest thing was the first execution happened before the first action.  On cliffs move he went to a spot with an ally and was executed before he could even take his action.

The Humans were steam rolling the cylons all they way up to the Exodus phase.  I believe all the dials were still in the blue....and then everything changed.  One jump away from winning turned into a massacre.

We retried Panic Station.  With a little help from one of Dana's employees at Comic Readers we got the rule book down.  This really needs a better English translation.  but needless to say this was a lot of fun the 2nd time around, and we actually played it twice.

Then I pulled Werewolf out.  We only had 7 players and myself as the story teller, and everyone loved it.  We played it 7 times.  I may actually try to get a huge 18 player game for next weekend.

Finally we moved on to Railways of the world.  We tried the Western US map, and I tell you the cube placement was never so bad.  I don't think I've ever had more then 3 bonds in a game of Rails.  I ended up with 13.  The last  place player had over 20.  The person in 2nd last only had 1.  It was a very cool map for something different.  I really like the extra mechanics with the depots and stuff.

I think we are going to play Rails again today and give the England map a try. 

I was at Dragon's Den on Saturday and played only one game there, DC Deckbuilding Game. I have discussed it before, it is pretty light but it is fun.

Played Descent 2nd Edition over the weekend.  We played Friday night at Saturday with 2 different groups.

For those that don't know me, I was a huge fan of the original Descent.  I basically quite playing D&D because of Descent.  But problem with it was that it took so long to play.  This wasn't a problem for me, I don't mind epic games.  But a lot of people don't. 

So, I'd say the biggest change is that quests are way shorter.  This will probably draw more people into the game.  We played 3 quests in the time it used to take to play one.  I bet even matt would play it now.   :)

There are things I like in both games and things I don't like in both games.  But I would say overall 2nd edition is better simply because more people will play it.

If anyone wants to give this a try i'm up for it any time. 

Quote from: Kage on April 15, 2013, 08:51:54 AMI bet even matt would play it now.   :)

It is not game length that is a concern, it is quality of game play. I find that many of these dungeon crawl games are way to linear for my liking. The game plays like a narrow script that makes it feel like the game is playing me. I prefer a much more open gaming experience where I am not herded to open THIS door and fight THIS monster. I guess that is why I never liked many of the video games growing up. Too scripted.

Finally got a chance to play Marvel Legendary.

It showed up earlier this week and we ended up playing 3 times today. Fantastic co-op deck builder....likely going to get many awards at the end of the year. Simple to teach and play, relatively quick and tonnes of replayability.

Not heavy, but there are decisions most turns regarding your deck build and how to take on the game. Decent tension as the villans swarm the city and the theme and artwork are both top notch.

I've played legendary a couple times now, I need to get my hands on that; it's a fantastic game. I wouldn't say it's perfect, but it's definitely really good. I love the different scenarios you can run.

I hosted a weekend of gaming and played a ridiculous amount:

Mice & Mystics (1) - tried the opening chapter and didn't get out of the initial flipped tile.  Enemies were cheesing it up

Room 25 (3) - played a 2v2 team game once and two games with hidden guards (I was a hidden guard both times)

King of Tokyo (6) - everyone loved this one

Galaxy Trucker (1) - played with Another Big Expansion; I don't like the Commandos/Predators

Pandemic (2) - with Virulent Strain and Mutations; lost both

Glory to Rome (1) - first try and it took me a while to wrap my head around it

Eclipse (2) - a 5-player game (that I won) and a 7-player game (that I came in second), which I`m pretty happy with because I was the only one drinking both times

Tales of the Arabian Nights (1) - I`ve played three times now and we`ve still never gotten out of the morning period and I`ve only seen someone get to a Place of Power once; maybe we`re doing something wrong

Power Grid: First Sparks (1) - a learning game in which I was literally incapable of taking part in the game before the first round was over - I bought Fire and expanded twice, meaning I could only produce enough food to keep one person alive and do nothing else

7 Wonders (2) - I`m not a fan but I don`t mind a game or two on the rare occasion.

Archipelago (1) - a learning game (medium length) that took a while for me to wrap my head around the rules and didn`t get to the point where I could wrap my head around strategy; beautiful tiles, but the huts you need to count are basically Where`s Waldo

Lords of Waterdeep (2) - I suck at this game so much, getting demolished both times

Star Wars: Epic Duels (3) - first tries; I need to spend some time exploring this one (so I know that cards like All Too Easy are out there)

Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery (1) - goddamn I love this game

On Sunday I played a 6 player epic game of here I stand with mark kent Justin g Trent and lance it's a epic game about the reformation in europe in the 16th century it's a massive game  but it's awesome it feels like theirs 2 games one the war where everybody has army's but then theirs the religious war between Luther's Protestants and the pope and it just is great it lasted 4 hours when Trent got totally wiped out   By kent it was really great game would love to play it again sometime maybe in the future

I borrowed Mice and Mystics off a buddy of mine and plan to play through the 11 chapters solo (or with the wife, if she's up for it).  So far I've made it through chapter 1 (it took me a few too many attempts because I had a rule incorrect that had me adding tougher minions that I should have) and took a first stab at chapter 2.  Fun game with lots of great thematic touches.  Too much flavour text, though.  I can't imaging reading those walls of text before and after each chapter if I was playing with other people.

I also got in a session of Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective with the wife and the same buddy.  We played through The Mummy's Curse.  Fantastic scenario that we completely botched.  We were too enamored with the side story and neglected some subtle but crucial details within the witness accounts.

Edit: Hey, this thread's now a year old.  Glad to see it still going strong as I like to read about what games people are playing.

I haven't had a chance to do much gaming lately but last night I was able to get the Village and Basari in play.

I like to give a punt to anything that wins an award.  I think the Village was interesting but to be honest I am kind of getting sick of worker placement and generic cube pushing as of late.  It is a decent game, however and it made me think of a lot of do differents next time which is typically a good sign.

Basari - hate the yellow box newer version (ugly).  I am so glad I have my pretty FX Schmidt german edition still.   For such a simple game it sure packs a lot of punch.

PS - Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective is fantastic... thanks for posting that - i have to get it back to the table again soon.

Michael

5 player game of Railway Rivals, this is the SdJ winner from 1984 and it combines track building with racing.

Well, finally getting settled back in from a 5 week vacation to Europe. Kathy and I had a great trip. Here are some gaming highlights from the trip:

Mexican Train Double Twelve Dominoes @ Hudson's Cafe in Berlin, Germany
We went to a British Cafe/Pub on a Trivia night and the two of us entered a team into the pub trivia... we sucked. However, over the course of the evening, we saw that the place had a few games so we played Dominoes. Kathy beat me handily. Fun night and we chatted with some folks staying in Berlin from England.

Hanabi @ our airBnB apartment in Berlin, Germany
Kathy and I were joined by our daughter Krystal who is currently living in Berlin for a quick three player game. We managed to score 20 points. Not bad.

7 Wonders @ Beyond Monopoly in York, England
Kathy and I played a 6 player game of this at the Beyond Monopoly games day. They have these on two Saturdays each month and also, on the opposite Friday evenings. We happened to be there for one of the Saturday events. A very welcoming group and a friendly place to play some games. Great hospitality.

AffenTennis x2 @ Beyond Monopoly in York, England
This was a real treat. John had checked my BGG Profile and noticed that I wanted to play this and made a point of bringing it out. I think this is a brilliant game that is loads of fun. I definitely need to locate a copy for myself now.

Kingdom Builder @ Beyond Monopoly in York, England
I am really starting to see the brilliance of this game. It certainly is an abstract strategy game and does that very well. I am enjoying this game more the more I play it.

Hanabi @ Colin & Catharine's place in Egham, England (Just outside of London)
We played a four player game of this with Colin & Catharine after a day of visiting, sampling ale, and BBQ'ing. We managed a score of 19 points.

Coloretto x2 at Hotel Turin in Berlin, Germany
Our last night in Europe, we were all packed and decided to play a couple of games of Coloretto to close of the evening. Our daughter Krystal was with us again so it was a nice way to end the evening and the trip.

---

Fantastic trip and full of fond memories. We normally pack a few boardgames (smaller ones) when we travel. I think now we will stick to iPad versions of boardgames for the convenience. I tend to dislike video games instead of boardgames, but when traveling they sure make sense. In addition to the above, we played the following on the iPad over the course of 5 weeks.
Ticket to Ride ~ 4 Games.
Carcassonne ~ 2 Games.
Kingsburg ~ 1 Game.
Kingdom Builder ~ 20 Solo Games.
Eclipse ~ 2 Solo Games.
Can't Stop ~ 10 Games.
Las Vegas ~ 5 Games.
Through the Desert ~ 1 Solo Game.
Battle Line ~ 2 Games.
Stone Age ~ 3 Games.

It is so convenient to use the iPad for Pass 'n' Play games on the plane or trains. Now I do not have to pack games in my luggage for these trips anymore.

So I went to Saskatoon Blitz  (http://www.saskblitz.com/) to teach some games, and run a couple of tournaments for Dragon's Den.

I played only two games all weekend, both were Sentinels of the Multiverse...

The first game was Iron Legacy against Tachyon, Bunker and Argent Adept. We lasted 5 rounds before he greased us, so we tried it again...
Fanatic, Legacy and Omnitron X vs. Iron Legacy, this time we won in a fairly close game, we ground him down.

Games we taught were:
Sentinels (one of the big hits)
Blokus (the other)
Small World
Settlers
Kingdom Builder
Ingenious
Munchkin
Liars Dice
Ticket to Ride

Last night we played a 6 player game of Viticulture (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/128621/viticulture). It is ok...

It is a WP game of building a vineyard, and has not really changed my opinion of WP yet. I will give it one more try first.

I got some of my friends to play Arctic Scavengers last Saturday. We definitely broke the game wide open this time. One friend and I both decided to rush as many scouts as possible; I got more and happened to win two sled teams early on which gave me some huge hands which allowed me to win a large amount of skirmishes. By the end of the game all the piles were empty; the junkyard was down to just junk and I think the schematics deck had 3-4 plans in it. I'll have to purposely not stockpile on scouts next time I play, because I think that's broken. Hahaha.

2 plays of 2P Viticulture

Maybe I will keep this WP

Planned on playing some Risk on the weekend but could only round up 2 other guys.  We ended up playing Nuclear Risk, which is where a nuclear disaster occurs whenever double 6s are rolled.  Whoever rolls the double 6s loses all of their armies involved in that battle and their territory involved in the battle becomes a nuclear wasteland.  Wastelands are passable, but you lose half your armies in the process.  Made for an interesting game, and I'd definitely play this variant again as it speeds the game up and allows for some crazy shifts in power.

We then played Castle Risk, which requires a total shift in thinking when it comes to Risk games.

2 plays of Wits & Wagers, 1 of Small World. I am using that I was teaching Ankh-Morpork while playing this as my excuse for not winning...

Formidable Foes, Friedemann Friese's dungeon crawl. It was ok, we played three player

Chaos in the Old World, 5 player, awesome as usual.

I finished second last, Conal got hosed

I recently picked up Tzolk'in which I enjoy quite a bit, but I think the one drawback is that it feels like there's only one really good way to win, which is to get as many skulls on chichen itza as possible.

Quote from: Tempest on August 08, 2013, 01:43:47 AM
I recently picked up Tzolk'in which I enjoy quite a bit, but I think the one drawback is that it feels like there's only one really good way to win, which is to get as many skulls on chichen itza as possible.

Do the Mayans follow Khorne?

I know they really like corn.

Games that have been going through the rotation in my group lately have been:

Eclipse - Probably my favourite game right now, 4X strategy with a perfect blend of Euro & Ameritrash gameplay.  So much depth yet fairly easy for new players to learn.  Great with 4 to 6 players and the expansion makes 2 and 3 player games much richer as well

Spartacus: A Game of Blood & Treachery - Enjoyable PvP screwage game, we often quote lines from the show after hitting a rival with a scheme or killing each other's gladiators.  Recently acquired the 6 player expansion and looking forward to having 2 vs. 2 primus battles and even more shifting alliances

Suburbia - Played a lot of Sim City games on Super Nintendo/PC when I was growing up, this game scratches my itch for city building.  Completely varied gameplay to win depending on the tiles in play and public/private goals

Power Grid - I operate the grid in real life so this game is a natural for me.  Really good catchup mechanic to keep everyone in the game right til the end.  Have all the expansion maps, but so far have only played the base USA & Germany

Lords of Waterdeep - Worker placement game with a Forgotten Realms setting, picked up DnDeeples to add more theme to the adventurers rather than having base cubes represent people.  Skullport expansion adds corruption to increase the amount of tough decisions to make regarding resource acquisition.

Agricola - Have played the ios version over 60 times with only the base E deck, making it easy to teach to the new players in the group.  Its been nice to physically bring it to the table and discover the cards in the other (I, K, G) decks too.  Love finding combo chains in this game.

Heroquest - An old favourite from childhood, DMing a 44 quest campaign (including expansions) for one of my best friends who is a WoW guru and loves the simplicity of this game.  Most of the quests have a nice twist to make them unique.  Will start playing Descent together after he completes his campaign.

Twilight Struggle - Easy to learn, difficult to master.  Grand strategy game with difficult choices to make almost every round, I understand why its #1 on BGG.

Age of Empires III - Worker placement, colonization game with variable discoveries and a random building and resource pool, really fun to play with 5 or 6 people

Games I own and haven't played that will hit the table soon:

Puerto Rico: Anniversary Edition
A Game of Thrones: The Board Game - Have both Dance With Dragons and the Feast for Crows expansions
War of the Ring
Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game w/ Fame & Fortune expansion
Risk Legacy - Very excited to start a 5 player campaign of this in the fall

I love Hero quest, played it a lot as a kid, but now, looking back at it, the one thing I don't like is that it only takes a 'level' or two until you're pretty much fully geared and all that; I wish it had more progression like D&D or something. Maybe that's a good thing that it doesn't, I don't know. In any case, I love Lords of Waterdeep, and Risk Legacy takes most of the bad stuff about risk and makes it fun and refreshing. I've finished two boards (15 games per board) and hope to start a new campaign of it some time.

Had some guys over on Friday night for a 6 player game of Imperial 2030.  It was the first time playing for all except 2 of us.  We played a variant where everyone gets to invest whenever someone landed on "Invest" on the rondel, as opposed to only the player landing on that space.  There were also some overlooked rules that we didn't play (one of them being that all battles had to be fought as opposed to the rules which state that armies/navies are allowed to occupy the same country if both countries agree to it).

4.5 hours later and we didn't finish the game due to guys having to get home.  Seems a long playing time for a euro, although setup and rules explanation are included in that time.

I have not posted in here in a long time. Thought that I should try to get back in the habit.

Castles of Burgundy (Played twice at Angry Taco restaurant in Waskesiu)
This game has become one of Kathy's favourites. Actually, we are both fans of Stephan Feld's designs. This is a great go to game for us and it plays well with 2, 3, or 4 players. We took the game with us when we went tenting in Waskesiu. Had a couple of meals at the Angry Taco restaurant and played the game there twice. The staff were awesome, there was live music, and the game was a bit of an attraction. Fun times.

Roma (Played at campsite in Waskesiu)
This is a clever and quick two player game. Guess what, it is an early design by Stephan Feld. Go figure. Enjoyed playing this at the campsite. I think I will look into Arena (Roma II)

Mexican Train Dominoes - (Played at campsite at Waskesiu)
Kathy loves dominoes. We played a long game with a Double Twelve set at the picnic table next to a roaring campfire. Nice way to spend an evening outdoors.

Poseidon's Kingdom - (Played at ChewsDay Challenge)
Played a 4 player game of this as Lareina really wanted to give it a go. I enjoy this game for how unique it is. The Lamont brothers really do create some interesting games. :)

Timeline - (Played at home)
Introduced this to Kathy and Krystal. They both really enjoyed it. I now have another quick filler card game in my collection.

I've played a couple solo games of Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island.  It's a co-op game that uses worker placement (like Agricola) as its main mechanic but (unlike Agricola) players choose their actions simultaneously and, for the most part, you don't block other players from their actions.  As a strategy game, it's a complete success; as a thematic game that delivers a narrative as you play, it's a complete success.  It's exactly what I want out of a co-op game.

Crap rulebook, though.

String Railways last Wednesday, odd little game.

Trains - a deck building game with a slight flavor of Dominion but with more stuff to buy and also you are required to build tracks and stations, all in all, not bad.

London - card game from Wallace, rebuilding London after the Great Fire.

Played an all weekend game of Empire Builder with my wife and kids (ages 10 and 11).  We never did finish, as the game was too long for my boys, and it took up the whole dining table so we were eating on a little green Ikea kid's table (it was cosy).  Will have to reintroduce it to them in a few years.  I've found that their attention span has increased with age, but they are not ready for quite that long a game yet.

Other than the length, they both caught on pretty quickly and seemed to enjoy themselves.

The wife and I played a couple of games to celebrate my birthday a day late. (Actually, it was more an act of penance by the wife who dragged me along to help her shop for clothes and shoes -- my most hated activities -- on my actual birthday.  Though we also went to Comic Readers and grabbed me Clash of Cultures.)

First, at her request, a game of Mage Knight using the Volkare's Return scenario from the expansion. In this scenario, the players are racing to find a city, defeat it, and then defend it from the rampaging Volkare who is wandering the countryside.  The dude was recruiting new units like crazy and had built an impressive army. I had access to some ranged and siege attacks, which take effect before I take damage myself, so I made a try to whittle him down a bit. I managed to kill two of his tougher minions (of the 12 minions he had at the time) but I took 23(!) wounds between my hand and discard pile and wounded all my units for my trouble. Volkare ended the game by reaching the city early on the third day. The wife thought the scenario was impossible, so next time I think we'll tweak it so that drawing wounds are a non-action for Volkare rather than a possible recruit action.

After preparing a delicious meal of prime rib, Yorkshire pudding, and mashed yams with maple-glazed pecans, I cajoled her into a trial game of Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit. To her detriment, she neglected Anakin's spaceflight (mainly due to her disdain for Jake Lloyd, and partly because she missed the part of the victory condition in which all droids had to be cleared from the board). I put a large focus on the Jedi battle and, after slaying Dark Man and Renton, I rushed Darth Maul to the throne room to take care of Natalie Portman, Keira Knightly, and the security guy who's apparently named Captain Panaka. She was doing an effective job of holding off the droids from retaking the throne room. Maul was almost killed by the usually inept palace guards, but I lucked out and drew two healing cards late in the game. I ended up winning when a Destroyer Droid rolled up the stairs and finished off Keira Knightly. The wife wanted to play again right after since she figured out late in the game how to properly balance the battlefields, but I opted for pumpkin pie and sleep instead.

Chaos in the Old World with 5 players, if this game is wrong, I don't wanna be right (http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1052765/other-peoples-opinions-are-just-wrong)!

A deluge of Wallace games and a game of exoglobalization lately.

1) God's Playground, a 3 p Wallace game based in Poland
2) Moongha Invaders (twice) a Wallace games based on destroying the world
3) Shilo, a 2 p Wallace game on the battle for Shilo
4) High Frontiers, six kinds of awesome, so good, we are playing it again this weekend

I have not posted in this thread for awhile, it is time to rectify that. Here is what I have played so far this November...

Troyes x3 @ Home
Kathy and I have played three 2 player games of this. I quite enjoy the game and think that the dice mechanic is very clever and well balanced. This game has re-playability and staying power. I look forward to trying this with four players.

Castles of Burgundy x1 @ Home / x1 @ ChewsDay Challenge
This is one of our favourite games. Stephan Feld has really proven himself as a designer. I can see getting years of enjoyment out of this game.

Tobago x1 @ ChewsDay Challenge
It has been a long time since I had played this, so it was time to bring it out to ChewsDay Challenge. I enjoy the game and can see playing this occasionally (Say once or twice a year). Beautiful components and interesting mechanics. 

Bruges x2 @ Home
Having visited the city of Bruges in Belgium last May, I became interested in this game. The fact that it is a Stephan Feld design made it an auto-buy for me. I enjoy the game and see many plays in the future. It is not my favourite Feld design though. I am left feeling like the game ends just when I am starting to ramp up my plans. Bloody Feld games make you feel inadequate. :)

Antics! x1 @ Home
This is a Fragor game designed by the Lamont Brothers. I quite enjoy this game. The mechanism of building your anthill to give you more options or more powerful options is a very cool mechanic. I need to play this more often.

River Dragons x1 @ Home
I think this game has some fun "screw you" elements that makes it fun and engaging. The player interaction is hilarious. The trouble with the game is the fiddly bits. Perhaps picking up some mactac to keep the bridges from sliding and falling apart all of the time would cure that. Other than that, this is a fun light filler game.

Diamant x1 @ Home
This is the German version of Incan Gold. Another fun light filler that is generally a hit with everyone when it gets played. I generally suck at push your luck games and this is no exception. Still, I very much enjoy it. The pieces in this game are nicer than the Incan Gold version.

Acquire x1 @ Home
A Sid Sackson classic. Glad I played this, I was overdue. This needs to hit the table a couple of times a year. We played a full 6 player game. Fun times. I am glad I have the 1999 version with the cool bits.

Shogun x 1 @ Home
Jeepers. I am getting all sorts of awesome games to the table lately. We played a five player version of this. Rocky start to the game as we had to separate all of Tenno's Court expansion components from the game prior to starting. Once we started though, game was fun, engaging, and very interactive. A three way tie for first place.

Crokinole x3 @ Home
Always enjoyable. We sometimes just set the board up on the dining room table and leave it there for a couple of weeks. Random games just seem to break out. Always glad when they do. :)

Mega-Carcassonne x1 @Home
We played a 4 player game of this in two teams of two. Lots of expansions in play. We made sure the "screw you" expansions (Tower, Dragon, Plague) were in play. Fun game and the scores were very close at the end. Always up for 1 or two marathon Mega-Carcassonne games every year.

Stone Age x1 @ Home
I now consider this a classic. It is one of the first worker placement games that caught my attention. It is a good example of a simple worker placement game and it can be easily taught and quickly played.

Star Trek: Fleet Captains x1 @ Home
Very thematic game and since I am a trekkie at heart, this is a keep for me. I played the Klingons and got my butt handed to me by the Federation (Bryce). I would really like to try a three player game of this with the added Romulan expansion.

Galaxy Trucker x1 @ Home
Chaos in a box. I enjoy the game for what it is, a light chaotic experience. I would like to play it with all of the expansion options added in to see how they alter game play.

Atlantis x1 @ Home
I think this is a great filler game. After getting this game, I sold my copy of Cartagena. This is a more robust game and has more meaningful decisions.

Himalaya x1 @ Home
One of my favourite games. Again, I need to get this to the table more often. I think my efforts to greatly shrink the size of my game collection will really help me to focus on games I truly enjoy a lot. This game really shines.

Castellan x1 @ Home
Played a four player version of this. After a few plays, I am not convinced this game has much to offer. I like the concept and the bits are wonderful. I think this has limited play for me. Perhaps some variants will get published to enhance game play.

Neuroshima Hex! x2 @ Home
I am so glad I bought version 3.0 of the game, even though I have version 2.5. I also have a whole pile of armies that I bought from Print & Play Productions. This game is quite enjoyable and even more so in team play. We played two games with four players in two teams of two. Another game that will continue to see game play at our house.

Poker x1 @ Home
I have been running a Texas Hold'em league for many years. Some games, I do very well, some games, not so well. Let's just say on this particular night, I spent most of the evening in the Loser's Lounge playing Rockband. :)

Fluxx The Boardgame x3 @ Home
I wanted to like this... but I don't. Seems too easy to win. My games were all with 2 players, perhaps a 4 player game would be very different. On to the sale pile.

Takenoko x1 @ ChewsDay Challenge
This wins the award for coolest bits in a game. Very nice looking game. I enjoyed the game and would like to play it again to determine if it is one I would like to add to my collection or not. I am slowing down my game purchases and now only want to purchase titles that will see a fair bit of repeat play.

Tokaido x1 @ ChewsDay Challenge
Another game that looks wonderful. I like the game play in this, but again this is a game I want to play once or twice more to really form an opinion and to determine whether I would want to buy my own copy.

Kakerlaken Poker  x1 @ ChewsDay Challenge
This game is a great filler. It functions well as an ice-breaker for getting players who do not know each other to start interacting. We use this at ChewsDay Challenge to ease people into the game group and add a bit of levity to a game night. Probably doesn't hurt that I am an absolute goof when I play this.

Mexican Train Dominoes x1 @ Friend's House
This is a fun game for a group to sit around a dining room table, enjoy a glass of wine, and play. My wife and I both enjoy this. This generally comes with us on our camping trips as well.

Extreme Aggravation x1 @ Friend's House
Playing Aggravation with cards instead of dice adds a lot more meaningful decisions to the game. Especially when you have a hand of cards and some of the cards have special uses. Play in teams and the game is perfect of a a glass of wine and some levity around the dining room table.

Mage Knight Board Game

The release of the Krang character expansion has reignited the wife's obsession, so we've played this eight times since the middle of October.  Last night was an epic cooperative victory over General Volkare, with the wife slaying his final minion (a brutal fire dragon) with our last action.  I finished the game with something like 48 wound cards in my deck and all my units wounded.  (We actually ran out of wound cards.  Never came close to that before.)

Other games played recently include:

Robinson Crusoe

4-player game of Castaways (intro) scenario.  Victory in round 10.  I left Friday in the box but included the dog.  I won't be using either of them in the future for this scenario as it takes away too much of the challenge.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords - Base Set

Who names these games?  I showed up a little late, thereby missing the rules explanation, and so was playing catch-up on how to play for much of the game.  We also played with 5 players despite the game only accommodating up to 4.  I think I like the game, but that wasn't an ideal way to try it.

Cyclades

Fun and smooth amalgamation of a typical Euro auction game with a typical dudes-on-a-map conflict game.  I didn't get the value of turn order until late in the game so I didn't do so hot.

Libertalia

Fun game of role selection (kinda like Citadels), trying to create some synergistic card combinations with those roles, and a bit of bluffing so that others can't screw you over if they predict your choice.  It was a bit mind-boggling since there are so many roles to choose from, but I think this is a game that would blossom with experience.

Pathfinder can play up to 6 btw and going to recap u guys on what games I play while in Dallas should b fun

I was gonna post about some of those games you posted Matt, just been lazy haha. Out of those I played: (and enjoyed)

Mega-carc, Neuroshima Hex, Diamant, Acquire, Shogun, Castellan and Himalaya. I'd definitely like to play pretty much all of them again except maybe Diamant, which I don't like as much... it's still a fine "in-between" game though.

I also recently picked up Ikusa (formerly Shogun/Samurai Swords) and played a 3 player game with my friends on Saturday. Very similar to Shogun... I always describe it as Axis and Allies in Feudal Japan. That's not the best description, but it's probably the easiest analogy to make. I discovered that going first can make a HUGE difference; me and one friend kept going first and second and ended up unintentionally eliminating the third guy from the game so the game ended in about 3 or 4 rounds, I think. The goal is to capture 35 territories, when this happens the game immediately ends; in future games, I'd play the rule to let all players finish out the round before the game ends to give everyone a chance to try and win. In our game, the guy who won had 18 territories before he eliminated the third guy, and since you get the eliminated person's territories, he immediately won when he eliminated him. I happened to have about 30 territories on that turn. All in all, I really like it as one of those strategic military games.

Last night...

Bora Bora x1 @ Home
Well, I guess I can officially be called a fan boy for Stefan Feld and his game designs. Bora Bora is yet another solid game that uses dice in a clever manner. I very much enjoyed my first play and look forward to exploring the design further with future plays.

More Mage Knight.  It's come to the point that the wife asking "Want to play a game?" is in fact a command that I must sit at the table because we're about to play Mage Knight.  We're very different game players in that way: I like a lot of variety and she sees no reason to try anything else once she's found a favourite.  But me complaining (tongue in cheek or not) about having a wife who always wants to play Mage Knight is stupid.  It's an awesome game that should be played frequently. 

Last night was a great seesaw competitive game in which we were both kicking butt all over the map of... whatever the hell fantasy realm Mage Knight takes place in.  She snatched victory from me with the game's final and seemingly impossible action very soon after I'd built up what I thought was an insurmountable lead.  She's consistently beating me now after many months of me showing her what's what in... whatever the hell fantasy realm Mage Knight takes place in, which I think is fuelling this recent obsession to play it.

This weekend at bgg con I played tons of games but here is my top 3 the weekend I also played cards against hummanity and the game show was great 
1) pathfinder the card game love it it's such a awesome game it's like a campaign in over 2 hours ya  all ur doing is rolling Dice and adding your stats but hey that's wat real rpg kinda is and it doesn't help when playing with the designer
2) eldriitch horror like arkham horror but way better and plus it takes1/8 of the time  a for sure game to get if like the arkham theme
3) nations  I really like this game from asmodee game sits like through the ages buts anymore stream lined only thing I don't like  about this game if u lose a war and u have high social I forget the term u lose nothing but it's a awesome game none of less
I really enjoyed myself this weekend next year is the 10th anniversary of bgg con I hope u can make it I will b coming back I hope

2 games of Eldritch Horror this weekend, strongly thematic game in the Arkham Horror mould. Gameplay is simpler with a game clock (Doom table). I like it, 4 tentacles up!

Time to post another batch of board game plays...

Bora Bora x1 @Home
Another home run by Stefan Feld. A lot of decisions in this game. Another example of how Feld makes very innovative use of dice. This game was the straw on the camel's back that convinced me I need to track down the rest of Feld's designs and add them to my collection. I think I am a fan boy. :)

Shogun x1 @Home
Got another play of this in. It is great to get a game to the table a couple times in a row. It means you are not struggling to remember the mechanics and can immerse yourself in the gameplay. This is a solid design and is worthy of any praise it gets.

Clash of Cultures x1 @Home
This was my first play of this game. I really enjoyed it. I have discovered that I quite enjoy boardgames with a civilization building element involving Tech Trees. I would be most interested in playing this again. At some point, I will likely add a Civ game to my collection. Just not sure if it will be this one or Sid Meier's Civilization. Would like to play them both again.

Troyes x1 @ ChewsDay Challenge
Finally got a four player game of this to the table. This has sticking power and will be climbing the charts with me. Plays well with 2 and plays well with 4. Bonus is that Kathy really enjoys it as well.

Timeline x 1 @ ChewsDay Challenge
A fun fast filler game that is great for non-gamers. I think I will always keep this in the bag for family gatherings.

Las Vegas x1 @ ChewsDay Challenge
Another fast fun filler that is popular with non gamers. This one has some sticking power and will always be in the gaming travel bag.

Thurn & Taxis x1 @ ChewsDay Challenge
This is a pretty solid gateway game. I rate it up there with Carcassonne & Ticket to Ride for ease of learning and depth of gameplay. Good one to get to the table periodically.

Creationary x1 @ ChewsDay Challenge
If Lego and Pictionary had a love child, this would be it. You have to build things out of lego and have others guess what you are building. Did I mention LEGO!!!

Friedrich x 1 @ Home
Wow. I played this on Wednesday night and I am still thinking about the game. This is a very brilliant design and has the potential to be a top ten game for me, easily. I am thinking about trying to schedule another game very soon. I would like to introduce Kathy to this and I really hopes she likes it. It is a long and epic game that would go very well with a pot of tea and a Sunday afternoon.

Castles of Burgundy x1 @ Home
Do not need to repeat what I have repeatedly said before, this is a great game.

Tigris & Euphrates x1 @ Home
I had my first play of this last week. At the start of the game I was quiet underwhelmed by the game, then around the midpoint of the game I started to see patterns of play emerge and I gained a new found respect for the game.

Dice Town x1 @ Home
This is a fun gateway game. Not sure why it does not hit the table more. Perhaps by thinning out my game collection, titles like this can see more attention.

Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear (second edition) x1 @ Home
The components are beautiful; counters and maps. The game play is simple and elegant, the historical notes and background information is very interesting. I am glad to finally get this on the table. Colin quite enjoyed it so I think there will be an opportunity to dig into some of the deeper scenarios. This is much more accessible than Squad Leader and delivers the goods for small scale WWII battles.

Poker x1 @ Home
Played the eight and final game of the 2013 BSOP (Bixbys Series of Poker). My highlight was slow playing quad 7's and getting another player to push all in on that hand. Fun times. Unfortunately, I could not hold on to my chip lead, and was eliminated on the bubble (4th spot). Another successful year of running the poker league. 7 years into the league and still loving the game. Sure helps that we have an amazing group of friends that play. Makes the games very enjoyable.

Yesterday I received Freedom: The Underground Railroad (my first and so far only crowd funding contribution) and gave it a solo try last night.  It's a cooperative game that accommodates 1-4 in which players must balance raising funds and political support for the abolitionist movement while helping escaped slaves make their way north to Canada.  Suprisingly easy to learn and surprisingly quick to play.

The closest comparable is Pandemic, though in that game you're trying to remove static cubes from a map and in Freedom you're essentially trying to spread out movable cubes on a map until you can move some right off the map (into Canada).

Freedom beats Pandemic in the theme department.  There's a deck of event/action cards that will either help or harm your efforts and they add a lot of historical specificity.  While you won't understand communicable diseases any more after playing Pandemic, you should have a better understanding of the abolitionist movement after playing Freedom (especially if you have a general ignorance of history like me).

But my initial impression is that Pandemic beats Freedom in terms of developing tension.  The Infection deck in Pandemic does a great job of creating a feeling of impending catastrophe that can erupt any time.  Freedom has less randomness, which makes it more calculable, so the game's final moments felt a bit predictable even though I just barely lost.

Overall, seems like a very good, light (mechanically, not thematically) historical game that fans of co-op puzzles should like.  I'll bring it to Boston Pizza sometime.

My friend's wife went out of town on Friday for the weekend.  Time for games.

We spent the day Friday blowing the dust off an old favourite of ours: War of the Ring.  Hadn`t played it in five years.  Hot damn is it still an amazing game.  I played as the Shadow Forces and he played as the Free Peoples.  We tried it with the expansion for the first time and saw appearances by the Ents, Galadriel, and the Hillsmen of Dunland.  I really liked the additions because I think it tamed the importance of Orthanc / Saurumon.  I was heavily focused on military assaults, so he answered in kind by separating the Fellowship and using Muster dice to convince Rohan, Gondor, and the Elves that it was time for war (the Northerners and Dwarves were rarely involved).  There were basically no forces in the southwestern or western sides of the map by the time we were done.  The lands were laid to waste and covered with the blood of man and Uruk-hai alike.  And that was almost enough distraction for the Ringbearers.  Pippin guided them into Mordor (how'd that dummy know the way?) but quickly had to sacrifice himself to protect Sam and Frodo from the circling Nazgul.  The Ringbearers almost made it to the Crack of Doom, with Golem now the guide, but Frodo had to use the ring one too many times and succumbed to its corruption.  Epic stuff, as always.

Then the wife came home from work and the three of us played a couple scenarios of Firefly.  Both were fun games with some great thematic moments.  Our friend won game 1 and the wife won game 2.

Then the wife wanted to play Mage Knight, as always, but I managed to convince her that 11:30 was pretty late to begin a game of that.  So instead she went to bed to watch American Horror Story and us other two played a bizarre game of Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit.  This is very much a lighter game in the same vein as War of the Ring, but based on the craptacular The Phantom Menace.  I played as the Jedi / Gungans / Palace Guards / Anakin while he played as the Trade Federation / Sith.  After about an hour and a half, it was fairly obvious that I was on the verge of winning, but the game still lasted an astounding three hours.  It became a war of attrition.  All my Gungans were dead, Obi Wan and Darth Maul were dead, Qui Gon was half dead, almost all of the droids were dead, almost all of the palace guards were dead... but the game just kept going and going and going because Anakin "now this is podracing" Skywalker is a useless tit.  But it was still a lot of fun, just more farcical than tense.

Then yesterday the three of us, at the wife's suggestion, blew the dust off another old favourite: Twilight Imperium III.  We played as the three factions that came with the Shards of the Throne expansion from a few years ago: me as the spreading brain slugs, our friend as the wormhole hopping ghosts from another dimension, and the wife as the technology absorbing robots.  (Unlike Eclipse, TI3 has actual differentiation between factions, which I appreciate).  One addition in that expansion I love are the Flagships -- huge, heavily armed ships that are unique to each faction.  Mine was a traveling space dock that could produce units, our friend's was a moving wormhole that could drag in fleets of ships from his home dimension, and my wife's was a mobile bomb that, if destroyed, would also destroy every other ship in the system.  I ended up with a crushing victory with final scores of 6-3-1, mainly because I focused more on earning victory points than building a fleet or attacking.  I was actually not too many turns away from being wiped out when the end was triggered.  That's my one complaint about TI3: the ways to earn VP don't always mesh with what you feel like you should be doing, so they come off as overly gamey in what is otherwise a pretty thematic space opera.  But extremely fun, as always.  I wish it hit my table more often.

Here's a recap of the games I played at the inaugural and very packed Prairie Games Expo (PGX) in Regina.  Thanks to Chad and Dana from Comic Readers for this great event, as well as all the other people who helped make it happen.

I believe Jon Enns and I christened the event by breaking out the first game.  We played Fjords, a 2-player game that has two stages: the first being drawing and laying landscape tiles to build a map, very much in the same vein as Carcassonne (but with hexes instead of squares), during which players also strategically position their 4 farms, and, once the map is finished and farms are placed, there is a second phase, very much in the same vein as Go or Through the Desert, in which players take turns claiming fields in chains, starting from those initial farms, and trying to block off your opponents chains.  It's a very neat fusion that combines two classic game styles, though sometimes turns can feel a bit automated because there may only be one legal option (or one obviously best option).  Jon and I only played 1 round instead of 3 because I had to set up my next game.

Next I ran a 4-player game of Nexus Ops, which, more than any other game I've played, encourages players to attack, attack, attack.  Lots of dice were rolled, many Fungoids were slaughtered, and in the end I achieved my first ever Nexus Ops victory.  (Actually, it's the first time I haven't finished in a distant last place.)

Next up was a 4-player game of Lords of Scotland, which I'd played once before at a Chewsday Challenge event and was thoroughly impressed by.  I've come to appreciate card games that can be explained in a few minutes but are full of agonizing decisions.  LoS is probably best in class in that category.  I've played one other game (Court of the Medici) by the designer, Richard James, and it's equally brilliant.  For some reason, though, both games have fairly mediocre ratings at boardgamegeek.  I don't get it.  He'd be up there with the most underappreciated designers.

Then I finished my time at PGX with a 3-player game of Call to Glory, another card game that can be explained in a minute or two.  Its decisions aren't nearly as difficult to make as Lords of Scotland's, but it's a fun, light set collection card game with some neat twists.  It's one I'd definitely like to play on occasion.

All that fun and I was only there for 4 hours.  I'm jealous of all the gaming those lucky people who are there for the full 12 hours are going to enjoy.  Already looking forward to the next PGX.

Here area  couple of recent plays:

Tammany Hall
Five of us all played our first game of Tammany Hall a week or so ago. I like the concept of the game and it has lots of player interaction. The early game was relatively gentle, but as the years rolled by, the game got more vicious. I really felt like I was doing poorly, but ended up with a surprise victory at the end. With our concentration on the points leader(s) in the mid-game, it made it so I was able to sneak in from behind. I doubt the group will allow that to happen again. I cannot say I even saw it myself. The game is light on rules and heavy on strategy. A perfect combo. It will see repeated plays at my game table.

Eclipse
Last night I played a three player game of eclipse. We have almost all of the promos and expansions. I played Eridani, and the other two players were Planta and Orion Hegemony. I was worried about the Orion player at the start of the game and was keeping a cautious eye in his direction. In the meantime, the Planta expanded quickly and got a strong resource engine going. My own resource engine was coming a long, but not fast enough. Unfortunately, the Orion player got boxed in behind a bunch of bad tile draws with kickin' ancients on them. My plan was to build tiles to prevent Orion from getting me and having them attack the Planta. That never happened and by the time the two of them clashed, the Planta had a very strong force to be reckoned with. Orion was almost obliterated. We conceded the game to Planta at Turn 6. I really like this game and want to play more this year. My concern is that with fewer than four players, it may be best to play symmetrical races, (Terran or Magellan). With 2-3 players, the racial powers combines with tile draws can create an imbalance. Not sure how others feel about this. Not to take anything away from Planta, they played a very strong game. Looking back at last night's game, Orion and I should have made a move earlier, but hindsight offers more clarity than was evident at the time. Look to see more entries about this game in 2014. PS. The Ship Pack #1 sculpts are awesome!!!

Sadly, I haven't been able to get many gaming sessions done at home lately.  However, the last few times, Twilight Struggle has hit the table.  Probably played it about 20 times in the last year alone.  Great game, but getting slightly burnt out now.  Time to play something different for a while!

Pizza Box Football This game was released in 2005 and if you are a fan of football board games it is a lot of fun. I have played with the solitaire rules several times and over half of those games went into overtime, they have the dice mechanics extremely well done.
Played on Wednesday with 3 buddies at the Artful Dodger [we each took either O or D for our team] and we had a great time, game was close and there was lots of taunting each other!
The most recent teams you can get are for the 2007 NFL season, so that kind of sucks, but there are generic cards as well and I have the expansion which adds some much needed complexity to the play calling.
Actionmat Football Didn't play this one but it is the newest in my football game collection, looks like a good beer drinking game as it combines strategy with finger-flicking a plastic football, can't wait to try it out as the playmat is 60" x 32" !!!!!
Cards Against Humanity Followed up football with a rousing and raunchy game with the first expansion - first time for my 3 friends - was the hit of the night, tons of laughs and disgusted sounds.

I am getting some of the truly epic games played lately. In the last month I have managed to play:

2 Games of Eclipse
1 Game of Dominant Species
2 Game of Railways of the World with Combined Eastern USA & Western USA Maps
1 Game of Roads & Boats
1 Game of Mega-Carcassonne
1 Game of Kremlin (Yes, I call it epic)
1 Game of War of the Ring (Collector's Edition)

I apologize that I do not have a narrative on these sessions. Suffice to say, I feel like a kid in a candy store. It was good to get War of the Ring to the table again today. We were a bit rusty on the rules, but now we are in a better position to play again with ALL of the expansion rules. W00t!

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Last game played game was Sentinels of the Multiverse, but I won't talk about that, instead I am going to talk about the game I played last Wednesday.

Viticulture is a game about owning a vineyard, and managing your workers to get the most out of them. Winning is based on who has the most victory points, which are created from filling wine orders.

The game is divided into seasons;
Spring, when you determine the player order, and depending on where you want to go in the player order, you could get a benefit, from extra cards, VP, a temporary worker or a buck.
Summer, when you can assign your workers to tasks such as building new buildings (which allow new types of grapes, provide VP, provide revenue, allow extra cards to be drawn)), provide tours (which provides money), plant crops (which provides grapes), play Summer visitor cards (various abilities), sell grapes (for money)and get new grapes cards. When everyone has passed, you move to fall
Fall, you get a choice of drawing either a Summer or a Winter visitor card (unless you have a cottage, then you can draw any two)
Winter, in winter you can place the rest of your workers, they can, harvest grapes, crush grapes (to make wine), pick up wine orders, play Winter visitor cards, fill wine orders (for recurring money & VP), train new workers, or rent out your leftover workers (for money).
At the end of winter cleanup occurs, wine & grapes age and become higher in value, you discard down to 7 cards and get any yearly revenue you made from selling wine.
The game ends the turn someone has reached 20 VP.

This is a worker placement game, and I don't like WP games, but I do like this one. It has player screwage, you have to plan ahead for fall.

We played a 6 player game, with three never having played it before and the game took us slightly under 2 hours. There are only limited ways to get VP, so you have to do things like get your cellars larger, to allow wine to age longer, which means you can fill better orders (more money & VP) , and mkake some of the blended wines (sparkling & rose).

The only fault is that some of the visitor cards are too high powered in the first edition, second edition should fix that.

This week we are playing Atlantic Star from 2001

Just played a four player game of Dungeon Command.

We played as two team of two. This is a very well designed skirmish game. It has some great game elements and mechanics. I have all 5 factions released to date. I am hoping that they continue to release new factions, but even with the five already available, there is a ton of reply value. I think four player team play is my favourite mode of play so far.

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We played three player game of one of Matt's favourites, Sentinels of the Multiverse,   vs. the Skinwalker Gloomweaver, on the Final Wasteland. The three heroes assembled were: Parse, an archer that can focus on the opponents weaknesses and exploit them, Bunker, a man in an armoured suit who can change his modes to fight better, heal or do both, and Absolute Zero, a man so cold, he needs to be kept as close to absolute zero that he can.

The fight started poorly for the heroes as Gloomweaver kept running up out and more cultists and zombies, which combined with all three relics hurt the heroes, but the cryptids from the Final Wasteland rallied around the heroes and began slugging it out with the evil. They began fighting the spawn as the heroes licked their wounds and began to heal. Eventually the weight of all the undead started to tell its toll on the heroes as Parse stumbled, stricken by an attack of Gloomweaver & his books. This only rallied the heroes as they slowly began to begin their assault on Gloomweaver. Finally he fell, and from the Skinwalker's ashes rose the Rotting God, who could not withstand the combined might of Turret Mode Bunker and Absolute Zero, and several turns later he fell.

Two things really helped us:
1) The cryptids had a card that stated that any card defeated by them was removed from the game, so they ran Gloomweaver out of cards, he had 4 cards in his deck when he flipped. Which meant no more zombies which he used to heal, nor did he have any of the relics for defence, attack or healing.
2) We balanced out our hit points so the cryptids normally hit Gloomweaver's minions, they carried much of the battle until Bunker and Absolute Zero had their damage work ready.

One thing that hindered us?
1) Our inability to heal each other, Bunker and Absolute Zero could heal themselves, as Bunker had damage reduction (-1) and a power to heal himself 2, Ab Zero had the power to harm himself for 1 (then 2, then 3) cold which actually healed him. Parse was left hanging on by the skin of her teeth, and eventually that did her in.

At the end of the game, Ab Zero was doing 8 points/turn to Gloomweaver before he played any cards. Bunker was doing 5 with a power.

The battle went for over two hours.

Quote from: Jolo on May 23, 2014, 07:20:18 PM
We played three player game of one of Matt's favourites, Sentinels of the Multiverse...
<bunch of boring stuff removed>
...The battle went for over two hours.

I have had root canals that took less time,
   and were more enjoyable.

Just saying. :neener

Last night we played High Frontiers in a four player game
2 of the four players were new so the game did not go as fast as it could, and we stopped at 10:15 or so.

Clay (the UN) won by colonizing Mars and putting a factory there (8 points), building a factory way out in the asteroid belt (7 points) and prospecting another piece of Mars.
Rob (NASA) was second, he was first to Mars and prospected one part then returned (4 points), he built a factory out in the asteroid belt (7 points) and prospected 4 other planets (4 points)
Brent (China) finished third, he was first to a planet and back (3 points), first to a science location and back (3 points) , prospected and built a factory on an asteroid (7 points ) and had his freighter out (1 point).
I was the Japanese, I flung my Sony Walkman spaceship into space, aiming for Comet Encke (a science comet) and I got there (almost) as my ship ran into it (0 points). I built a factory out in the asteroid belt (7 points) and set off for Comet Encke again, where my new and improved Sony Discman promptly ran into it again... (0 points)

The game should have ended when there were 7 factories but we called it short, when we were only at 5 factories, I was heading out to create another factory when the game ended, and I believe the UN was as well, so probably 45 minutes longer.

I love this game

Some other things from the game:
China decommissioned two space ships, while in space, and had built the fastest thruster in the game (15 movement impulses/turn at a cost of ½ a point of energy) but it had not arrived yet in Low Earth Orbit. For comparison, my upgraded thruster was 2 impulses, ½ and the UN was using a 5, 1/3  one. NASA was using some bizarre mix of sail and thruster.
I was first in space, and was at Encke the first time before anyone else had launched, then I blew up.
NASA thought they had run out of fuel on Mars, but since Rob was a new player, I explained how he could hop to an asteroid, fuel up again and get back to earth.

World Cup Fever caught hold, I finally got my game of Subbuteo to the table...
...I LOVE IT.

Most people who play games with me on a regular basis know that I have a soft spot for dexterity based games. Sports simulations seem to really capture my attention. I really enjoy PitchCar, AffenTennis, and now I add Subbuteo to the roster.

The first game I played was a two player game with Colin D. We played for roughly 20 minutes and the game was scoreless. Well, that seems to simulate soccer. :)

I played a second game with Dan B, and in the second play, I started to see more potential for setting up plays. The game requires a significant amount of coordinating your players, their field positions, and the ball handling. We played for roughly a half hour and the game ended with Dan beating me 2-1. His second goal was on a penalty kick  :thumb-up

The third and final play was with four players. Bryce R and I took on Greg V and Tim S. We rotated a players off the table every five minutes so there was no real downtime for anyone. In the second set of match=ups, we decided to play real-time which is in spirit of true Table Top Soccer rules. In essence, it means the attacking players, (possession of the ball), does not have to wait for the defending player to flick or position their players before taking his next attacking move. This added even more tension and tactics to the game.

I very much enjoy the game and I thinking seriously about upgraded my materials to make a higher grade permanent pitch. Big fun. If you are in Regina and would like to play Subbuteo, give me a call...

We played another game of High Frontier on Wednesday, this time with 2 player.

Brent was China, I was NASA.
NASA went first and put a 5-1 thruster up for sale, which China bought for three WT. In retrospect, I should have bitten the bullet and took it for three as he used it for the entire game. We both spent some time building our forces and eventually I launched a mighty spaceship, crew and a solar sail (1-0). Brent quickly followed suit and he headed for a science planet as I went for Encke my own science planet.  China was faster and got there and back (6 points!) when I realized that my solar sail could not reach Encke because of the loss of solar push. So I went someplace else, flew back and built a better spaceship.

China, in the meantime, was ship rebuilding in preparation for another flight. I was merrily looking for things to make mine better and I ended up with a 3-4 thruster.

I guess I should explain how thrusters work, using my 3-4 thruster as an example. You have to calculate your Total Movement Points (TMP) which is a calculation of your thrust, in this case 3, minus your wet mass modifier (I will get to that, but mine was -1) plus solar bonus, if applicable (not here, so 0), plus ESA laser (not in this case 0) plus afterburner, if applicable (1). So, my TMP was 3+(-1)+0+0+1 or 3. I had 3 total movement points.  Every time I use my thrusters it would cost me 4 points of water. I had put 6 tanks of water on my ship, which gave me 16 total points of water for movement (or four steps).

I managed to get my ship out to the asteroid belt where I built a new thruster factory (the 15-1/2 one) but it was pretty late in the game by the time my freighter got home so I only had the chance to build one more factory, get to Mercury and back prospect a couple of planets. China in the meantime had built two factories, prospected a little more and we called it a game.

China won 26-21 because he had made a trip to a science site and back.

Next week, High Frontier, with some of the advanced rules.

I've played very few games since January, but the wife and I have played a few in the past week (which were actually the first games I've played since April).

Mage Knight: We played a game of Full Conquest, which is our go-to mode. Her score slaughtered mine: 143-72. I should have played more aggressively and conquered some of the keeps she'd previously conquered to at least close the gap.  She beats me at this game pretty consistently now because I generally play too cautiosly.

Firefly: We tried the Pirates & Bounty Hunters expansion. I was Jubal Early in his ship and she was the other new guy in the other new ship. I was just about to drop off a bounty to claim victory by collecting a fifth goal token when she raided my ship to collect a goal token for herself as well as steal one of mine to snatch victory for herself.  I like the increased player interaction this expansion introduces.

Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit: As always, I played as the Trade Federation and she played as the Naboolians(?). What a close, back-and-forth game! My Battle Droids were effectively mowing down her Palace Guards.  Captain Panaka fell while guarding the Queen (though it turns out it was her decoy).  Meanwhile, Darth Maul killed Qui-Gon Jinn but was very quickly cut down by a vengeful Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan then swooped into the palace, but the wife made the tactical error of running past Battle Droids to get to the third floor instead of destroying these stragglers on his way up. This would come back to bite her.  (For those who haven't seen this game, the palace actually has three floors.  Very cool.)

On the battlefield, my Battle Droids were able to bring down the Gungan shields by taking down one of those big dinosaur things. I then brought in my AATs and started soaking the field with the blood of dead Gungans (a bit more graphic than The Phantom Menace's climax, I know), though her catapults were quite competent at mowing down my AATs in return.

In the end, my Battle Droids that Obi-Wan had ran past earlier were able to swarm the third floor, kill the Queen's decoy, leaving just Obi-Wan and the Queen left alive (the good guys need three surviving units in the palace to win) to secure victory for the glorious Trade Federation. This occurred just after Anakin failed in his attempt to destroy the Trade Federation's orbiting base, thereby shuttin down every one of my droids and removing them from the game (another necessary condition for a good guy win). Epic game. I think my wife has learned her lesson: the best defence is a good offence.  If she used Obi-Wan to clear out those stragglers, she would have definitely won.

(Oh, and I rolled a pair of double-hits with a Destroyer Droid to kill Captain Panaka and a trio of double-hits with Darth Maul to kill Qui-Gon in back-to-back attacks. The odds of five double-hits with five dice? 1 in 7,776. My midichlorian count must be off the charts.)

Another day, another game of High Frontier, this time with some of the advanced rules and five players, this time we used Colonization with the Support Module, the Colonist Module and the Combat Module. The players were, in turn order; Brent (Peoples Republic of China/PRC, 4 previous games played), Jason (United Nations/UN, first game), Conal ( European Space Agency/ESA, first game), Darrin (The Shimzu Corporation, second game) and myself (NASA, fifth game). Since there were 5 players the game would go to 7 factories, not that we made it that far.

I spent about 30 minutes explaining the general rules and the new rules for the expansions, as the Support Module adds three new support cards; Generators, Radiators and Reactors, as some of the original resources; Robonauts, Thrusters and Refineries, would now require them. Then I explained the colonist module, which was not as heavily used as the Support Module but was useful in that it allowed a second action, for a fee. The advanced game also uses politics, and gives victory points to whoever is in power at the time.

The game started with everyone slowly building up their fleets and we moved into Anarchy quickly, which meant that people were unable to use their special abilities except the PRC (claim jump, water steal and impolitely decommission crews in space), but as a bonus, we could all use that ability.

The UN launched first and made it out to a nearby science planet and back before anyone else had launched (6 points), using solar sails. I was the second to launch and landed on the moon, one turn ahead of the Shimzu and their juiced up cosmonauts, who then decided to head back to LEO (low earth orbit) and rebuild/replan for their next venture into space. The ESA launched and took a slow boat Mars, and by they arrived the Shimzu were there as well. I played chicken with the PRC and did not launch from the Moon until the PRC had gone by on their ship (to prevent claim jumping).

Meanwhile, the UN had rebuilt their ship and started Solar War, as apparently they did not care for the Libertarian Work ethic, this allowed us to fight. It also meant things were touch between Shimzu, ESA and PRC as they were all near Mars. As soon as Shimzu headed back to Earth to claim their glory, the PRC claim jumped and took the Shimzu claim on Mars, immediately building a factory there, the first in the game (10 points). While Shimzu and ESA struggled to get back to Earth, I built a factory on the Moon (10 points).

We ended the game at about 11 PM with the scores as follows:
PRC – 13 (10 for factory, 1 for stolen claim, 1 for freighter, 1 for factory cube)
UN – 6 (3 each for first to science and back and first back from any planet)
ESA – 2 (two claims)
Shimzu – 3 (first to Mars and back)
NASA – 13 (10 for factory, 1 for claim, 1 for freighter, 1 for factory cube)

NASA won due to having 4 WT (water tanks) compared to PRC's 2.

The game took us about 3 hours and we completed 16 or so turns, but the speed was accelerating as the UN was two turns from building a factory on Mercury, PRC was 4 turns from getting their freighter back from Mars and I was 2 turns from getting back to Earth with my freighter. I cannot comment on what PRC had built on Mars, but my Generator added 4 to my thrust, making my ship a 7:1 (7 moves at a cost of 1 each), allowing me to explore deeper in space and get to the juicier planets.

I think we will do this again in 3 weeks...

Been awhile since I posted here, need to fix that. And what better way than to share one of my favourite games: Merchant of Venus

I recently played two games of this, a four player game with a time limit, and a six player game with a $3500 victory condition. Both were fantastic.

The components are beautifully made and the game play is always varied and engaging. This game has so much re-playability with the random placement of the cultures, the random market start, and the random exploration markers. No two games are similar. When we play, we use some of the original designer's optional and variant rules:
(1) Random market start
(2) All extra ships are available for purchase
(3) We include the additional race (4C) Wraiths
(4) Mining Colonies

I have not played the fantasy flight remake of this game so I cannot comment on that version, but this version is simply superb.

I hosted my annual drinking and gaming weekend with friends from back home this past weekend.  The games I took part in included:

Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island: a close loss after some devastating weather and an animal attack shortly before we could get the signal fire lit.

King of Tokyo: Played twice, winning once on points.

Fury of Dracula: We hunters successfully cornered Dracula and staked him.

Epic Tiny Kingdoms: I hadn't heard of this Kickstarter title before.  Played twice.  I thought it was pretty good.  My friend works at a signage company and was able to make a pretty awesome print and play version.  I was impressed.

Room 25: Played Suspicion mode.  Us prisoners lost in hilarious fashion when we turned on each other.  Suspicion, indeed.

Citadels: I like the game but it always seems to run too long.

Cave Evil: A black metal inspired dungeon crawler.  I was hoping to love it and think I do.  Not a hugely innovative game or anything, but fun and totally embraces its theme.

Clash of Cultures: It's been a long time since I first tried this one, but it all came back pretty smoothly.  Great game.

Forbidden Desert: Neat little Pandemic-like game with pretty cool pieces.

Some of the games others played that I missed out on included Letters from Whitechapel, Blood Bowl: Team Manager, Valley of the Kings, and X-Wing.

Played a few things this long weekend.

MANSIONS OF MADNESS - My wife and I played twice, each of us taking a turn as the Keeper.  The scenarios we played were Classroom Curses and 'Til Death Do Us Part.  I want to play the scenarios from the Call of the Wild expansion but I'd have to re-read the additional rules first and was too lazy.

FREEDOM: THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD - I played this solo three times.  Challenging game.  Came close to beating it twice, though.

MAGE KNIGHT - This was my 50th game of MK.  My wife and I played our go-to scenario (Full Conquest) and I squeaked out a narrow victory, thanks to a spell called Underground Travel that enabled me to sneak in and conquer a city that she would have attempted on her next turn.

I've been playing Innovation pretty consistently every day at lunch for the last few months, mainly due to the fact that it has a great web app here: http://innovation.isotropic.org/
Always play with the Echoes and Leaders expansion.  We don't like the No Place Like Home expansion as much.

Recently completed a couple of 3-player Agricola games on iOS.  Won the first one by 2 points, and lost the second one by a point.

I played Settlers of Catan with some co-workers during our down time at work over the weekend.

I also purchased King of Tokyo recently and have played a few modified versions of the game with my kids.  They are 5 & 6.  To modify the game I just removed the energy cubes and cards from the game.

I was at ToonCon all weekend and played... nothing!

last night at Woods Alehouse we played Roll through the Ages, Love Letter and Airships

Play With Your Food!  Congratulations to all the teams for raising 25 grand!  Amazing.

But the games.  Here's what I played:

My friends (Adam and Devon) and I started the event off with back-to-back games of Robinson Crusoe. We failed at exorcising the evil at the Cursed Island, with all three of us dying at night due to cold weather.  We did snatch victory in Volcano Island, mainly because we used both Dog and Friday to boost our confidence.

Next we played in a social mixer. Sixty people were split into three simultaneous back-to-back sessions of Two Rooms and a Boom.  Not my kind of game.  Felt kind of like speed dating.  But thanks to Nikki and Roxanne for running it.  Must have felt to them a bit like herding cats.

Back to just the overly anti-social group of Adam, Devon and I. We played back-to-back games of Letters from Whitechapel. In the first game, I was Jack. The investigators were on my trail the entire game, but didn't finally arrest me until THE VERY FINAL MOVE BEFORE I WOULD HAVE REACHED MY HIDEOUT! So tense... Adam was Jack in game number two. We were right on his trail in night two but he managed to inadvertently convince us he was heading northeast rather than southwest through a combination of dumb luck on his part and just being dumb on our part.  He cruised to victory after that because we were fixated on the wrong part of the map.  I hate to say it, but I think I now prefer this to Fury of Dracula. I feel anxiety playing this game like I do playing none other.

Next up, three rounds of Lost Legacy: The Starship followed by a full game of Love Letter. Lost Legacy feels like Love Letter but with player interaction largely replaced with interacting with the draw decks. Not as fun.

After that was StarCraft, which we hadn't played for six years or so. Oh, man. WAY better than I remembered. It's now my favourite tactical combat game.

Adam was Terran, Devon was Zerg and I was Protoss. I built up a huge early lead on combat points. I believe at one point it was 10 for me and 4 for each of them (out of a needed 15 for normal victory). I was cruising to victory until they rightly ganged up on me when I was at 12 points and removed me from all combat point areas. Adam could have easily wiped me out completely, but I convinced him to let me live so I could help him prevent Devon from winning a Special Victory (have three bases in Stage III). In the end, Devon narrowly missed the win because the card that would have kept his Ultralisk alive was the secondfrom-the-top card on his draw deck rather than being in his hand. Adam and I each finished with 15 points. However, Adam won in the "who has more resources" tie-breaker. So it was essentially a photo-finish between all three of us. Incredible.  I need to stop neglecting this one.  And we need to incorporate the Brood Wars expansions.

We followed that with a game of Firefly. We played the scenario in which, basically, the first to $12,000 wins so long as they're not penalized too much by unfinished jobs. We called it when it was obvious that Adam was going to win. Devon had to do a couple of runs around the table to wake up.

We were all feeling pretty frazzled by this point (about hour 20 or 21) so we played a couple games of easy, breezy Carcassonne, with the river as the only expansion material. I lost both times. Adam fell asleep with a tile in his hand and woke up when it fell from his fingers.

We finished the event with Freedom: The Underground Railroad. Devon wanted to quit halfway through because his brain stopped working, but I forced him to finish. Good thing, too, because what was looking like a devastating loss took a turn for the better and became a relatively easy victory in the final round.

We went for lunch, then I went home and fell asleep in the tub before settling in for a 16 hour snooze that only ended that early because my alarm went off.

Can't wait for next year!  (The three of us have decided to be less insular next time.)

Games I play all the time:
Love Letter: This is cute little game that takes anywhere between 1 min to 1 hour to complete (average game using stated rules take on average 5-10 min).
Pathfinder: The top selling RPG worldwide (sometimes called D&D 3.75).  I do game testing for a company called Purple Duck Games (check out their products on RPG Now).

Games I love to play when the opportunity arises:
Mechwarrior: Dark Age/Age of Destruction: I love this game, but it is hard to find players, and game pieces are no longer sold.
Shadowrun: My first RPG I ever learned to play.  I still have a special spot in my heart for this Dystopian Cyber-Punk RPG.

Been awhile since I chimed in... so here goes. :)

Yedo
This is a well designed game that will hit the table again soon. I love the theme and the mechanics. It is a solid Euro design.

Glory To Rome
Very innovative game that shares some mechanics with Innovation. I really like this game and have played it three times recently. I can always be talked into bringing this to ChewsDay Challenge.

Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game
This is just a great game. Each time I play it, I enjoy it more. Now with four full plays under my belt this is a top 10 game for me.

Merchant of Venus
What can I say, other than this game is AWESOME!?! (I am referring to the classic rules of course).

Cavum
Very clever route building game with some puzzle like qualities and abilities to screw over other players. Works for me. :)

Formula De
We are in our 6th season of the Formula De League. League play is where it is at for this game. Solid.

Games played since my last update:

The wife and I have played three games of Arkham Horror last week. I have three big and three small expansions mixed into that behemoth of cards and tokens.  I've tried playing it a few times with everything going at once but, meh, too convoluted.  You don't get the flavour that the individual expansions bring.  My new preferred method is to pick one expansion, include all its options, and leave out all options/boards from the remaining expansions.  And when drawing cards, I now skip Mythos cards from those excluded expansions (but use all cards for every other card type for the sake of convenience).  A simple method that works well.  Our third game was a great Innsmouth Horror flavoured session; tasted fishy, as it should.  The game ended with cheers and a high five in a very close victory against the "tentacles from below" Great Old One.

Closer to Hallowe'en we tried A Touch of Evil but we quit that one about halfway through.  It just made us want to play Arkham Horror (thus the three sessions of that last week).  A comment by the wife as I was packing it away summed it up well: "There's nothing here for people who play games regularly."

We also recently tried the Blue Sun expansion for Firefly.  I love what it adds to the game, particularly how it makes Reavers a much stronger threat, thus making trips outside of Alliance Space into a much riskier adventure.  With three expansions, the game is getting admittedly bloated and overly expensive (I think the Breaking Atmo' card expansion has a negligible effect, so that one can be safely skipped), but it's also gotten a lot better in that it has almost a "sandbox adventure" feel to it now, even though it's still basically a pick-up-and-deliver game.

I've played several games of Court of the Medici at Chewsday Challenges after a long hiatus.  I still think it's one of the better bang-for-your-buck games you can get.  The tactical decisions can melt your brain.

Played Cyclades with all the trimmings recently.  I really like the elevated level of conflict that Hades brings to the game.  I still suck, largely because my play style tends to be "biding my time" but you can't stay on your heels in this one.  I'd blame being attacked a few times early for my loss, but that didn't seem to hamper Alex, who was in a strong position to win near the end despite being nearly wiped out in the early rounds.

I sucked at Conquest of Paradise for the same reason.  I waited too long to be aggressive.  And the ending snuck up on me in that one as well.  A surprisingly quick game.  But I did get a moral victory by only finishing second last.  Take that, Matt!  I'd like to play this one again soon now that I have a feel for when players should start fighting over territory.

And the wife and I played Mage Knight because that's what we do.

I just reciently picked up a copy of Jaipur (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/54043/jaipur).  This is a great two player game that is super simple to learn but always seems fun.  Every turn has you wondering, "should take that one gold, or maybe scoop up all the camels, oh but wait then a bunch of new cards come out and what if one of them is gold then my opponent will have a bunch of gold to sell, but he's only got a couple of camels so maybe he won't take them oh man I better take that gold now oh no he already had two gold and now he's sold them for the most profit!".  Also, any game that gives you bonus points for having the most camels is cool with me.

Also been playing Seasons  (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/108745/seasons)with the two expansions, Enchanted Kingdom  (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/136233/seasons-enchanted-kingdom)and Path of Destiny (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/148166/seasons-path-destiny).  The new cards add some much needed interactivity with the other players, and the special abilities can make or break you at the end.  Also, if you're like me and have played enough games the enchantment cards can mix up a game enough to make it fresh. 

Since my last post,  I've played a few more iOS games of Agricola and some Innovation as well.

I also played Cyclades with all the expansions and promos.  It was a game I'd been wanting to try for a while, and it lived up to my expectations. 

Cavum was another game I got to play.  It is a unique, and quick playing game with a mining theme, which I enjoyed.

I played a few games of 7 Wonders with friends after it sat on my shelf for over a year.  The game definitely provides a better experience when playing with more players, and my friends who are relatively new to board gaming loved it.

I also played Cosmic Encounter, Camel Up and The Captain is Dead.  All three are light games, which are great fun to play with 4+ players.

Ninja Burger and Munchkin were games I played over the past week that I did not enjoy at all, and don't care to ever play them again!

I've never tried Ninja Burger.  You should bring it to Chewsday Night Challenge some time so people can try it.

Quote from: tbrminsanity on November 19, 2014, 07:26:36 AM
I've never tried Ninja Burger.  You should bring it to Chewsday Night Challenge some time so people can try it.

I don't own it.  A friend who was visiting from Saskatoon had brought it with him.

Guys first day  of Bgg con it was a goodie
Star Wars imperial assault
2 games of  roll through the ages Iron Age
Firefly no expansion
Thunder ally
And last but not least the captain is dead guess what Murray we won

Since last time I posted...

Ameya ran 4-player and 3-player games of Brass in consecutive weeks at ChewsDay Challenge.  Great game that I'd been hoping to try for years.  One of those games where you try to take advantage of others' actions and to make the most of the hand you're dealt.  I generally like games like that.  I do think it's perhaps got one too many layers of complexity for the type of game it is, which makes it a little harder to learn than most strategy games of its type.  I might pick up Age of Industry -- a streamlined version of Brass.

I ran a game of Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island with Ameya, Murray and Mac at CC.  We played the intro Castaways scenario -- build up a pile of wood for a signal fire so that we can be rescued in the 10th-12th week.  We did not discover fire.  We put no wood on the pile.  We didn't make it past the 5th week because I was killed by a Puma that I tried to hunt with a pointy twig.  The cook would not stop bitching.  It was a glorious disaster.

I played a few solo games of Space Hulk: Death Angel using the Tyranids instead of the Genestealers and the alternate locations from the expansion packs.  I got my space butt handed to me both times.

Brandon-Shea taught CO2 to myself, Murray, and Brittani times two at CC.  We all lost by polluting the earth beyond salvation by 1990, a good 25 years before Matthew McConaughey could go into space and save us all.  :( 

Very cool game.  I'd like to play it again now that I have a feel for how it plays.

Matt ran a game of Sushi Go! for Colin, Amanda and myself at CC.  I'm not a fan of 7 Wonders, but it turns out that all they had to do was make it simpler, quicker and cuter, because I thought this was much better.  I squeaked out a win.  Probably because I had sushi from the Canadian Tire gas station on South Albert a few hours earlier so was better prepared.

Lori ran a game of Imperial Settlers for Brandon-Shea, Ameya and myself at CC.  Very neat game.  I thought the four factions had much different vibes to them, which I like.  My Barbarians were razing like... barbarians... and I managed to squeak out a win.  My one complaint is that the icons and texts are really hard to read on other people's tableaus.  The art on the cards is great, but is probably too prominent for them to be as functional as I'd like.

The wife and I played Mage Knight because that's what we do.

I'd love to try a game of Mage Knight!

Maybe I'll bring it to CC sometime.  Only problem for that venue is that it takes up a good chunk of time and table space.

If not maybe Ameya would be willing to host?  I would, but my table is pretty small.

Here's my list for the last week or so:

Discworld: Ankh-Morpork
It had been a few months since I'd brought this one out. Great game, but I'd forgotten how much less great it is with just 2 players.

Pandemic
I'm a big fan of co-ops, and I'd never played this... it was just embarrassing. Now it's remedied. I still prefer Forbidden Island: feels more tense and immediate to me, and the theme of Pandemic is less to my taste. I kept thinking about ebola and getting all depressed.

Barbarian Prince
Because I'm a sucker for fiddly retro hex-and-counter stuff, especially where there's a good narrative involved.

Quote from: brainhole on December 10, 2014, 09:18:56 AM
Here's my list for the last week or so:

Discworld: Ankh-Morpork
It had been a few months since I'd brought this one out. Great game, but I'd forgotten how much less great it is with just 2 players.

Pandemic
I'm a big fan of co-ops, and I'd never played this... it was just embarrassing. Now it's remedied. I still prefer Forbidden Island: feels more tense and immediate to me, and the theme of Pandemic is less to my taste. I kept thinking about ebola and getting all depressed.

Barbarian Prince
Because I'm a sucker for fiddly retro hex-and-counter stuff, especially where there's a good narrative involved.

That is a very interesting assortment of games. I had to go look up Barbarian Prince on BGG. :)

My last week is:
Wealth of Nations: I bought it new but never played it, easy rules but good economic game

Steampark : (2P)  I only had it for a couple of days before cracking it out, pretty light, but ok

Stephenson's Rocket: I last played it in 2006...

Red November:  interesting co-op, but we undoubtedly played it wrong

Power Grid : still awesome!

Since last time I posted:

Dominant Species - I got my first two tries with this, once with four players and once with the full complement of six.  Great, great game.  Such a mind melter in the late rounds, especially with six.  Come to think of it, I hope there were no little ones watching over my shoulder at PGX, because I may have dropped a few (dozen) f-bombs trying to wrap my feeble brain around where to play the Catastrophe card with my final action of the game.

Monopoly - Played it with the in-laws over Christmas, because when else would a hobby gamer play Monopoly.  I can't remember the last time I played this, but it was earlier than 2007, since I'd never logged a game of it and that's when I started doing that.  Way better than I remembered!  Which isn't to say that it's a great game but -- PLAYED BY THE RULES AS ACTUALLY WRITTEN -- it's a pretty decent negotiation game that really doesn't overstay its welcome that much.  I'm glad I didn't toss my copy.

Eclipse - My wife and I aborted a game in round 5 because I had a bad headache and didn't remember the rules as well as I thought I did.  She was well on her way to wiping all trace of my alien race from the annals of history, so I conceded the win to her.

Court of the Medici - Played a quick game with Matt.  Super simple rules, tiny/inexpensive package, great strategic and tactical depth.

Carcassonne - Game one of the Chewsday Challenge tournament.  I lost to Nicole and Patrick.  I stink at this game, mainly because I do a poor job of investing my meeples.

Roll for the Galaxy - Like the card game, this dice game takes a simple premise and convolutes it with symbology and exceptions.  It's a hard game to learn because of that, which made the game last longer than I think it should.  However, I think it'd be a lot of fun once all players get past that initial learning curve.  Plus, you can't go wrong shaking dice in a plastic cup.

Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation - Two of my goals this year are to play more Renier Knizia games and to play some of the shelf toads in my collection.  This killed two birds with one stone.  Fantastic game with a beautiful production (I've got the deluxe version) that I shouldn't let collect dust again.

So, since my last time posting (Dec 10th!, I am a slacker), I have played an assortment of games, I will go by amount played:

Heroes of Metro City - hey a superhero semi co-op deckbuilder! Man, was this hard, we played it 7 times and eked out one win. Tough game that punishes greediness. I got 7 plays in, all in a day.

Machi Koro - light dice and tile game, after 4 plays it has started to slide in my interest list. I will play it to teach others, but I am over it this dice rolling city building game.

Power Grid - 3 plays in the last 3 weeks! This is one of my favourite games and I am always glad to teach it. I played the USA, Quebec and Germany boards. I think I am going to aim for ten plays this year.

Love Letter - This is becoming my "go to: game for accessible gaming, short sweet and a little bit mean. 3 plays so far. Almost half are at Woods.

7 Wonders - It has slowly moved from a game I played a lot (16 plays in 2012) to one I barely played (4 in 2014). I still enjoy it, but much of the sheen has disappeared. This includes the 3 I had between Christmas and New Years.

King of Tokyo - fun game once in a while, but I don't want a serious diet of it. All the plays were at Woods Alehouse on a Monday night.

London I really like this game, it is a shame I don't play it more often. I think I will make it game of the Week at Woods soon. 2 plays, both at home.

Mississippi Queen - Racing paddle wheelers! One of my new favourite race games. lighter and quicker with less work to manage what you have to do with a touch of meanness. 2 plays, one of them at Woods.

Steam - I love the Martin Wallace line of train games and this one works well, smaller and more compact than Railways of the World, a little friendly than Age of Steam. 2 plays, both at home.

All with one play
Civilization - technically it was Civilization with the Advanced Civilization expansion but it is what it is. BGG says I have logged three plays since 2012, but I think I am close to 50 or more in my life. We played for 10 hours then called it with 2 or 3 turns to go. Still my #1 game.

Nexus Ops - fun dice chucking game with conflict, sort of like a quick risk. great fun, but I cannot roll to save my life (or my Rock Spiders!)

San Juan - we were looking for a quick filler at a meetup, so I pulled this one out and we played a quick form player game at a meetup group. I really like it, and I am always enjoying it. My wife does not enjoy it two player, as I consider this a race game.

Small World - January 26th's Game of the Week at Woods Alehouse. Easy to teach, fun to play with tonnes and tons of player interaction. You would think I would know how to win by now.

Sword of Rome - 5 player CDG on Rome. Another of my top five games I got to play lately. 5 hours, and a Carthaginian win (I was the Etruscan/Samnite player). Good intro into more than 2P CDGs.

Vegas Showdown - smart game and I think under rated when it came out. I should play this more, as everyone I taught it to has loved it. I had it as Game of the Week at Woods several weeks ago.

Xia: Legends of a Drift System - pretty bits and a fun space exploration game, more options than Merchants of Venus, and fast as well.

Since last time I posted...

I hosted a six-player session of A Game of Thrones (1st edition).  I hadn't played this in about three years.  It turns out I'm missing a few of the cards, but luckily the expansions have alternate decks we were able to utilize instead.  I played as the Starks and lost badly.  I'd like to play this a few times in 2015 and gradually incorporate more expansion material.

We also played a few games of No Thanks!.  I won the second game with a positive score!  That makes me world champion, I think.

I followed that with a truncated game of Mage Knight that we had to call for time.  We did manage to play two full rounds, so I guess we would have played a complete game if we had selected one of the shorter scenarios.

I played my first league game of Twilight Struggle.  I hadn't played this since 2013, and my opponent also hadn't played for a few years.  It took each of us a while to pick up on strategy, especially because we had no familiarity with the cards and so couldn't predict what actions might completely derail our plans.  It was looking like I (the US) was going to lose near the end of the mid-war but I ended up squeaking out a 1-point victory in final scoring.  Epic game.  I'm glad I joined a league because this is one I would like to become fairly competitive at.

I soloed a game of Lord of the Rings, which I hadn't played since about 2007.  I have a personal goal to play a lot of Knizia titles this year.  Despite the fact that it was so influential by helping popularize the co-op genre, it still manages to be very unique within the genre.  I hope to play the base game a few times and then buy an expansion or two.

I played a few eight-player games of BANG! The Dice Game.  I think I like it a bit better than the original BANG! because it doesn't overstay its welcome but, as far as Yahtzee variants go, I much prefer King of Tokyo.

I got in my third game of Dominant Species in the last two months.  My score benefitted from new players who were trying to get a handle on the rules, let alone the fairly obtuse strategies.  Plus I was also able to do a devastating Blight action on the only other experienced player.  I ended up with a runaway score that was about 80 points higher than second place.

I took part in a western-themed game of Fiasco.  ...   What happens in Fiasco stays in Fiasco...

I played both Cyclades and Kemet, both great combat-heavy games from the same designer.  For both we used the expansion that allows some of the elements to be mixed (I released the Kraken into the Nile, for example).  In both games, every single player was at some point in a position to possibly claim victory.  Fun stuff.

I tried out Turfmaster in an eight-player game and managed to pull out the victory by scoring in all three races.  Neat game of hand management.

I took part in a five-player game of Merchant of Venus in which we used a hard time stop rather than play to $X.  I'd like to play again soon using the proper end-game since most of the time was used exploring rather than exploiting the revealed trade routes.  Great game, though.

I played a three-player game of El Grande, finishing in second place.  This is still probably the tightest design I've ever played.  It's more than a straight-forward abstract but there isn't an ounce of fat on it.  Just a well-olied machine.  Three players isn't optimal, but still an excellent game.

I tried The Bridges of Shangri-La.  The rules are very simple but, for some reason, it took me half the game to understand what the hell was going on.  I really liked it by the end, though.  It's like a dozen simultaneous Mexican stand-offs.  I hope to play this one again.

I taught a seven-player game of Cosmic Encounter.  I was Animal, with the power of throwing a hearty party.  The game dragged a bit, partly because I think with seven you start to stretch the seams on this one (we only made it around the table once before the game was over, but that still took a long time) and partly because some of the players at the table were unaccustomed to that one-and-done style of negotiation.  Still, I'd like the play it again soon and often.  Just not with seven.

Matt taught me the game ZÈRTZ, which falls under the Project GIPF label, a series of unique abstract games with impressive components.  Its heritage is in Checkers, but puts a few unique spins on that: a) the board diminishes in size as you play, and b) not every chip (or, in this case, marble) has equal value to the players.  It's a clever design that enables the players to be clever (or stupid).  I'd love to become more familiar with this one and to try others in the GIPF line.

I played in a three-player game of Tigris & Euphrates (to work towards the aformentioned goal of playing lots of Knizia titles).  I hadn't played this in almost seven years.  Such a fantastic design.  Even better than I remembered.  So many considerations to make with every decision.

Because I always forget until Ryan posts here, these are mine, not including tonight.

Command & Colors: Ancients - 2 plays against Jason, currently the best of the C&C games.

Onward to Venus - Martin Wallace's SF game based on Greg Broadmore's graphic novels, fun with an different
looking "board", a little combat and a little economic engine. I may never win, but I do like
playing it. 2 plays

For Sale - I taught this at Woods Alehouse, great filler. 1 Play

Parthenon: Rise of the Aegean - Only 1 play, I am interested in it, but the sea hazards are brutal!

San Juan - 1 play, just like Puerto Rico, only better!

The latest installment of What game is hitting Jolo or R Newell's table? is here!

I've owned it for about seven years, but it took me until last week before I FINALLY tried Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage... twice!  Just a fantastic card-driven wargame (this is an ancestor to games like Twilight Struggle, but with unit movement and battles).  The rules for the Valley Games edition aren't very good so I had to do a lot of rules referencing, but now I think I've got it down (though I should do another read-through of the rules just to make sure).  I lost my first session by taking Hannibal into Italy with too weak a force, making him easy pickings for Scipio Africanus' legion from Rome.  My second game was an epic that went to a tie-breaker.  I'd like to play this one fairly regularly, or at least occasionally.

I tried Mythotopia, a four-player conflict game using the deck-building-plus-map mechanics of the popular two-player game from a few years ago, A Few Acres of Snow.  My first impression was fairly ambivalent because of a few niggling issues I had with it: the setting and aesthetics are very bland, the pacing is kind of off because there's a strong opening (the deck-building) that pretty soon jumps right into the convoluted and potentially lengthy end-game.  Even though the scores shifted, I didn't feel a whole lot of ebb and flow.  I'd like to try it again, because I wonder if maybe we were too passive with invasions which contributed to that ho-hum feeling.  But I'm not dying to trying it again.

I blew seven-and-a-half years worth of dust off of Condottiere and played back-to-back five-player games with three new players.  I won the first game very quickly as the newbies were becoming accustomed to the nuances of managing their hands of cards to their advantage (and opponents' disadvantage).  The second game was won easily by one the newbies.  I think everyone liked it.  I plan on bringing this little gem out more often.

I played in a four-player Carcassonne league game that introduced the Inns and Cathedrals expansion.  It adds a few more considerations when placing tiles/meeples, so that was fun to try.  I came in second place but realized afterwards that if I placed my last tile in the other space I was waffling between, I would have won the game.  Whoops.

I tried Ra in a four-player session.  Fantastic auction game.  I really enjoyed it.  I'll be bringing this one out fairly regularly now.  I came in first place with a score that exceeded the rest of the scores combined.  Where's my championship belt?

Since it is apparently my turn...
Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set - 5 plays, fun light dungeon crawl card game with hand management, we have finished the Skinsaw adventures and are starting on the Giants one in a couple of weeks.

The rest are one play each
Age of Steam - Yes, I lose, alot, but I enjoy the cut throat aspect of this game every time I play.

Catan - played with Cities & Knights, Fisherman, the deck, still a subpar game. I know there are people that love it, I am not one.

High Frontier - we used some of the modules (Support mainly) and it took us 3.5 hours for a three player game, and I finished last, but I still want to play it again (6th play in 16 months).

Quote from: R Newell on March 04, 2015, 11:20:27 AM
The latest installment of What game is hitting Jolo or R Newell's table? is here!

Well played sir. :D

Here is a sampling of what I have been playing lately.

VITICULTURE x3
I am really enjoying this game. I ended up backing this on Kickstarter along with the Tuscany expansion. The components are beautiful, the game is very thematic, and the game play is engaging. This game will get a decent amount of table time.

TWILIGHT STRUGGLE x2
I played two simultaneous games of Twilight Struggle against two opponents. What an awesome and tense 6 hours that was. I lost both games in late war, but oh the tension. Great fun.

MERCHANT OF VENUS x2
This is still my favourite game. I really enjoy the mechanics and the look of this game. This will be hitting the table with regularity. My pimped out version is getting some more cool additions soon. :)

FRIEDRICH x1
Simple rules / great tension. This is a very enjoyable design to play. I have been lucky to play this quite a bit in the last year. There are some other local fans too so it is never hard to get this to the table.

IMPULSE x1
What a cool design. Thanks Dale for bringing this to ChewsDay Challenge. I think this is Chudyk's best design yet. After one play, I went out and bought it.

XIA: LEGENDS OF A DRIFT SYSTEM x1
Beautiful game and what a sandbox system this is. I really enjoyed my first play and look forward to a proper 6 hours weekend game of this soon.

NEUROSHIMA HEX! x1
8 players in 4 teams of 2. Yea baby, that is the way to play this. Oh yea, add a timer for game play and it adds to the fun and tension. :D

STAR TREK FLEET CAPTAINS x1
Still the best thematic Star Trek game in my opinion. Now with the expansions, I would like to play some 3 and 4 player games of this.

Quote from: Matt Robertson on March 06, 2015, 10:55:46 AM

VITICULTURE x3
I am really enjoying this game. I ended up backing this on Kickstarter along with the Tuscany expansion. The components are beautiful, the game is very thematic, and the game play is engaging. This game will get a decent amount of table time.

One of the few WP games I will play, I originally bought it for the theme, but kept it because it is a good game.

So, in the last month, I have played an assortment of games, and [resent them, in quantity of plays:
No Thanks! - quick playing filler that I use for playing at the end of the night or bridging between games. I like it, and have liked it since Jasen taught it to me (8 years ago!). 3 plays, 2 at the library, one at Woods.

Bohnanza - easily Uwe Rosenberg's best game, highly interactive, highly competitive and highly fun. 2 plays, one at the library, one at Woods.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set - We have started the giants or ogre scenarios, it is a reasonably good game. 2 plays, both at home.

7 Wonders - Easy to teach and filler with a little crunchiness. 1 play at Woods

Castle Dice - Light dice rolling and WP game, not bad, one play at home

High Frontier - and here it is again, it seems to be a favourite here, and I may never get a 4X game back on the schedule, one play at home.

Ingenious - my favourite Knizia, I taught it at Woods and one of the players loved it (she also won).

Love Letter: Batman - light quick filler, I taught it a Carlyle King Library. One play

Power Grid - Oh look, another play for this, I taught it by request at Woods, and I think I may be teaching it tonight.

Princes of the Renaissance - One play of Wallace's classic, I like it, we played it pretty quickly but it went well. We played at home.

Sentinels of the Multiverse Just one play of Matt's favourite game, we played it Saturday night while waiting for the last two people to show up for GURPS

Tinner's Trail - One play last week, a mining game from Wallace.

Since last time I posted... not a whole lot considering it's been over a month.

I played the second game of Twilight Struggle for our league. My first league game was a 5-hour tug of war that ended with a US victory in final scoring with 1 point.  My second game couldn't have been more different.  I was the US again, but lost when the USSR conducted his first action of the 4th round (at least I made it to mid-war...)  I'd like to use my lousy hand in the very first round (in which every card but one was a USSR event) as my excuse but, truthfully, my utter failure was primarily due to my forgetful neglect of military operations each and every frigging round.

I tried Dead of Winter.  I was extremely impressed with how easy it was to learn.  We literally took off the shrink wrap, punched the tokens, read the rules and setup in around half an hour and then we were playing with little reason to reference the rulebook.  Well done, Plaid Hat.  There was a betrayer who had two very close opportunities to win -- once before we exiled him and once after -- but instead we all lost when morale fell to zero.

The wife and I tried the Robinson Family scenario for Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island.  My character died on the sixth turn and we weren't particularly close to the winning conditions which involved inventing a whole lot of stuff for our permanent home.

I played a few games of King of Tokyo.  This is still my favourite dice game (though that's not as ringing an endorsement as it sounds because I haven't tried that many).  I think I died both times. I always try and stubbornly hold Tokyo.  I just... I want to be king.

I bought my friend a copy of Kemet for his 40th birthday because he stubbornly bought me a lot of alcohol the night before.  I was a little nervous about teaching a game for which I'd never read the rulebook, but it went fine.  We played a 5-player game with extremely tight scoring (9-9-9-8-8).  Great game that gets better with experience.

I played my third game in the Carcassonne league, this session now including The River, Inns & Cathedrals, Traders & Builders, and Hills & Sheep.  The expansions each add some neat stuff, but I think I still prefer vanilla Carcassonne.  Just the base game.  The expansions add a lot of finnicky scoring stuff, especially when combined (like how a big meeple counts as 2 meeples whereas a meeple on a hill basically counts as 1.5).  The expansions add a lot of breadth, which means extra things to remember, but they don't really add any depth.

And I also tried Historia, which I'd never heard of until about ten minutes before it was being set up.  I'm kinda ambivalent on this one.  There are aspects I really like: the board is a glorious mess that appeals to my love of spreadsheets; the representation for advancing civilizations along the grid (the y-axis is military and the x-axis is technology) is novel, elegant, and frustrating in that good kinda way; I like that there's a geographic component, though highly abstracted; I'm a fan of hand management; the rules are super easy to learn and even the intimidating iconography isn't all that bad.

But, I think I hate the wonders.  These are cards that each player can draft over the course of the game and tap to gain their (minimal to moderate) effect.  I thought they had little impact on how the game played out in relation to how fiddly they are, how easy they are to forget, how much table space they take up, how little sense they make thematically, and how much they add to the play time.  "I'm going to tap this card to untap this card, then I'm going to retap this card, so that gets me one more victory point.  Then I'll tap this card to get one of my cubes back..."  It's just so dry and mechanical and solitary compared to the rest of the game.  I did like Historia overall, but those wonders have really stuck in my craw.

Since last time I posted...

The wife and I played a game of Mage Knight, which was only the second time we've played it so far this year (this is easily the game we've played the most over the past few years).  I squeaked past her in points in a Full Conquest scenario, largely because I re-conquered one of her conquered keeps.  There's another expansion due out later this summer so I'm sure this will once again be my most played game of the year despite a slow start.

We also played a game of Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit.  As usual, she played as the Jedi/Naboo critters and I played as the the most boring movie villains ever, the dastardly Trade Federation.  Also as usual, I won the game because the wife tends to neglect little Anakin.  Understandably so.  The Jedi battle was an epic one this time, and a severely wounded Obi Wan was able to avenge Qui Gon's death and rush into the palace to help the queen.  Except one of my battle droids promptly shot him in the head.  Glory for the Trade Federation!  Hurray for continuing blockades!

I played in a couple of games of Ultimate Werewolf: Ultimate Edition of Ultimateness.  I've yet to understand how someone can spin a lie that is based on anything or that anyone should actually believe.  Werewolves lost both times, meaning I went 1-1.

The wife and I tried Eldritch Horror at Chewsday Challenge.  I think some aspects are an improvement over Arkham Horror due to some streamlining and the addition of some consequences to decisions, but I think I still prefer AH due to greater built-in breadth (which admittedly makes the game much more bloated).

I played in my third league game of Twilight Struggle and lost when my opponent (Dana as USSR) played War Games with his first action in the first turn of Late War.  His experience and knowledge of early and mid war cards (which helps a player know when and where to optimally place influence) helped him take strong footholds in most regions that essentially had me with my back against the ropes for most of the game.  It was a good learning experience because Dana was helpful in pointing out areas where ops points aren't a very good bang for the buck.   Hopefully my brain will retain some of that info before I play my fourth league game...

I played a few solo games of Lord of the Rings, which, despite being perhaps the first prominent co-operative board game, still feels very unique in that genre.  It's highly abstracted but captures the high level themes and narrative points of the story very well.  I lost both times after having traveled most of the way up the Crack of Doom in Mordor.  I've played 10 times now and want to a) actually play with multiple people because I've only ever tried it solo, and b) get at least one of the expansions (probably Battlefields).

Since last time I posted...

I soloed another game of Lord of the Rings.  Sam felt overly comfortable and gambled by not using Gollum to finish guiding the hobbitses completely through Shelob's Lair and chose instead to rest.  That decision ended up costing him his life. Frodo was almost able to enter Mordor and destroy the ring himself (well, with some fleeting help from Gandalf) but, in the end, one little hobbit without his fellowship would not be enough.  It was a loss in Mordor at the Crack of Doom itself... So close! It came down to a single die roll, which advanced Sauron's encroaching darkness and corrupted the ring bearer. (Frodo's last words: "It's miiiine!") 

I also played another session in which I taught the game to the wife.  She slam dunked the ring over Sauron, no problem.  We were very lucky in our event draws, but that was still ridiculous how much she crushed it.

I picked up the LOTR Battlefields expansion at Dragon's Den in Saskatoon this past weekend.  I'm looking forward to incorporating that, even though the boards are incomprehensible flowcharts.

The wife and I also played two games of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  In the first, I was The Master and managed to trap Buffy in a room with no exit.  Xander, with the help of Wesley, managed to sneak up behind The Master and wound him, but Buffy failed to follow up on that momentum and dust him.  Buffy was soon killed, allowing the Master to squash Sunnydale under his heel and bring forth a reign of darkness and despair.  In the second, the wife played as the Big Bad (in her case, The Judge). Xander found the Judge's Arm, which attracted the attention of Vamp X, who quickly snapped Xander's neck and used the Arm to fully summon The Judge.  It wasn't long until all the Scoobies fell.  Where's a rocket launcher when you need one?

I tried Cthulhu Wars.  Crazy minis! The game itself is fun but maybe a little too short (it ended shortly after the action looked like it was picking up) and a little too simplistic.  I also wonder if it's imbalanced in favour of Cthulhu, as his objectives are very easy to achieve.  (Two of the six simply happen and don't require the player to do anything.)  Still, it's fun and that plastic is a sight to behold.  I'm looking forward to trying it again next week.

I played two five-player games of No Thanks!  This might be my favourite push-your-luck game and I'm strangely succesful at it.  I won both games, the first with -13 and in the second I squeaked out a win with -22.

With the same five, I also played a game of Sushi Go!  It's a simplified reimplementation of 7 Wonders.  I like this take on that system much better: it's smaller, it's faster, it's simpler, it's easier to explain, and it's easier to score.

The wife and I played a game of Mage Knight.  As per usual, we played Full Conquest.  I won 124 to 98.  The wife had a handful of wound cards after conquering a city that hurt her score.  I played as Krang, which is probably my favourite character released so far.  He has some very cool skills that he can earn (Pupper Master rocks).

Huh.  This thread used to be fairly popular.  Now it is nothing but my personal gaming memoirs...

Anyways, since last time I posted...

Pandemic hadn't hit my table for quite a while so I decided to enjoy some back-to-back solo sessions utilizing the Virulent Strain and Mutation variants from the On the Brink expansion.  I managed to win both, which surprised me because usually I let global calamity slip past me.

The wife and I tried World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game.  It's in the same vein as Talisman and Prophecy: move around a heavily abstracted "map," fight enemies, earn items, boost stats.  It's definitely nothing groundbreaking, but it's not bad.  We ended up quitting the game about half way through due to sleepiness, but I'd play again (not too many times, though).

I played in my fourth Twilight Struggle league game, again losing to War Games in the Late War.  Damn you, War Games!  I did make a monumentally stupid play with my very first action by not scoring the Middle East while I had control.  That one brain fart was a 7 point swing (though I guess I can take solace in the fact that my opponent didn't even need those bonus 7 points to trounce me).  I kinda feel like I've hit a wall in my development in this game.  I don't seem to be playing any better or smarter than the first time I played it.  Will someone please tear down this wall?

I got in my second game of Cthulhu Wars, this time I managed the win with the Black Goat faction.  I was able to detect the differential play styles between factions more strongly my second time around.  I'm still wishy-washy regarding how I feel about the quality of the gameplay -- and I wouldn't describe it as a particularly good game, objectively speaking -- but I'd like to play it for at least a third time, so I guess I can say I like it.

I played a couple of Knizia games: Blue Moon City and Ra.  I hadn't played BMC for about 7 years.  It was better than I remembered it.  Or, more accurately, my tastes have evolved since then so that I no longer require a strong narrative in my games.  I still don't regard it as a top-tier Knizia title, but it does make for kind of a fun scrambling race to gain cubes and spend them for VP.  It's the Cannonball Run of strategy games.  Ra is a top-tier Knizia.  Just a fantastic game that's plays quick but presents the players with many tough decisions.

I finally got around to trying the solo war game Field Commander: Alexander.  It's a campaign game in which the player recreates the battles of Alexander the Great.  I made three attempts at the first of four campaigns.  I would describe my attempts as ranging from Alexander the Pretty Good to Alexander the Dud.  Incidentally, I can't remember the last time I unleashed so many f-bombs while sitting by myself at the kitchen table.

I played a couple games of Claustrophobia, switching with my opponent between the demons and the condemned human prisoners.  Condemned human prisoners lost both games due to unfortunately nasty tunnels and an unending swarm of troglodytes.  Very fun game.  Definitely one of my favourite dungeon-crawlers, as well as one of my favourite dice-chuckers.

Next was a 2-player game of Arboretum, a card game about building a garden containing a variety of trees.  Gorgeous artwork on the cards.  I really liked the production.  The gameplay is elegant as well.  It reminded me a bit of a Richard James-esque design (Lords of Scotland, Court of the Medici) in that the rules are incredibly simple but belie the difficult decisions players will constantly be faced with.  I might have to pick myself up a copy.

Next was a 2-player abstract called Pikemen, which I'd never heard of before.  It's roots are in Chess, and I wouldn't say it reaches the dynamic greatness of that classic, but it is certainly an interesting and impressively simple design.  It's also a fairly unforgiving design -- it seemed to be very difficult to make up for a mistake unless your opponent were to generously make one as well.  My opponent was not generous.

I taught a game of Lord of the Rings, which was a nice change of pace because I usually play it solo.  We squeaked out a win after Sam destroyed the One Ring shortly after Frodo succumbed to corruption.

I finally got around to trying Castles of Burgundy.  I have very little experience with Stefan Feld games, with my only previous play being a single session of In the Year of the Dragon.  And it's a fine game.  I can see why it's so popular.  It's not in my personal wheelhouse, but I enjoyed it for what it is: a fairly casual points collector that leans more towards breadth than depth.

Well, even if it is just your memoires, it's a good read. :)

Since last time I posted...

I tried Camel Up! and had fun with it.  It's a race game, but the race is as much about racing to get your bets in as it is the actual race around the track.

I also tried the unfortunately titled Maharaja: The Game of Palace Building in India.   I don't know how much it stands out in the crowded pack of 90-minute Euros (I'd already forgotten that I played it until I looked back at my played games just now) but it's one I'd like to play again to see how much it blossoms with experience.

I also tried Hyperborea but, rather than be a one-off, I've already gotten in four sessions of it.  If I compare it to other resource management Euro games, I quite like it; if I compare it to other dudes-on-a-map games, it maybe falls a bit short.  I don't know if it's one I'll still be playing years for now (few do have that kind of longevity) but it'll keep hitting the table for the near future.

I also got to try Samurai.  Typical Knizia: a brilliant strategy game with an abstracted theme and convoluted scoring.  I really liked this one and would like to try it at all possible player counts.  I think it will scale really well.

I played another game of Sushi Go!.  It continues to be better than 7 Wonders.

Battlestar Galactica hit the table after a few years hiatus. It became a shelf toad after I bought the Pegasus and Exodus expansions because a fairly simple game became convoluted and intimidating. I utilized the Pegasus ship, Cylon Leaders, all of the characters, and the Treachery cards. As I suspected, the additions added complication without adding to the fun, mainly because it's such a pain in the butt trying to reference rules across three rulebooks. I need to print off a good consolidation of all the rules.  Plus, there were 7 of us so the game was at times like herding cats.  As for the session, the Cylons won a close one.  I was a Cylon Leader sympathetic to the Cylons but was unable to share in the toasters' celebrations since I was wanting us to be a wee more genocidal.

That's Life! also hit the table.  It's a very fun push-your-luck game that I think is overlooked (or at least I never see mention of it), probably because it's a) out of print, b) has zero theme, and c) has weird comic art for no reason.

I'm not a fan of Terror in Meeple City / Rampage.  The basic idea of it is better than the awkward execution.

I played two games of Summoner Wars: Alliances, with me and my opponent swapped races (Deep Benders vs Jungle Shadows).  Jungle Shadows won both games, but my win was largely due to my opponent coming down with a bad case of crappy rolls.

I played Jambo for the first time since my initial try about a year and a half ago.  I played the same opponent as then (Matt), though he'd played a few times since then.  I was up 33 to 5 at one point but I didn't have much of an economic engine going.  He caught up and blew past me for the win.

Matt taught me Red7.  I won a best 2-out-of-3.  Cool game.  I like that it's small, cheap and simple, but decisions on how to play your cards are never easy.

The Hobbit Card Game is not a fantastic trick-taking game (that would be Kaiser), but it's not bad.  The theme is actually a nice addition; it's not just pasting some Tolkien characters on the cards.  We played two 3-player games, both won by Smaug.

We played a few games of Deep Sea Adventure , a push-your-luck game from Japan available through the BGG store. Super fun. I loved it. This game generated a lot of laughs.  I need to get myself a copy.

Letters from Whitechapel is my favourite cat-and-mouse game.  It's distilled down to nothing more than what is the best part of this genre: the hunt.  So much tension, especially when playing as Jack the Ripper.  This game actually took over 4 hours (which is waaaaaay longer than it's supposed to run; most sessions should take about 2 hours) but none of us were bored for a second.  Jack lost after his final murder of a wretched after we investigators were able to set up an impassable net, cutting him off from his home.

I tried a game of Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem.  I don't think it's as successful as GF9's other games I've tried (Spartacus and Firefly) but it's still quite good.  I was the Lin Syndicate and absolutely crushed the other scores.  Not sure how I did that, though, so I won't be able to repeat that success.

A few of us played through the first three days of Gumshoe, a British game from the 80s that manages to be part board game, part RPG, yet quite distinct from either. (If you've played Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, this is basically the same thing.)  I LOVED it.  It's at least as good as Consulting Detective but I think I prefer this one.  The writing is great, the San Francisco detective theme is wonderfully implemented, and I like the rules changes, such as having to manage the clock and being able to split up from the other detectives to chase leads.  And add in autopsy reports, crime scene analysis, fingerprint identification... supremely awesome stuff.

Thanks for the Session Reports Ryan. I enjoyed the games played this past weekend and I really enjoy your analysis in these commentaries. You distill your observations quite eloquently.  :thumb-up

Since last time I posted...

The wife and I played a game of Blokus Duo for the first time in about 7 years.  We'd played it over 30 times in the first year or two after I got into this hobby, but my growing collection over the years tended to push this one to the bottom of the pile.  Too bad.  It is a really good, colourful abstract game that's easy enough to play in front of the TV.

We also played a game of Firefly for the first time in a while, using the excellent Blue Sun expansion.  I'm not a fan of the way GF9 parcels out its expansions for some of its games -- the additional ships, in particular, should have been sold as a bunch rather than individually, but their more substantial expansions do have a strong, positive impact on the game.  The wife totally crushed me in the Jail Break scenario.

The wife, the mother-and-law and I tried a few games of Coloretto.   It's a pretty decent filler card game.  Not loads of fun or terribly strategic or anything, but some good risk/reward considerations with the occasional joy of screwing someone with a card they don't want.

I played in a 6-player game of Monopoly at my wife's family cottage.  They have plenty of classic family games in a chest and we opted for the most classic of the classics.  I finished middle of the pack.  I actually don't mind Monopoly, but it can go long, which this session did.

The wife and I tried Dungeonquest, playing the revised rules edition that FFG released fairly recently.  It's a pretty simple push-your-luck game, though I found the paper-rock-scissors style of combat to be weirdly confusing.  Either my brain was misfiring or the rules do an awkward job of explaining it.  My wife wasn't a big fan because she died early.  From what I've heard, that's Dungeonquest.

I managed to play several games at a recent Chewsday Challenge, including Luchador! Mexican Wrestling Dice (a dice-chucker that does not replace King of Tokyo because of less player agency and some finnicky rules; I love throwing dice into a ring complete with ropes, though), a 2-player game of Coloretto (and I thought it played just fine at that count), a 4-player game of Arboretum (and I thought it really openend up with 4, though 2-player makes for an interesting chess match as well) and Yggdrasil (a very challenging co-op about Norse gods that took me a while to grasp due to funky iconography and a beautiful board that does a lousy job of making the game coherent).

The wife and I tried the new Mage Knight expansion, The Shades of Tezla.  She had a headache and so we abandoned the scenario and I re-started it as a solo game so I could try the new character  (I fully believe the Life and Death - Solo scenario is absolutely impossible, btw).  The production quality on this expansion is hugely dissapointing: flimsy cards that don't match the colour from previous releases; a terribly painted miniature that looks nothing like the character art; a crumpled rulebook stuffed in a too-small box; tokens that are cut smaller than the existing tokens they're supposed to be shuffled with; weird colour choices...  Despite these issues, though, there are things to like about the expansion for die-hard fans of the game.  It comes with four new scenarios based on warring factions, with co-op, competitive and solo versions of each; another character to play with is nice, even if he's perhaps not as distinct or as interesting to play as previous characters; the new single use items that are earned by defeating enemies affiliated with the warring factions are super cool.  I'm looking forward to playing all the scenarios, though I'm sure I'll keep grumbling about the production quality under my breath while I do.

Since last time I posted...

I taught a few games to some new attendees at Chewsday Challenge, including No Thanks! (for my money, the best filler card game out there) and Ra (for my money, the best auction game out there).  I think the new players all enjoyed themselves, as did I.

The wife and I took a bag of games to the lake this Labour Day weekend.  We tried the brand-spanking new Star Wars Risk game that was released on Force Friday.  (For some reason, this game doesn't have a BGG entry yet.)  Calling it "Risk" is a bit of a misnomer / marketing tool, though combat does involve rolling up to 5 D6. For those who are familiar with the game Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit, this is a streamlined re-implementation of that, except the new game recreates the climactic scenes of Return of the Jedi instead of The Phantom Menace.  It does have less of a toy factor than it's ancestor and it has also been simplified and abstracted to a greater degree and plays in much less time.  But this is a great game -- probably the best game you'll find at Toys R Us or Walmart -- and is a fine substitute for a game that's long been out of print.  Amazon is apparently going to have an exclusive pimped out version sometime in 2015 (adding plastic miniatures for things like the Millenium Falcon, the Star Destroyer, and the Death Star) but I think the production quality of the one in stores is perfectly serviceable.

We also played a couple of quick card games: Red7 (I prefer the scoring rules in which you accumulate points rather than one-round-and-done games so that there can be some ebb and flow) and Coloretto (which I now think is a pretty good 2-player game).

I tried a couple of brand new games at last night's Chewsday Challenge.  First was Star Trek: Five-Year Mission, a co-op game in which, basically, the players each have five dice in up to three colours which are rolled and then used to match the requirements on cards that need to be contained before they grow into too many.  Beat a card and you're likely closer to victory; fail to beat a card and you're likely closer to failing your five-year mission.  It's not a bad game but I don't know if it stands out that much in a crowded genre.  The game I participated in had 7 players, which is probably more than ideal.  The next few players to your left's turns aren't super interesting since you've still got quite a wait and the landscape of the tableau of cards to be vanquished will be very different by the time it comes back around to you.  You can play as either original series or Next Generation characters, which is cool, but I didn't get much of a Trek feel from the game, which was disappointing.

Next was a 4-player game of Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn.  It comes from Plaid Hat Games, who first hit the scene with Summoner Wars.  Like in that game, players control a character who can summon minions to do battle against other players.  Ashes actually feels kind of similar to that one (despite this designer not being involved in the development of that game), except remove the geographic component and replace it with card combinations and dice for resources.  This is a very, very cool game.  And the rules are surprisingly quite simple, though the iconography and text heavy cards add a lot to the learning curve.  Also like Summoner Wars, this game will be supported with additional characters and other content in the future.  This is one I might have to get for my own shelf.  I think the wife would dig it.

Since last time I posted...

The release of Star Wars Risk had the wife hankering to break out its closest influence, Star Wars: Queen's Gambit.  As always, she played the good guys and I played the bad guys.  I got a narrow victory based on a few swing moments: Darth Maul taking off half of Obi Wan's life points in a single attack, and Anakin twice failing to shut down the droid armies.

I was part of a 3v3 team game on Matt and Greg's epic and thoroughly impressive Heroscape map.  This expansive sucker is sprawled across five 6' X 3' tables, complete with rolling hills, an ice-capped mountain, a swampy jungle, a forest at the foot of castle ruins (1 of 3 castles, I might add), caverns, tunnels, boats to cross the ocean bay, fluctuating warp zones... it truly is a wonderous thing.  There is no better game (or toy) than Heroscape when it's done up like this.  We were only able to get through two rounds (so each player taking 18 actions by their scenario rules) but a lot of damage was done in that time.  Both sides were able to take advantage of "bonding" (which means to get free activations of other units when making your initial action with a particular unit).   Our army in particular was designed to take advantage of this ability and ended up taking out two heavy hitting dragons and a few other key units on our way to victory for this battle.  Some rules changes were suggested for future installments to mitigate that dominating strategy a bit since it made some units overly ineffectual.

I got to try Seasons again after a first go about three years ago.  I liked it more this time around.  I was able to get some good synergy going in my tableau of cards.  The card draft during setup is really the heart of the game; the actual game is basically just a comparison of how well each player selected their cards, with the randomness of the dice thrown in to prevent the game from becoming overly deterministic.

I also enjoyed 4 games of Codenames, a new party game that was accurately described by silent_rob as "the game show Password meets Battleship."  This will surely go down as my favourite new game of 2015, and I usually have no love for party games.  It provides both the clue givers and the clue guessers plenty of opportunities to be clever -- or too clever... I will never listen to Matt again when he tells me to follow my heart -- and it generated a lot of laughs and victory cheers.  It's crazy that this game was designed by the same fella who made Mage Knight, Through the Ages, and other deep strategy games.  Vlaada Chvátil is easily the most eclectic designer of quality games that I know of.

I attended PGX and played the following:

I did well in a game of Fun Farm which is basically a cute version of spoons.  Lots of fun.

I tried the game Sun, Sea & Sand, which I'd never heard of before.  It was a fine worker placement game and its theme of attracting tourists to your resort is implemented fairly well.  I'd like to try it with more than 2 players but I have a feeling I'll never see this game again.

The wife and I took part in an epic game of Merchant of Venus on Matt's pimped out version.  I puttered around for too long in the first half of the game and wasn't able to catch up.  Great game that does a perfect job of balancing contemplative strategy with enjoyably frustrating chaos.

Matt and I played a couple games of Star Wars Risk, taking turns as the Rebel Alliance attempting to destroy the Emperor's fully armed and operational Death Star.  The game does seem to have some quirks that may indicate insufficient playtesting.  It's becoming more apparent that the game is likely imbalanced in favour of the Rebels (which is the consensus opinion online).  There isn't enough incentive for the Rebels to use their actions on Luke Skywalker, and I don't know why the Imperials would do anything but space battles, especially in the first half of the game.  Choices can become so limited in a longer game that turns must sometimes be forfeit because there's no action that can be taken.  I still have fun with it and want to play it, but I admit that may be my nostalgic love for Return of the Jedi rather than the game design.

I will put an abbreviated version up in early October. I have played 27 different games since then with one nickel, Roll for the Galaxy (6 plays) and one dime, Sentinels of the Multiverse (10 Plays). 7 of the games are on the ToonCon (http://tooncon.ca/) schedule, 4 were Wallace games and 2 were Knizia.

In this past week I've found myself pulling out both Descent, 2nd ed and Mansions of Madness for the first time in a while, and wishing I had the time to playing them both more regularly.  Of equal enjoyment was the game of Firefly that I got in, though I wish it has been the first session of the League as had been intended.

I've been itching to play Mansions of Madness recently.  I've actually got the rulebook on my nightstand table right now to refresh my memory.  I bought the Call of the Wild expansion almost 2 years ago and have only tried one of its scenarios. 

Quote from: R Newell on September 22, 2015, 10:48:03 AM
I've been itching to play Mansions of Madness recently.  I've actually got the rulebook on my nightstand table right now to refresh my memory.  I bought the Call of the Wild expansion almost 2 years ago and have only tried one of its scenarios.

I've actually got to play it so little that I haven't felt justified in even buying any of the expansions yet.

On Friday evening, I had my first (and only, so far) game of Portal: The Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game by Valve and Cryptozoic.

I think I'm going to write a more detailed post for the Tramp's blog shortly, but I will say in short that I enjoyed it.  It has the same potential for goofy screw-you-over humour as Munchkin, but unfortunately it has a similar capacity to inspire bitterness in those who take it too seriously.

The humour of the video games is captures quickly in that in order to succeed, one must sacrifice their own test subjects- but don't worry, there's always more.  Cake, however, is a much more valuable commodity than human life.

I would certainly recommend the game to anyone who's a fan of Portal, or who enjoys oddball humour.

Is Portal already out? I really want to grab a copy of that one. Looks like fun.  :D

Quote from: NeikeDjour on September 28, 2015, 10:50:51 AM
Is Portal already out? I really want to grab a copy of that one. Looks like fun.  :D

Here's a link to the review I wrote: https://t.co/q53Z9q2OAX

Since last time I posted...

I played on Matt's and Greg's mammoth Heroscape map three more times.  On two occasions, we continued the campaign 3v3 battle.  My team got smoked badly in both games.  In the one, I was using robot rats and some swamp dudes, neither of which I was able to use effectively at all (I didn't make a single attack!!) and in the other, I was using heavily equipped gorillas whose range was rendered essentially useless by my opponents' ghost knights who were only susceptible to melee attacks.  We made a few tweaks to try and utilize the entire map more fully, and I think we succeeded to an extent.

We also tried a 5-player free-for-all on the typically isolated half of the map, but instead played with Magic: the Gathering - Arena of the Planeswalkers.  About a week earlier, Matt and I tried Planeswalkers in a 2-player duel, just using the terrain that comes with the base set.  It was underwhelming (despite the fact that I shut him out completely =  :neener).  It's mostly just a slightly modified and rebranded Heroscape. The two big differences are: you activate a single squad each round for move and attack rather than splitting your move and attack activations between one or more squads, and the addition of spell cards.  Despite being underwhelmed initially, I saw potential in some of these changes, and playing with more people and on a big pile of elaborate terrain made that potential shine quite brightly.  The two highlights (or lowlights) for me were 1) having my Planeswalker completely defend an 11 dice (!!) attack from a swamp monster dude, only to die badly on the very next attack, and 2) having one of my dudes pushed off the battlements of a castle and then finished off with a ranged attack from above.  Fun stuff.

I also tried (I'm going to be using that phrase a lot) Jaipur.  I really appreciate quick card games, especially ones that give you some opportunity to push your luck.  It's very casual -- not a brain-burner by any means -- but some of the decisions you make do make you stop and ponder what your best play would be.

I also tried (see?) Machi Koro.  I thought it was fine.  It was interesting in that I don't think I've played such a light economic engine game before.  If I had to make comparisons -- and these might be dumb, superficial comparisons -- it reminded me of Settlers of Catan (resources dependent on dice rolls) and Blood Bowl: Team Manager (building a tableau of cards that become borderline unwieldy to keep track of).  I'm not sure if I'd like it more with more than 2 players because that would mean just that much more to try and keep track of.  The art's cool.

I also tried two games of Weykick, a dexterity game whose closest cousins are rod hockey and foosball.  Players move their two wooden figures with magentized bases by gripping magnetized handles below the field and thrashing around like fools.  Or maybe that's not how it's supposed to be played.  I lost both games.

I also tried another dexterity sports game called Affentennis whose closest cousins are... actually, I don't know if there are any other games quite like this one.  Players use a rubber-band propelled shooter to knock the mini plastic tennis ball to the opponent's side of the felt hex map tennis court.  It does a surprisingly great job of simulating the tactics involved in terms of placement during a tennis match.  I don't think I'd have it in me to play more than 1 set at a time, though.  A best of 5 or best of 3 sets must go on for hours.  Also, the tennis players are monkeys wearing shorts and sweat bands.  I feel this is very important.

I also tried Taj Mahal.  In typical Reiner Knizia fashion, the rules are parsimonious and fairly straightforward, but the relatively convoluted scoring give players plenty to consider when weighing their options.  Its closest cousins are probably Condottiere and Maharajah: The Game of Palace Building in India.  Its closest song lyric is "You got to know when to hold 'em; know when to fold 'em."

I also tried La Granja.  *Sigh*  I'm having a hard time resolving how I feel about this one.  On the one hand, I think it's an intricate and thoughtful design that seems incredibly well-balanced. But, I also think it's waaaay more complicated than it needs to be (which may have been especially apparent since I had just wrapped up a lean, mean game of Taj Mahal right before it).  And I cut my teeth on long, complicated games like Twilight Imperium 3.  Kudos to Rob for teaching this game so well.  I would have been referring to the rulebook constantly if I were trying to teach it.

There are a few reasons I think complication hurts La Granja's design.  1) None of the detailed rules are situational.  Therefore, you pretty much need to know every niggly rule right from the very beginning, because it will all apply in round 1, which makes teaching and learning the game much more difficult than most comparable games. 2) The theme and the mechanics aren't that tightly integrated, so my brain isn't making the connections of "ok, it makes sense that doing action X represents thematic element Y."  Instead my brain is trying to keep track of how these nameless, colourless gears within gears within gears will all interact.  3) My brain prefers text to iconography as player aides (I understand icons are a much more economical way to publish a game in multiple languages, but this was overload for me).  4) ... I had two pints of beer before the game started...

I'd like to try La Granja again, and preferably in the near future, and possibly without the beer, because I did start to quite enjoy myself as I became acclimated to it.  My concerns may simply be the concerns of a newb.

Again Ryan, really enjoy your write ups on games. I like the insight and commentary.  :thumb-up :thumb-up

Ryan: have you put any consideration into having your 'What's hitting the table' as a newsletter article?  :D

Quote from: NeikeDjour on October 07, 2015, 11:33:05 AM
Ryan: have you put any consideration into having your 'What's hitting the table' as a newsletter article?  :D

Hmmm...

Newell's Quick Shots

Could do.

Quote from: NeikeDjour on October 07, 2015, 11:33:05 AM
Ryan: have you put any consideration into having your 'What's hitting the table' as a newsletter article?  :D

Smooth, Nicole.  Very good.

Since April 6th, I have played a few games (34 different, 64 total plays):

Sentinels of the Multiverse (10 plays) - I have played every character and almost every villain, and I am still not tired of it. This is always a hit at open game nights, either through work or at the bar.

Roll for the Galaxy (6 plays) - surprise hit, I never tried it until it was on the ToonCon schedule but discovered it was an exciting, and to me, better implementation of the theme.

Love Letter - Batman (4 plays) - filler, but does not stay around too long.

7 Wonders (3 plays) - you can see my lessening excitement with it, I have 37 plays since 2010, it is a good solid game that I can play with some of my friends that are not as excited about heavier stuff.

Codenames (3 plays) - one night at a company board game night, good party game, big hit at ToonCon as it never stayed in the library

Evolution (3 plays) - I like this, easier to grasp than Tyranno Ex, Primordial Soup are more complex and far longer.

Nations: The Dice Game (3 plays) - quick nice filler, a little like it's sire but much faster

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (3 plays) - Saturday night gaming after supper. I will finish the first box but probably not buy the next box set. It is good enough for what it is, but not great.

Camel Up (2 plays) - It is a fun party game with a light "screw your opponents over" but not a game I will need to own

High Frontier (2 plays) - can that be true, only two plays in six months? I love this game but the learning curve for new players is so steep that quite often we play basic game instead.

Leaving Earth (2 plays) - this week, more accessible that High Frontier and more restricted in your options, no hoarding cash to allow you to build really quick, but a good solid game

Pandemic (2 plays) - I only keep this game to play when someone needs to play it. I am over this game.

Steampunk Rally (2 plays) - great fun, up to 8 players, fast to play and fun to play. I could play this more often

Age of Renaissance (1 play) - awesome, Civ (AH) like game, playable in 4-6 hours, lots of player interaction.

Apples to Apples   (1 play) - I honestly don't remember playing this game

Chaos in the Old World   (1 play) - Another great game I can never win, and want to get this to the table.

Formula Motor Racing   (1 play) - Classical Knizia, mathy and a filler

Friday the 13th (1 play) - actually, this is Poison, a Knizia card game that is not great, but good for what it does

El Grande Decennial Edition   (1 play) - smart game, too bad I am not. I enjoy it, but never win. I taught three new players and finished second last...

The Great Heartland Hauling Co. (1 play) - light pickup and deliver with nifty rules for moving goods

Kremlin (1 play) - classic great game, played 1928 version and I won, but it took us 4 hours and I was shocked it was that long, it felt like only an hour or two went by

Moongha Invaders: Mad Scientists and Atomic Monsters Attack the Earth! (1 play) - Fun chaotic madness, I like this, don't play it often enough

Mythotopia (1 play) - More Wallace, took a couple of tries to get it right. I am ready to play it again.

Power Grid (1 play) - lone game I played at FragCon, Wendy crushed us like grapes.

Princes of the Renaissance (1 play) - I have now played this twice, once with 3 and once with 5. It is a rocking good game with 5, far superior to three. When the reprint comes it will be on the ToonCon schedule!

Railways of the World (1 play)  - Europe map, friendlier version of Age of Steam, another "like but don't get to play enough". I may have to quit my job just to game more!

Red7 (1 play) - Lone game I played at ToonCon, 3 rounds and it was over.

Shear Panic (1 play) - Fun looking but trickier than it looks.

Steel Driver (1 play) - Wallace train game, very similar to Wabash Cannonball/Chicago Express, good stock game

A Study in Emerald (1 play) - Wallace meets Lovecraft meets Conan Doyle, how can this game go wrong? It doesn't, it is not a simple game, but it is a good game as there is a lot to think about (you can't get assassinated until you are "known" by scoring VP, team with lowest scoring player is eliminated, meaning 3rd place could win etc.) I am curious about the remake (which I will buy) as it is streamlined and simpler.

Ticket to Ride (1 play) - Still a classic for teaching new people, taught it at a meetup group, they were all happy.

Tigris & Euphrates (1 play) - Knizia game, one of his best, very good tile laying with conflict.

Viticulture (1 play) - Hunh, a WP game I like, everyone that played it at ToonCon raved about it afterwards.

Zombie Dice   (1 play) - filler

Quote from: Jolo on October 16, 2015, 03:19:53 PMA Study in Emerald (1 play) - Wallace meets Lovecraft meets Conan Doyle, how can this game go wrong? It doesn't, it is not a simple game, but it is a good game as there is a lot to think about (you can't get assassinated until you are "known" by scoring VP, team with lowest scoring player is eliminated, meaning 3rd place could win etc.) I am curious about the remake (which I will buy) as it is streamlined and simpler.

I need to own (or at least try) this game, but I think I'm leaning more towards the first edition than the second.  I don't know why but I think I'd prefer it messier and with more crap bolted on.

Quote from: R Newell on October 16, 2015, 03:24:27 PM

Quote from: Jolo on October 16, 2015, 03:19:53 PMA Study in Emerald (1 play) - Wallace meets Lovecraft meets Conan Doyle, how can this game go wrong? It doesn't, it is not a simple game, but it is a good game as there is a lot to think about (you can't get assassinated until you are "known" by scoring VP, team with lowest scoring player is eliminated, meaning 3rd place could win etc.) I am curious about the remake (which I will buy) as it is streamlined and simpler.

I need to own (or at least try) this game, but I think I'm leaning more towards the first edition than the second.  I don't know why but I think I'd prefer it messier and with more crap bolted on.

Try it first, it is an excellent game but make sure you like it first, as the cost of the game is 125+

I taught it to some guys at ToonCon, I think it was Michael Becker and his crew.

Quote from: Jolo on October 16, 2015, 03:26:21 PM

Quote from: R Newell on October 16, 2015, 03:24:27 PM

Quote from: Jolo on October 16, 2015, 03:19:53 PMA Study in Emerald (1 play) - Wallace meets Lovecraft meets Conan Doyle, how can this game go wrong? It doesn't, it is not a simple game, but it is a good game as there is a lot to think about (you can't get assassinated until you are "known" by scoring VP, team with lowest scoring player is eliminated, meaning 3rd place could win etc.) I am curious about the remake (which I will buy) as it is streamlined and simpler.

I need to own (or at least try) this game, but I think I'm leaning more towards the first edition than the second.  I don't know why but I think I'd prefer it messier and with more crap bolted on.

Try it first, it is an excellent game but make sure you like it first, as the cost of the game is 125+

I taught it to some guys at ToonCon, I think it was Michael Becker and his crew.

Chances are I'll have to own it to try it.   :)

Quote from: R Newell on October 16, 2015, 03:27:28 PM

Quote from: Jolo on October 16, 2015, 03:26:21 PM

Quote from: R Newell on October 16, 2015, 03:24:27 PM

Quote from: Jolo on October 16, 2015, 03:19:53 PMA Study in Emerald (1 play) - Wallace meets Lovecraft meets Conan Doyle, how can this game go wrong? It doesn't, it is not a simple game, but it is a good game as there is a lot to think about (you can't get assassinated until you are "known" by scoring VP, team with lowest scoring player is eliminated, meaning 3rd place could win etc.) I am curious about the remake (which I will buy) as it is streamlined and simpler.

I need to own (or at least try) this game, but I think I'm leaning more towards the first edition than the second.  I don't know why but I think I'd prefer it messier and with more crap bolted on.

Try it first, it is an excellent game but make sure you like it first, as the cost of the game is 125+

I taught it to some guys at ToonCon, I think it was Michael Becker and his crew.

Chances are I'll have to own it to try it.   :)

Saskatoon is close...

Since last time I posted...

The wife has had a Firefly itch recently, so we played a few scenarios, The Great Recession and The King of Londinium.  She actually shut me out in the Recession game, $5,900 to $0.  I got revenge in the next session, though.  I tried playing as the villainous bounty hunter Jubal Early in his zippy little pirate ship.  I found it very effective.  Despite some bad luck (Jayne was arrested by the Alliance very shortly after I recruited him, and some of my other crew were eaten by Reavers...), I managed to get a pretty convincing win.  I'm loving the changes to the game introduced by the Blue Sun expansion, especially the greatly increased risk that comes with doing a full burn.  I'd like to get the latest big expansion, Kalidasa, to see what it adds to the experience, but damn is this game ever becoming sprawling and expensive if you dive full in with everything that's been made available!

I tried a couple of team-based light war games at Chewsday Challenge: Memoir '44 with the Overlord expansion and 1775: Rebellion.  Both were a lot of fun.  The former harkens back to playing with a bag of green army men, but now with some easy rules and a map.  The latter reminded me of a game like El Grande but with more entrenched historical flavour.  Both were a lot of fun.

I played a trio of Reiner Knizia titles last night: Ra, Taj Mahal, and I tried Modern Art for the first time.  I've talked about the other two recently, so on to Modern Art.  I imagine that Reiner initially decided to make an art auction game, mulled between a few different auction styles to form the game around, before deciding, "screw it, I'll include every one of them."

"Every one?" asks one of his play testers.

(https://sask.games/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FfTTBLia.gif&hash=5db0b6f33034e1e076b3a86edc16e71e0f94b27e)

And yet, despite the game bouncing around back and forth and all over the place between open auctions, secret auctions, fixed price auctions, once-around auctions... the game somehow manages to remain seamless and simple and engaging.  When this dude was at his prime, no other designer could touch him when it came to parsimonious strategy games.

Since last time I posted... PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD EDITION!  :excited

I started the event involved in one of three simultaneous games of Friedrich, of all things (the fact that 10% of the participants were playing Friedrich is crazy and awesome).  This is a unique game in a couple aspects: 1) it's 3 vs 1 but only has 1 winner and 2) it's a point-to-point war game but the combat (and recruiting) is conducted using traditional card decks.  I played as the Prussians, trying to fend off attackers from all directions.  Unfortunately, I spent too much energy being aggressive on the northern and southern fronts, leaving my flank weak and prime for the taking, which Russia successfully did.  Interestingly, a different nation won in each game.  (Prussia was the only won to be shut out, so I guess I wasn't the only one who had trouble defending on all fronts.)

After that, I partook in a few games of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes.  This is a co-operative tabletop video game (?) in which one player is on a laptop trying to defuse a time bomb by solving a bunch of puzzles (i.e., which wire to cut).  The other players are given the printed instructions on how to solve each of the numerous types of puzzles.  So one player can see the puzzles but doesn't know how to solve them while the other players know how to solve the puzzles but can't see what they look like.  And this is all against the clock.  Lots of frantic instructions and descriptions that lead to laughs or cheers, depending on whether or not we blow up.  Fun game.

Next, I got in a few games of Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game.  This does a great job of capturing the settings of each movie, with a scenario to match up with each of the four movies, though I think the characters could come through more strongly than they do.  We played Alien and Alien: Resurrection.  This game is HARD, as any good co-op should be.  Upper Deck has plans to keep milking this Legendary cow by applying it to other franchises.  I'm most looking forward to the one for Big Trouble in Little China.

Next I taught a six-player game of Dune.  Finally, I got to try my grail game after so many years and it did not disappoint.  Not to say the experience was flawless.  I found it to be a bit awkward to teach, in part because I'd never played it before and in part because I was using an old rule book for a different edition and trying to account for the design changes and in part because my teammates were razzing me by playing Spice Up Your Life by The Spice Girls.  The basic rules are actually pretty simple and intuitive (apart from the fact that everything is COUNTERclockwise  :confused), but the nuanced and substantial differences between how each faction plays makes good strategy difficult to determine.  House Harkonnen (Dana) and the Spacing Guild (Kathy) shared a sudden victory in the second turn.  I would love to play this game on a regular basis with 6 dedicated players because I think it would blossom with experience.  With or without The Spice Girls as the background soundtrack, I've yet to decide.

A few family-friendly fillers made appearances.  I played in five games of No Thanks!, three games of That's Life!, two games of Red7 and one game of Can't Stop.  These easy to absorb games are welcome inclusions in an event as brain burning as this one.

I also enjoyed (yes, enjoyed) a rousing game of Monopoly.  I don't think too many other games generated as much interest from people walking past than this one.  We were asked questions such as "You're playing Monopoly?!" and "Why are you playing Monopoly?!" and, simply, "Seriously?  Monopoly?!"  But, played by the actual rules and not by the "old wives' tales" house-rules that people tend to use (e.g., getting cash for Free Parking), it's actually a pretty decent negotiation game that doesn't really deserve the bad rep it gets from hobbyists.  Are there better games?  Of course there are, but we had as much fun playing this as anything else we played at PWYF (and more fun than several of them, really).  The fact that we played at a break-neck speed also helped.  Our game took about an hour, maybe an hour and a half.  We used my buddy's copy, though, which I hated.  It has a mid-2000s, computer-generated aesthetic that's just... wrong.  That's not how Monopoly Man is supposed to look when he wins $10 for second place in a beauty contest!

I tried The Captain is Dead.  The designers are obviously fans of Space Alert, but I prefer the predecessor.  Both are basically whack-a-mole, but the real-time play and heightened need for communication between players in order to program your actions in Space Alert makes for a more fun and dynamic game.  I did appreciate the character options, though.

Each PWYF, my team has played a few sessions of Letters From Whitechapel, so we made sure to keep up the tradition.  This time we played three sessions (we probably would have only played two, but one was ridiculously short).  This is a favourite of mine that's maybe inched its way into my top three games.  It's a zero-luck game (no card draws or dice) that is full of delicious, wonderful swings of luck (players guessing rightly or wrongly).  No other game generates as much tension for me, especially when playing as the Ripper and silently watching the investigators narrow in on your hidden paths, hoping they don't notice the beads of sweat forming on your forehead.

One of the last games we played (at about hour 23) was Res Publica, a 25-year old Reiner Knizia game that was one of his first ever published.  It's a dud.  Queen Games must have only reprinted it because his name is on the box.  It's really just a slightly modified derivation of Go Fish.  One of my teammates kept falling asleep in the middle of the game.  Granted, he's fallen asleep in the middle of a game once every year at PWYF once we get into hour 22-24, but, after we tallied our scores, his comment was, "well... that was terrible."

All-in-all, I got in over 20 game sessions at this year's PWYF, in part because my epic games (Friedrich and Dune) took about half as long as I was anticipating.  Plus, I played a lot more fillers this time around.

I played 2 different games since i last posted, but 4X-ish.

The one with 2 plays being Tiny Epic Galaxies a game where you roll dice to determine what moves you can make, and how effective you are. There is no combat but there are some ways to have conflict with the other players, but very little is direct. On my vast experience of playing the game twice, always try to have some culture...

The second game is Exodus: Proxima Centauri, which is more of a  true 4X game. It has a similar feel to Eclipse, but is not as complex and the board is all visible. It took us about an hour/player, which is not bad for a first play.

Quote from: R Newell on October 26, 2015, 03:59:06 PMI also enjoyed (yes, enjoyed) a rousing game of Monopoly.  I don't think too many other games generated as much interest from people walking past than this one.  We were asked questions such as "You're playing Monopoly?!" and "Why are you playing Monopoly?!" and, simply, "Seriously?  Monopoly?!"  But, played by the actual rules and not by the "old wives' tales" house-rules that people tend to use (e.g., getting cash for Free Parking), it's actually a pretty decent negotiation game that doesn't really deserve the bad rep it gets from hobbyists.  Are there better games?  Of course there are, but we had as much fun playing this as anything else we played at PWYF (and more fun than several of them, really).  The fact that we played at a break-neck speed also helped.  Our game took about an hour, maybe an hour and a half.  We used my buddy's copy, though, which I hated.  It has a mid-2000s, computer-generated aesthetic that's just... wrong.  That's not how Monopoly Man is supposed to look when he wins $10 for second place in a beauty contest!

The key to successful Monopoly is playing the rules as they are written.  No extra cash thrown in (Free Parking, double money on Go - both bad things), properties that aren't bought by the person that landed on them immediately go to auction (which can be strategic, too, if the other players are short of cash), etc.  90 minutes is about right.

Maybe I'll bring my 50th-anniversary edition of Monopoly from 1985 sometime.  It feels very authentic.  :)  (I have the wooden bookshelf box edition that is sold at Target in the USA too, which I've not managed to play yet.)

Since last time I posted...

Thursday nights at the Rebellion Brewing Co. is cask night, in which they tap a cask on a beer special for that night.  The cask beer I enjoyed while playing Ha! Ha! Moustache was the Simcoe Rye Pale Ale.  But this is about the game, not the beverage.  This fits-in-your-pocket trivia game is simply a collection of cards that, on the front, feature a silhouette of a moustache and, on the back, have five clues as to its matching celebrity (specifically a deceased celebrity with the deck we were using).  The fewer clues read out before someone correctly identifies the moustache's owner, the more points that player is awarded.  I absolutely crushed at this, which is bizarre because I typically stink at trivia games.  But apparently all my trivia knowledge is related to a) celebrities, and b) moustaches.  I had fun playing it but it's actually kind of a crap game in that it would have zero replay value for any of the guessers.

Over nine hours of my Halloween Saturday was spent playing the last Heroscape game of the year on the glorious garage-filling map that had hosted so many great sessions this autumn.  But this 2000-point triple-threat factions session was easily the best.  There was action in almost every nook and cranny (the exceptions being the jungle area and the bay).  There were so many dramatic, hilarious moments that generated loud cheers and sullen groans.  Incredible ebb and flow.  Greg eventually won after I played kingmaker by taking my revenge out on Matt's flagbearer.  "For Spartacus!!" yelled Crixus as he delivered the killing blow.

My wife continues to have a fixation on Firefly.  We played the Any Port in a Storm scenario.  I can't remember anything about it except that I won.  This may be a sign that we've played this too much recently...

I played in a 6-player game of Fief: France 1429, an Academy Games kickstarter that reprints an early 80s conflict/diplomacy game.  I'm going to preface the following comments by saying I had a lot of fun playing it.  That said, I had so much fun because I was with the right group to enjoy a conflict/diplomacy game.  My fun was in spite of this dinosaur of game design.  I've never played any of the previous iterations, but I can't imagine Academy Games did much to bring it more in line with modern gaming tastes.

There are several design quirks that killed it for me:

• the negative event cards (like plagues) that show up at random times and in random locations can have a greater affect on the state of the game than player decisions,
• there is no game clock (i.e., finite number of rounds) so the game can go on indefinitely,
• the niggling rules are full of esoteric terminology that make the game difficult to learn and internalize, so we were constantly looking through reference sheets and the rule book,
• the double-sided reference sheets are overloaded with information, but that's the fault of a busy rules system that's difficult to internalize,
• the voting system is much more awkward than in any other game I've played, to the point that we were trying to come up with a better system to count votes than what the game provides, and
• apart from shared victory conditions, the alliances don't really benefit players, so there's not enough impetus to marry each other's nobles and ladies (which seems like it's supposed to be a major part of the game).

I'd play it again because I did have fun and I'd like to be proven wrong on some of my first impressions but, right now, I'd much rather play A Game of Thrones or Dune or Dominant Species.

I also played two very similar games in the last few days -- Nations and Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization (TtA) -- so I'll compare those a bit.  Nations is obviously heavily influenced by TtA, to the point that I'd say it's derivative of it.  It tries (fairly successfully) to fix some of TtA's more awkward elements: it streamlines most of the processes and contains fewer rules exceptions to remember, it replaces markers to slide on tracks with resource tokens, and it reduces the number of actions players have over the course of the game to make the play time more manageable.  I don't want to say these changes are superficial, because they actually are quite substantial, but I do think Nations doesn't do enough to differentiate itself from its older brother, and so feels a bit like a Johnny-come-lately.  It tries to improve an older design but doesn't bring anything new to the table (and I'd say most of the changes are lateral rather than definite improvements).  I think there are tangible reasons to still prefer TtA, despite its admittedly awkward processes: the civilization theme comes through much stronger in the card tableau you build and, for us combative folk, it's much more geared towards conflict and aggression, but I understand why someone would prefer Nations.  At the end of the day, both great games that I'd be happy to play.

Since last time I posted...

The wife and I have played a few more games of Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization.  I think that's kind of necessary with this title because it's fairly complicated and the layout of the rules is a hot mess, so re-learning and re-teaching it is a chore.  The game is much better and smoother when the rules are solidified in your mind.  I've won handily each time so far, but I'm not sure why that is.  I honestly can't see what I'm doing more efficiently than she is when it comes to how I've built up my economic (cultural) engine. 

One thing I continue to have a hard time with is remembering to adjust the sliders during and after each player turn.  I don't know if I've played another game that involves so much administrative work (well, maybe Twilight Imperium...).

I took part in three games of Bomb Squad at The Artful Dodger, where I enjoy their quirky ambiance and Guinness on tap.  It's a neat little game that pretty much combines Space Alert with Hanabi.  Players work together to operate a bomb-diffusing robot to move, open doors, rescue hostages, and diffuse bombs, all against a real-time clock (the game uses an app).  Each player has a handful of cards that enable these actions, but they're held face out so your fellow players need to provide you with clues as to what cards you're holding (ala Hanabi) before you can assist in programming the bot.  There's nothing really innovative about the game, but the clever fusion of existing game mechanics, the constant countdown to detonation, and the unique theme make it a fun play.  The game comes with multiple scenarios -- I think we were playing one of the easier ones.  We finally won on our third attempt.

The wife and I blew the dust off Agricola after about a five-year hiatus.  Part of the reason it sat on the shelf for so long is that I HATE the rule book.  It makes the game seem so much more complex than it really is.  We punched through two games in about 90 minutes.  I didn't remember the game being so quick, but I always played with more than 2 players before.  We each won once.  She was fairly ho-hum on it so I may decide to find it a new home in the near future.

I was glad to try CO² again.  I think it's a very unique game -- mechanically, aesthetically, thematically, and I'd even say in terms of utilizing game play to express an artistic / political statement.  The designer obviously believes that energy industries need to widen their narrow focus on profits and be more collaborative in terms of developing innovative green technologies.  But you can also tell he's cynical that this will actually happen as the world's reliance on energy inexorably increases.  I think he thinks we're screwed.

As for the session we played, the four of us managed to not pollute the earth (pssh... so much for his cynicism) and ended up with very tight scores, ranging from 46 to 49.  We got a few rules wrong, but we've scheduled another session in a few days, this time with five players, so we'll see how impactful those misplayed rules were.

I took part in the first mission of the recently released T.I.M.E Stories. This is a hard game to describe, in part because pretty much any description of the session would include story spoilers and in part because there really isn't a comparable tabletop game that I can think of... the closest analogues I can think of are Nintendo DS puzzle games like Professor Layton or Phoenix Wright mixed with the movie Groundhog Day and TV show Quantum Leap ("Oh, boy...").  Basically, the game comes with a single story scenario that players will play through, again and again until they get it right in the time allotted.  Some clues you learn become consistent changes in the scenario, though, so it's not like you're just playing the exact thing over and over.  It's incredibly unique and innovative, and full of great characters and loads of style.  Once you've finished a scenario, though, there's really no replayability, but future expansions providing all new scenarios are already in the works.

One critique I have is that it's over-produced.  It has a superfluous board and seems to have more tokens than necessary.  For a game with such low replayability that necessarily puts you on the expansion treadmill, it'd be nice if they made the package smaller and with a lower price tag.

"If I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die historic on the Fury Road!"

Okay, the trashy classic that is Thunder Road was released almost 30 years before the amazing spectacle that is Mad Max: Fury Road, but the quote applies very well to this game.  (Milton Bradley's 1986 release was an obvious love letter to The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome.)  Each player controls three vehicles and a helicopter racing down a highway trough a post-apocalyptic wasteland.  What is the prize for this race... a tanker of gasoline?  An oasis of water?  Avoiding being pasted across the hot asphalt?  Whatever the prize, there is a sense that your survival depends on you leaving your competitors as mangled wrecks far in your rear-view mirror.  To that end, you must ram, shoot, and speed past the other drivers any which way you can.

The game has a neat mechanic in which the arrow-straight highway and surrounding ditch are portrayed on two separate interconnected boards.  Once the first car drives off the lead board, the back one detaches, dumping any stragglers, and is moved to the front to become the new lead board.  The more cars get dumped, the fewer cars left to reach the end of this infinite highway to nowhere.  The last player who still has cars on the board is the winner.

Great fun with many laughs, cheers, and groans of despair.  This is what simple beer and pretzel games should aspire to.

Quote from: R Newell on November 25, 2015, 11:22:41 AM
I took part in the first mission of the recently released T.I.M.E Stories.

<snip>

One critique I have is that it's over-produced.  It has a superfluous board and seems to have more tokens than necessary.  For a game with such low replayability that necessarily puts you on the expansion treadmill, it'd be nice if they made the package smaller and with a lower price tag.

I think part of the deal with the extra tokens for T.I.M.E Stories is that the base box is going to stand in for most (if not all) of the supplies for the upcoming expansions.  I haven't opened my expansion but my understanding is that it's just the card deck and you will use all the other bits from the base game box with them being re-assigned based on the theme of each expansion.  I do agree that the board is far too large for what it tracks, especially since all the chits are still out on the table but someone had a grand idea at some point and the board helps hold down all the bits if you use the insert to "save" your game midway through a time run.  I'm a sucker for stuff like this, a puzzle to solve (or mystery to unravel), tests to pass, overall time travel theme, and a bit of light role playing thrown in. 

Since last time I posted...

The wife and I played two more games of Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization.  The first saw an extinction event within the third age that wiped out all semblance of civilization as we know it.  This event took the form of a cat who thought it would be more fun to swipe the wooden markers off the table and onto the floor.  So that game was a write-off.

The second we managed to finish.  It ended up being a very close one, with me squeaking out a win by an extremely narrow margin (248 to 244).  This was the first game in which she played aggression cards against me.  I thought we had an unspoken agreement that we'd leave each other's civilizations alone.  She opened the floodgates now...

CO² hit the table again, this time with 5 players, and this time correcting the rules that we'd played incorrectly last time.  Those errors we made last time must have made the game easier on us, because this time we polluted the world beyond saving by the 2010s, making us all losers.

We made two more attempts at the scenario that comes with the base game of T.I.M.E Stories.  I think it'll have more legs than I originally thought.  The difficulty definitely ramps up the deeper you get into this scenario, so I can see having to make a few attempts to get through some of the stickier locations.

Due to my brain becoming increasingly infected with Star Wars fever, I brought out Star Wars: Epic Duels to Chewsday Challenge and enjoyed a 5-player free-for-all.  It's a fun, sometimes frantic, and super simple tactical miniatures game.  Definitely beer and pretzels.  Vader ended up being the last one standing after defeating his Emperor.  All too easy.  (But not really.)

The wife, meanwhile, has Firefly fever, so she picked up the new Kalidasa expansion, which adds yet another board.  This sucker is almost Arkham Horror levels of bloatedness now, which is not something I expected when I first bought the game a few years ago.  We played the Patience's War scenario.  We had loads of Reaver attacks and Alliance interference.  I ended up winning a tight one after the wife had a hard time misbehaving through her second goal.

I took part in a 5-player game of Orléans, which I would describe as a cross between Hyperborea (at the micro level) and Terra Mystica (at the macro level).

There are some aspects of the game that especially impressed me: 1) the graphic design is pretty much second to none (right up there with Eclipse), making the game extremely easy to learn and follow; 2) the game plays surprisingly quickly, thanks in large part to the simultaneous planning phase; and 3) it seems very well-balanced in that you could try various strategies and not worry that you're not doing that ONE THING you need to focus on to win.  (I came in second place by focusing almost solely on guildhouses on the map and whatever that book track thing is called.)

There is, however, an aspect that makes my preference lean slightly more towards Hyperborea: it could desperately use an injection of player interaction.   The various tracks and the half-assed area control doesn't herd the players into bumping elbows (or throwing punches) as much as I'd like.  I think Orléans  is the better, tighter design but I find Hyperborea more fun to play.  I'm not sure which end of the spectrum is more important...  They're both great games, so maybe it doesn't matter.

The wife and I also broke out Mage Knight, a game we've strangely neglected this year.  It was a lot of fun.  She outscored me 96 to 83 in a basic Full Conquest game.  I managed to find both cities to be conquered on my side of the map, but she rushed over before I could claim both for myself.  I played as the character from the latest expansion for the first time.   What's his name... the nature dude.  He's very good at healing and movement, but a little weaker when it comes to combat.  Sort of a middling character, really.

Brad and I tried out a couple of our new two player games tonight.  We've been trying to find good two player games for a while since we like to play a lot at home by ourselves.  Our favourite used to be CIA vs KGB, and now I think we have new favourites...

The first was Jaipur, which I thought he was goin to kick my butt in, but I actually won!  Once he gets the hang of it he will crush me every time in sure, so I will brag while I can.  He really enjoyed it and it is definitely one we will be taking with us while travelling. 

The second was a game suggested to us by Matt, Dana, Lori, and Jim.  All creatures big and small was a great two player worker placement game that is a mini version of Agricola and just as strategic!  The first time around we missed the breeding phase in every round and the game didn't make much sense to us.  We thought to ourselves that something didn't seem right, so we re-read the rules and sure enough there was the bit about the breeding phase that we completely missed.  The second time around made much more sense.  It is a great game when you only have two players and not enough time to set up the full Agricola game!  We loved it and will play often I'm sure.

You might want to look into Star Wars: Empire vs Rebellion.  I've never played, but I think it's basically CIA vs KGB, except it takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Star Wars: X-wing

Every since I picked put his game, I have really only played the competitive 1 vs 1 play of the game.  I feel like building 100pt squads and playing in that fashion takes a lot away from the game, always trying to squeeze in one more ship at the sacrifice of filling in any of those upgrade slots.  I had not taken the time to play the scenarios that are included in a lot of the big box expansions, which showcase more thematic play.  But then came a fan made campaign called 'Hero's of the Arturi Cluster' which has rekindled my fasciation with this game.

http://dockingbay416.com/campaign/ (http://dockingbay416.com/campaign/)

In this mission based campaign setting, you play the role of rebel pilots that level up as the game progresses.  As you gain experience, you spend it on things like new skills, outfitting your ship with torpedoes and missiles, modify your fighter with more shields or better engines.  As you progress from a rookie to a hardened veteran of the rebellion, you can access new fighters and unlock even deadlier pilot skills.  Now those empty upgrade slots get filled out and your personalized star fighter feels a little more whole.

But beyond the individual progression, there is a solid cooperative aspect that I find this campaign brings out.  Go into combat with your friends, up to 6 pilots, and take it to the empire.  The campaign can be scaled to accommodate 2 to 6 ships, variants to change the difficulty and additional content is continually being play tested for it.

I give this game 4 exploding death stars out of 5

Kingdom Death Monster

I love this game.  The dark horror survival might turn some people off to this game but I think they would be making a mistake not getting to know this game.  I like all aspects of this game.  I feel like this is the fantasy style version of what xcom is.  The game is played in three stages.  First you take your unsuspecting villagers on a hunt, where they leave the marginal safety of their homes to venture you and bring back food and materials.  As they cautiously progress through the hunt track they encounter random events, opportunities or just rotten luck.  Then, after going through the unknown, you meet up with your prey.  Boss battle ensues, here you get to do a bit of tactical combat against an AI deck driven monster and the hits start coming.  Will you get a couple of lucky rolls and end this beast early or will it start relentlessly tear through your survivors.  The usual kind of onslaught of broken bones, head trauma, being torn limb from limb or even the dreaded decapitation.  You really can't be sure who will come back in one piece or come back at all for that matter, nothing is certain until the beast goes down.  Finally, you head back to your village if your lucky enough, resources and food in tow.  Now you get to do my favourite part of the adventure, building up the village.  Do we create new armour so our next hunts survivors have a fighting chance of all coming back alive or do we improve our living conditions building homes and places to sleep.  Do we develop culture that unlocks new upgrades, new tools, breeding new survivors so that last hunts victims have replacements.. so many choices, all fleshed out with some story background from the game. 

I really like the uncertainty of the survivors, attachment in this game ends with sad emoji  :(  Things will eventually get better as you start to advance in the game but the first few turns can really leave a new player partially discouraged as your survivor (insert awesome name here) gets dragged all over the encounter map by a raging lion only to die and leave you wondering why you wasted your favourite name on that guy/girl.  The story book is a big pit of unknown which is the way it should stay.  Reading ahead and making all the best decision is not the way to play this game, the game actually says what if you can't decide which side to rule in favour of, then choose what is worst for the survivors... awesome  :thumb-up  This 'let the chips fall where they may', 'no takesie backsie', 'make a choice and stick with the outcome' is what more games need. 

I give this game 4 and half returning survivors out of 5  :D

Quote from: R Newell on December 19, 2015, 09:48:02 PM
You might want to look into Star Wars: Empire vs Rebellion.  I've never played, but I think it's basically CIA vs KGB, except it takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Awesome!  Thanks for the tip Ryan!

It has been almost 2 months since I last posted here, so it must be time for an update, 18 different games, a total of 32 plays.

As usual, I start with the game I played the most, Sentinels of the Multiverse leads the pack, with 7 plays in two months and almost 20 this year. There are some that don't care for the game but I still find this the most accessible of the super hero card games, each hero has a distinct play style and the game is easy to pick up and play.

Elder Sign came in as my second most played game with 5 plays, these are the first plays of the year for this Arkham Horror styled co-op. It also means that I have play almost half of my games in the past 2 months as co-ops. I like the small form factor of it and the speed it plays in.

The Great Zimbabwe got two plays in two months. This is a really good game and is easy to learn, easy to teach and can be exceedingly deep. This was the most expensive game I purchased this year and I am glad I  bought it as it hits one of my big likes, that of civ building.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set is maintaining it's one play a month average with 2 plays in the previous two months. We are on the fourth expansion now, but once I play it, I am selling it as I don't think I will want to replay it, much like a RPG.

Quartermaster General is my second new game on the list, and it also got two plays, and it is a weird style it is a "war" game about logistics. This game is pretty fast playing, and is a card game with a board. Combat is really simple, but is not really the heart of the game, the heart is controlling scoring areas on the board on your turn.

Takenoko is simple, pretty and nice fun. I don't know if it is my ideal game, but it is easy to teach to others and is pretty enough to get non gamers to play it. It also had two plays.

The rest of these games are all one play each, at meetups or visiting relations.
7 Wonders always seems to be good for everyone, I taught this to about 6 new peoples and half of them bought their own copy, a light civ building that managed 7 plays for me all year.

Age of Steam is a game I don't play enough of, it is difficult at times to get it to the table, as it is meaner than Steam or RotW, but I still love the tightness and meanness of it. This is easily one of the best track building games on the market.

Cacao is a fairly light tile laying area control game. I don't mind it, and would play it again, I just doubt I would suggest it.

Chaos in the Old World is still a 9 on BGG for me, it includes the meatiness of a area control game with varied victory conditions and direct conflict.  Some people are put off by the theme, but I don't put any truck in that.

Coup is a pretty light deduction bluffing game, played it in the bar once.

DungeonQuest (third edition) will probably never be played at my place again. My wife hated it, the entire game is random from tiles to monsters to combat. I won, because everyone else died from monsters...

London is another Wallace game, a city building game based on rebuilding after the Great Fire of London. It is on the lighter side for Wallace games and I think it holds to the theme pretty strongly.

Scrabble, I know more words than anyone else at the table...

Sorry! Card Revenge is just a variant of Sorry!

Tiny Epic Galaxies is a small footprint area control and influence game. It has a similar feel to Roll for the Galaxy but there is only one type of dice and each planet has a special power.

UNO

Viticulture is easily my favourite worker placement, which is a pretty low bar anyway but I like how the theme is married to the game and how the game flows.

Since last time I posted...

I ran a couple 4-player games of Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island.  Since one or two of the players were new, we played the "introductory" scenario Castaways.  Although this scenario is a little more stream-lined in terms of rules than the other scenarios, it doesn't pull its punches on the players at all.  We lost badly on the first try but ended up successfully surviving long enough to signal the rescue ship on the second, in part because the dice decided to be much friendlier and in part because I added the Dog character (which essentially adds an additional worker piece to be used for certain types of actions).  This continues to be my favourite co-op game: it constantly gives players substantial decisions to make and it has a coherent narrative that is very engaging.

Another game of CO².  We all managed to not pollute the earth beyond repair and, thankfully, the other players also managed to not prevent me from getting victory.  I think this game has been a bit overlooked by the gaming community, which is a shame.  It's well-balanced, has a unique theme and setting and, unlike the vast majority of games, has something important to say.

I was taught the game Qwixx while frequenting my favourite watering hole.  Considering it's a close cousin of Yahtzee, I had a strangely difficult time learning it.   (Though that have been because I was just finishing a pretty strong Belgian Quad at the time...)  Good game to play in a pub, though I'd probably find it boring in a different atmosphere.

The wife and I continued to break out Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization.  I squeaked out another win, with a score of 265 to 260.  The game is very competitive once both players know not just the rules but also the synergy between cards.  We still play a fairly friendly version and play few if any of the aggressive cards against each other.

Two more sessions of T.I.M.E Stories.  If the designer of the game was at our table, Ameya would have thrown his drink in his face at one point.  Matt thought we should try using word association to help remember things between sessions.  I'm curious how many of them he remembers.  (I wrote them down, just in case.)

I won my quarter-final match in the Twilight Struggle league I'm participating in.  My opponent (US) was forced to play the event on the card "Wargames," which subtracts 6 VP from his opponent and automatically ends the game (though it may have been a misinterpretation of the card on our part that he was forced to follow through on that event).  I had enough of a cushion that that gave me the victory.  I think that's the first time I've ever benefited from that card... (previously I'd either lost to it or used it myself for its points value rather than as an event).  It was a very fun game that had major swings, both in terms of score and in terms of domination of regions.  Twilight Struggle continues to be a favourite.  I think I'm getting better at it - or at least more comfortable with it - which only increases my enthusiasm for it.

I also got to try The Grizzled, a fairly simple co-op card game that's essentially a political cartoon about the incredible personal toll and sacrifice that is taken by soldiers in the trenches, as well as the necessary bonds that form among compatriots with whom these horrors are shared.  Heavy stuff for a fairly simple co-op card game.  I think it pulls it off fairly admirably, even though we were playing it more as a light-hearted game.  (I wonder if we'd have taken the same approach to it if it used actual pictures of WWI soldiers rather than scribbly cartoon art.)  I've played better games, sure, but there are few if any that I admire more in terms of artistry, and I'm not just referring to the unique aesthetics.  (Incidentally, the artist - Bernard Verlhac (aka Tignous) - became a "casualty of war" himself, having been killed in the 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris.  He had submitted the illustrations for this game not long before that.)

I can tell it was over Christmas, lots of light games, and an emphasis on party style

Spyfall - 7 plays of this deduction game, it is light fun and easy to pick up, although, with a couple of drinks in you the thinky bit gets harder.

Sentinels of the Multiverse - 3 more plays over Christmas means it almost made it a quarter (25 plays in a year) as I fell short by 3.

2 plays of Innovation made me want to play more Glory to Rome as well, as I prefer it over Innovation, but I still enjoy a game of this.

Carcassonne: The Discovery - one play, and is my wife's preferred Carc game (she won).

1 play of Dominion, it is what it is, with 6 plays since 2011, I see it has lost a lot of sheen.

I finally got my first game of Frostgrave from Osprey Publishing in, it is a skirmish game in the style of Mordheim, except you only play humans, and the only ones that get experience are the wizard and their apprentices. Units are about 6-10, with a hard cap of ten miniatures. Casters get experience for direct kills, casting spells and recovering loot. My caster has no offensive spells so I didn't kill anything, but I did cast 11 spells (half of them Push). I really like this, although the D20 used is very swingy.

Princes of the Renaissance - 1 play, and I still cannot believe how good this game is, if you like games with a ton of interaction and screwage, you should play this game, as almost everything is an auction.

Saboteur - 1 play, it is a pretty light card game with lots of yelling...

Smash Up - 1 play, it is neat, light and ok

Sushi Go! - 1 play, this may be easier to teach than 7 Wonders, but I prefer 7 Wonders

San Juan - 1 play, I still enjoy this as a race game, and I should play it more often.

In the last month or so here's what's been hitting the table:

Codenames - Played with lots of people and needed large group games, this one saw almost double digits with 9 plays

Spyfall - A secret Santa present that went over very well with my gaming group. 5 Plays

Exploding Kittens - Several friends have this one and it get brought out a many gatherings.  4 plays

Red 7 - A great little filler game.  3 plays

Smash Up - Normally I really enjoy this one but played a game with a couple of newer players and one prone to AP and it really fell flat and dragged long.  1 Play

Nations: The Dice Game - my first foray into dice games and I really enjoyed it. - 1 Play

Roll for the Galaxy - After liking Nations (above) I was really looking forward to trying this one and was not disappointed.  I loved this one - 2 plays

Legendary: Marvel - My favorite game hands down.  Mostly due to theme and the fact it has a solo variant. - 4 plays

Overpower - First game played in years of this CCG from the 90's.  So happy to have the chance to break this one out. - 1 play

Since last time I posted...

Another session of T.I.M.E Stories.  We're obviously near the end, but weren't quite able to complete the scenario.  One more try should do it.  Ameya and I held hands for so long that it started off uncomfortable, became comfortable, and then that increased comfort level became uncomfortable again.  We haven't talked since.

I played in a learning game of Blood Rage.  I think it might come out on top of the mountain of bodies that are piling up in a very competitive sub-genre of 90-120 minute dudes-on-a-map bloodbaths, which also includes Kemet, Cyclades, and Cthulhu Wars.  I really liked the 7-Wonders-esque card draw before each round, which allows you to formulate some flexible strategies.  Definitely a winner.  (Speaking of winners: I won.)

I soloed a game of Space Hulk: Death Angel - The Card Game.  (Thanks, FFG, for making sure I knew it was a card game.)  This is probably my favourite solo game because it's so quick to set up and play, but still has some meat on it.  Unfortunately, most of the meat on it came from the body parts of my dismembered squad.  Them Tyranids is tough...

The wife and I played two games of Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization.  The first was a tie.  A TIE!  I scrounged through the rules, flummoxed by the fact that I couldn't find a tie-breaker.  After a Google search, I confirmed that there is none.  Weird.  Game #2 wasn't close at all.  I don't like bragging so won't say who won.  (I did!  I won!  I totally won by so much!)

I played in my fourth game of Kemet.  Hold on there, Blood Rage.  Maybe I spoke too soon about it being the clear best in show.  Both provide very similar no-fuss, no-muss combat, with plenty of ability to differentiate your faction.  I can't choose.

I tried a game of Patchwork, a relatively abstract game about making a patchwork quilt.  It's heritage obviously lies in Blokus Duo, but it goes in some interesting directions, such as competing for / spending resources on the limited Tetris pieces.  I can see this being a very competitive game between experienced players.

Tried a game of A Study in Emerald (second edition).  Game play is fairly straightforward but holy cow is that ever some convoluted scoring.  I really liked the game, though, and hope a second try with the weird scoring now internalized will help me figure out how to play the game well.

Since last time I posted...

The wife has had an itching to play some Arkham Horror recently, so we played a few games of that.  I have 3 big expansions and 3 small expansions, which is really too much to incorporate at one time: the footprint becomes unwieldy, the amount of administration increases with each option you include, and the flavour of each expansion gets diluted in those massive decks of cards.  So we now select one expansion for each play and focus on all of its goodies and just ignore card draws from other expansions (we simply discard them during rather than remove them beforehand). 

In the first game, we utilized Innsmouth Horror.  We allowed too many gates to open, which awoke the Great Old One, Bokrug.  He devoured us quickly since we neglected to weaken him throughout the game by killing his followers.  We used The Lurker at the Threshold in the second.  This was a fairly long and epic game, though perhaps a little light on tension until the end.  We managed to seal three gates in one turn, which allowed us to have the requisite number of elder signs on the board for victory.  We were lucky, though, that a seventh gate didn't open while our three intrepid investigators were traveling through the Other Worlds, or Ghataothoa would have devoured our world without mercy.

We also played back-to-back games of Firefly: The Game, both using the "Down and Out" scenario from the small Esmerelda expansion.  Like Arkham Horror, this game is bloated now with all the expansion material, but in this case it prefer to play it all-in.  The wife creamed me in the first game but I won the second in a very tight race.  This is actually a pretty good scenario for playing shorter sessions, and it's a little more competitive since you are using a small common pool of available jobs rather than each player having an individual hand of jobs to work.

The two of us also played a couple games of Eclipse so I could refresh the rules for a big 6-player game that I'll be running in the near future.  She beat me in a tie-breaker in game one.  I ended up with a much higher score in game two after she became over-aggressive with her number of actions in the final round and had to give up a lot of influence to avoid bankruptcy.  She also underestimated the offensive capabilities of my cruisers (no hulls; all guns and initiative).  I need to find a better storage solution for this one.  My box must have at least 40 zip lock baggies in there.
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Tried another game of A Study in Emerald (second edition), this time with 4 players.  I had a better handle on strategy but didn't manage to improve my score very much.  Maybe I didn't have a better handle on strategy...

I also tried Isle of Skye: From Chieftan to King.  Never heard of it before.  It reminded me of Carcassonne when the rules were first being explained, but once we started playing it reminded me more of something like Alhambra with a Knizia-esque auction phase.  And with Feld-ian "points salad" scoring.  I liked the simple auction phase, especially having to valuate your own tiles that will be up for sale based on what you want to keep and what you think others will be willing to pay.  The tile laying phase, though, is pretty straight-forward and not terribly interesting.  Since you each have your own tableau, you can't really mess with other people.

So this past weekend some good folks in Moose Jaw held another successful GAX event, our weekend-long boardgame/LAN party.  Seventy five people were in attendance, and there were a lot of first timers mixed in with the returning gamers.  There were a few games that kept coming out:

One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a favorite amongst many in the group, and switching around the roles in the base game and the Daybreak expansion helped prevent the game from getting stale.  After ten pm or so the table was replaced with the Cards Against Humanity crowd.  Well, to each his/her own I suppose.

After the LoL tournament was over there was a gamer from Alberta sending players dungeon crawling with his Descent, Journeys in the Dark 2nd edition.  I'm a new fan of that one and I'm glad I got the chance to try it out, even if I died a horrible death by giant spiders.  Twice.

Several kids came by, and so in between Mario Kart and Smash Bros we brought out King of Tokyo, Flick em Up, and Roar-a-saurus, among others.  All were a lot of fun, but I think the kids especially enjoyed playing Ca$h n Guns with the parents, and it kept getting requested.

Moose Jaw's local board game store owner Callum came out to demo a few games.  He showed off the latest edition of Thunderbirds to a very interested crowd, and then finished off the night with some classic Smash Up.

A lot of D & D 5th edition came out, with two to four tables playing through almost all of Friday and Saturday.  There were experienced players, newbies, and even some of the kids keeping the volounteer GMs busy.

I think the most-played game over the weekend had to be Dead of Winter.  My own game group has no interest in playing it, and I have now realized that they are the odd ones out because it was a smash hit.  I'm sure I set the game up for various groups five or six times.  One of my favourite parts of the evening was when a group of players set it up without my help late Saturday evening, but they didn't realize that only ONE betrayal mission card had to be shuffled in, and the game ended in a gong show with four of the five people being betrayers.  They may have woke up the neighbors with that gong show.

There were also a few other games that I got a chance to play myself.  The Resistance, Castles of Burgundy, Roll for the Galaxy, Castles of Mad King Ludwig, and Arkham Horror with four expansions all came out to help turn my brain to mush by Sunday afternoon.  It was worth it though, and I'm looking forward to the next one in August.

Since the last time I posted, I have played an assortment. Here they are, ordered by games played:
Sentinels of the Multiverse - 4 plays, 2 of these were using the latest expansion, but were still solid games. Villains may not add enough for some players, but I was happy with the game.

Drakon (third edition) - 3 plays, another light dungeon crawl style game, a friend of mine loves these, but I am indifferent to the randomness of the game.

Automobile - 2 plays of this meaty Wallace game, and my first plays in 5 years. I should play this more often.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set - 2 plays, as we started the campaign up again, currently on the 4th expansion

Biblios - 1 play at a bar, a good drafting game.

Camel Up - 1 play of this betting game

Chicago Express - 1 play of this Wallace inspired train game, fast playing, great design

Crop Cycle -1 play of this filler I first saw at FragCon last year, not a great game, but it is solid.

London - 1 more play of this great game, fun and pretty accessible

Nautilus Industries - I finally got 1 play in of this Saskatoon designed economic game, lighter than I thought it would be, but still good.

P.I. - 1 play of this light deduction game

Power Grid -   1 play, I don't need to say much, it is Power Grid

Railways of the World - 1 play of the Canada map

Roll for the Galaxy    - 1 play

Small World - 1 play of this now 7 year old game, still a brilliant design

Steam - 1 play of my final Wallace designed game for the month, 6 plays of Wallace in 6 weeks, incredibly high total

Takenoko - 1 play, bamboo farming and pandas?

Tiny Epic Galaxies   - 1 play, light and accessible. I think this and Roll for the galaxy might occupy the same niche, so time to get rid of one.

Viticulture - 1 play of one of the few WP games I will willingly play, great theme, married to a great game.

Since last time I posted...

I took part in three sessions of Codenames, which is far and away my favourite word/party game.  The best moment of the day came in when an exasperated opponent said, "let's just touch fork."  And they did.  And it gave them the win.

I taught Thunder Road  a few times.  This 80s Milton Bradley title, inspired strongly by the Mad Max movies, pairs perfectly with beer and pretzels.  I died historic.  Witness!

I played a game of Rhino Hero, which I'd never heard of before.  It's a combo of Jenga, Uno, and building a house of cards.  It's quite fun, though I prefer my tower-fall-down games to be made with wood.  The noise is important.  Which is why I quite enjoyed a few sessions of Villa Paletti.  When that sucker falls, neighbouring tables look up to see what just happened.  I managed to do pretty well at that one, despite my shaky fingers.

I was in a 4-player game of A Game of Thrones (first edition).  I played as the Lannisters and took Westeros with 5 strongholds in final scoring, winning in a tie-breaker.  I enjoy this game more now than I did when I first played it years ago.  It's aged well, I think.

I took part in a game of Railways of the World .  I stretched my rail line from the Gulf of Mexico to Minnesota.  And took out a lot of bonds to do it.  I ended up in last place, but I have the moral victory of establishing an important shipping line that will benefit America's north-west for generations.  (I take moral victories where I can get them.)

I was taught the game Guildhall, which is a tableau builder with some screwage.  Unfortunately, I think the screwage tends to mostly extend the length of the game, so it's both welcome and unwelcome.  Fun little game, though.  Just maybe a bit too long.

I took part in an epic game of Eclipse.  Six players and almost five hours.  All the fixings, including the freshly released Shadow of the Rift expansion.   This was probably the craziest, most combat-filled, and unpredictable game of Eclipse I've played.  Very fun and competitive.  This really needs to hit the table more often.  I think I still prefer Twilight Imperium 3, but this is much easier to get to the table with the people I most commonly game with.

I tried Risk 2210 A.D..  I'm a big fan of Rob Daviau and Craig Van Ness.  I think they're superb when it comes to making family-friendly games about killing each other with dice.  There were only two of us for this session, which isn't at all ideal for this type of game, so I hope to play it again soon with four or five players.  I ended up crushing my opponent using the brilliant strategy of rolling really high on my dice.  His strategy of rolling really low didn't work nearly as well.

I also got to enjoy a few hilarious sessions of Space Alert.  I just... I want to look out the window so much...

Since last time I posted...

I played a couple solo games of Lord of the Rings, once to refresh myself on the rules, and once to try incorporating the Battlefields expansion.  I lost really badly in both sessions.  The expansion boards are extremely ugly (they're baffling flowcharts when taken out of context) but do change up the game quite a bit.  And they definitely ramp up the difficulty.  It'll take me a while to find the proper balance between focusing on the hobbits and their long journey to Mount Doom and the Fellowship protecting Middle Earth from the incursions of Sauron's minions.

I played another game of A Study in Emerald, this time with three players.  I think the board isn't congested enough in the early part of the game at this player count.  It needs four or five for players to really rub shoulders (and elbow each other in the ribs).

Sometimes I get over-enamoured by long, epic games with lots of theme, so I end up not playing games like For Sale as often as I should.  What a little gem (it reminds me a lot of another little favourite, No Thanks!).  I won both sessions we played because I was teaching a couple of newbies and there is a bit of a learning curve on how to value the cards you're bidding on.  The second game was much closer than the first, though.

I broke out Mansions of Madness for the first time in a long while, using the 'Til Death Do Us Part Print-On-Demand expansion.  I got to play as an investigator, which was a rare treat.  My fellow investigator and I made the mistake of trying to kill all the zombies that the Keeper was sending at us, which cost us too much time.  In the future, I'm just going to try and evade them.  This isn't a combat game, it's a Scooby-Doo-esqe mystery game, but I can't not try and shoot things in the face that are shambling towards me.

My buddy is a huge fan of the entirely unique Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective.  I got him a copy of the old expansion, The Mansions Murders, which adds five more cases to solve and includes a twist on the existing system by adding a three-level mansion as an uber-location for each case.  We solved case #11: The Termination of a Teetotaler with little difficulty, and then went back and solved the secondary mystery (each case typically has more than just the primary case to solve).  Fun stuff, as always.

Another six-player game of Eclipse.  The base game was always a superlative design, but the expansions and promo material really have helped it grow as it's become more of a satisfying balance between being an efficiency engine with combat and  a thematic sandbox.  Which means it now sits precisely in my wheelhouse.  This was the first game in which I saw Alliances being used, and those two players ended up sharing victory.  (A hollow, yellow-bellied victory, but technically still a victory.)

I took part in a very fun tournament of Baseball Highlights: 2045, an early fundraiser for the 2016 Play With Your Food.  Neither my teammate nor I did a very good job of building our decks with any kind of synergy, so we did increasingly poorly as the round-robin went on.  We did not qualify for the semi-finals.  Neat game that does a surprisingly fun job of melding abstractions of both the game of baseball and the business of baseball.  Fans of Blood Bowl: Team Manager would find a lot to like here (and vice versa).

I tried the game Boss Monster: The Dungeon Building Card Game, which I received from my brother for Christmas.  He doesn't know anything about games, but the game's box caught his eye.  Which it should, because the game's box is awesome.  The game itself is pretty decent, too.  It's a very fun theme (playing the bad guy in an old-school side-scroller) and the mechanics are pretty clever.  I'll probably get the expansions since I don't think the base game has enough variety to have a lot of longevity.

I tried Thunder Road with just two players.  The game benefits from the added mayhem of a full complement of players clogging up the road.

Since last time I posted...

More Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization with the wife.  She absolutely crushed me in a game that had a strange lack of new areas to colonize, so population was very low.  I squeaked out a victory in a rematch.  I'm now at the point where the rules are completely and fairly permanently internalized, which is great because this game was previously a bit intimidating to teach.  Now I could teach it in my sleep.

I'm a big fan of one vs. several / hidden movement games (like Fury of Dracula or Letters from Whitechapel), so was quite excited to try Specter Ops.  There were five players for this session, which, at that player count, adds the extra fun of a hidden traitor.  It's a clever game, and definitely fun, but I feel the muddy map and less relatable theme relegate it below the best-in-class titles listed above.

I played in an epic, five-player game of Xia: Legends of a Drift System with pretty much all the fixings.   I'm pretty ambivalent on this one after one play.  I'm impressed by the breadth of this sandbox in space but, in the end, it has the same qualities that made people move on in the 90s from games like classic Risk: it's overly reliant on dice, goes on for more hours than it needs to, and has lots of downtime between turns.  Really, its most interesting qualities are shared by other similar games that I'd probably opt for instead of Xia if given a choice (Merchant of Venus and Firefly being its closest cousins; Mage Knight is a more distant cousin but still has an obvious family resemblance).  I did have fun with Xia, but I think it would be better with fewer players to quicken the pace and shorten the overall play time (I'm guessing three players would be the sweet spot).

I'm not a fan of 7 Wonders.  I once read a comment in a forum comparing it to a knitting circle and I thought that was apt.  7 Wonders: Duel improves on its progenitor by narrowing in on active rather than passive competition.  The additional victory conditions are also welcomed.  Chintzy production, though.  The small building cards are thin and weak while my wonder cards came badly warped.

Bounce-Off is beer pong for kids.  It's a cute novelty that I'd play again but don't need in my games closet.

I struggled through teaching a game of Imperial, which was new to all five players involved.  I say struggled because a) the rulebook is overly vague in places, b) I hadn't internalized the rules beforehand as much as I should have, and c) it's just such a different, intricate design.  I don't mean it's a complex game -- despite what the rulebook would have you believe, player actions are incredibly quick and straight-forward -- but rather it's intricate in how the various elements of the game interact.  It's not at all obvious at the outset what one should do to start laying the foundation for victory.  Between the conflicts (or peaceful movements) unfolding on the map, the importance of taxation to fill the national treasuries, knowing when to trigger investments in a way that will be to your own benefit while also being to the detriment of the other players (and knowing how to cushion yourself so that others can't trigger investments at your own detriment)... there is just so much to consider with each and every action.  A very impressive design that takes the foundation of Diplomacy and builds something quite unique.

Since last time I posted...

Still more Through the Ages: A Story of Civiliazation.  A few close games, one of which ended in a tie.  I suspect this will be my most played game this year.  The fact that it takes us only about two minutes to set up certainly helps.

Mage Knight Board Game finally hit the table in 2016.  We played the full conquest (competitive) scenario using characters from the base game.  I ended up having a pretty dominant session by managing to attain a total of 15 (!) advanced action cards, a few spells, and a few artefacts by the time we were done.  Next time, I think we need to jump into more of the scenarios from the Shades of Tezla expansion.

I taught another game of Taj Mahal.  For the most part, the rules are pretty simple, but there are a few nuances I'll have to remember to emphasize next time I'm teaching it.  I think it is a solid, second-tier Knizia game.

I lost a fairly competitive game of Twilight Struggle in the semi-finals of the 2015 Play With Your Food fundraising league.  It really seemed more competitive than it was, though.  I got lucky with the scoring cards I was dealt in the first two rounds that I was able to play as headlines, which gave me (the US) an early lead.  By mid-war, though, the map was painted in red, especially in the higher scoring regions.  I finally succumbed with the final card played in the final round: Africa scored 6 for my opponent, causing an instant win of 20 points.  I'm very glad I joined the league; I definitely have a deeper understanding of the game than I used to.  Now I just need to get a copy of the Deluxe version...

Following that, we played two games of Summoner Wars.  We swapped races in a Fallen Kingdom versus Mountain Vargath matchup. The Mountain Vargath won both games, bullying the undead with their more powerful attacks.  Each race has such a distinct flavour that comes through very strongly in how the games unfold.

A moderately busy month for me, even including a trip to Cuba. I played 13 games a total of 20 times, they are, as always, in numerical order

Frostgrave - not a board game, but I participated in Tim's Birthday Bash tourney (full writeup can be found here (http://saskminigamer.blogspot.ca/2016/03/quest-for-skull-sword.html)). I really enjoyed this, I used to play Mordheim back in the day, but Frostgrave is an excellent replacement.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set - 3 plays, all losses, I refuse to say more about this at times frustrating but still addictive game.

7 Wonders Duel - 2 plays while we were in Cuba, good game that retains the flavour of the original.

Sentinels of the Multiverse - this game passed Dominion last month as my most played game, I still love it and still play it, often... 2 more plays (making 96 total lifetime)

Sushi Go - 2 plays of this while in Cuba, not a bad game, the draft mechanic works well

BANG!: The Walking Dead - 1 play while waiting for the bus (in Cuba again)

Chaos in the Old World - 1 play (not in Cuba) of this wonderful area control game.

Loot - 1 play in Cuba

Nations: The Dice Game - Brenda and I played this at King Me a couple of weeks ago, I was crushed...

The Resistance: Avalon - 1 play at King Me, it was The Resistance, a game I am indifferent to

Swordfish - 1 play of being a fisherman, it is ok but not spectacular

Wings for the Baron (second edition) - 1 play (another tomorrow) of a game where you play a German aircraft company competing for contracts during the latter half of WWI, a little mean in places but good fun.

Zombie Dice - another Cuba played game

Since last time I posted...

I enjoyed a 5-player game of Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery.  Four of us were newbies and one was a cagey old veteran.  The vet ran away with the score and us newbs all had fairly comparable scores (or at least I'd like to think so since I finished in last place).  Fun game.  Worker placement with a smidge of combat, though could probably use a smidge more.  Strange board, with a lot of wasted space.

I played in three games of No Thanks!.  I continue to adore this one.  The only problem with it is that those plastic chips get so sweaty with everyone clenching them in their fists.  Blech.

I also played in a few games of another gem, For Sale, which I consider to be a very close cousin the the aforementioned game.  I tend to do well in both.  My brain clicks with these simple risk/reward games.

I had never heard of Battle Sheep until it was being set up in front of me, but I thought it was a great game.  I tend to default to the assumption that most abstracts don't work well with more than two players, but this one was quite a brain-burny puzzle since you have to take a few potential manoeuvres by other players into account before it comes back to your turn.

I was on the winning side in a game of Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game.  I thank the dice for that one.  Things could have gone much worse.

I took part in a few games of Codenames, once as a clue-giver and once as a clue-guesser.  It's a fascinating window into how people interpret information.

I won a game of That's Life!, another risk/reward game that I'm strangely good at.

I was taught the game Star Realms and played several games of it with three and four players in various modes (attack the player to your left, 2 vs 2, cooperative).  A deck-builder in which your cards are used almost solely to attack?  In space?!  Yes, please.

Since Ryan reminded me, here is a list from only 3 weeks!

I have played 10 games, a total of 18 times, there are, in number of games played...

Sentinels of the Multiverse - 4 games, which means I have played an even 100 games of this since I first played it at Christmas 2012, call it 30 games/year? It is one of my top ten games, easy to play, easy to teach.

Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) - 3 plays, my first plays in a couple of years, I am currently deciding whether to keep my 1st ed or not, so I want to get some plays in of this.

7 Wonders - 2 plays, at a meetup group for people 45+, Brenda and I taught it to 3 others.

Army of Frogs - 2 plays, lazing away on a Saturday afternoon with Brenda and a friend of ours. Leah won both.

Sushi-Go - 2 plays at the meetup group again, Brenda and I taught it as well.

Bohnanza - 1 play on a Saturday night (I AM a wild party). Easily my favourite of Rosenberg's games, I like how every turn, everyone is involved. I tied in a win.

Elder Sign - 1 play, squeaking out a win on a Saturday afternoon. We played it three player so your turns were pretty fast.

Ships - 1 play of this Wallace game, tough for me to do well at, but a very good game. I didn't do well

Wings for the Baron (second edition) - 1 play, our second of this neat game, the concept of the game may be too war like for many, but it is an economic game, with variable player powers, and action selection.

Xia: Legends of a Drift System - 1 play of a ten point game, it was our first play in 18 months. I finished with 2 points...

Spent the last couple days playing through my collection, was a great idea!

Brought out:

Black Fleet - A new purchase.  Anything with limited sabotage is up my alley, and the theme just makes me love it even more.

Splendor (only sat on the shelf for a year...!) To be honest, I don't remember why I even bought this, maybe a random review I read somewhere.  It's got a nice mechanic, and nice tokens.  Little bit of strategy and a little bit of luck.  Can't go wrong.  This will get a lot of play.  Wish I had brought it out sooner!  The husband wants to play this on a nightly basis, so I consider it a truly good game.

Machi Koro - Picked this one up in anticipation of the tournament at Fan Expo.  I like it; seems kind of like the bastardized lovechild of Catan & Monopoly.  It's fun.  I can't wait to upgrade the cardboard tokens to real coins though.  Yuck, cheap cardboard tokens.


Mammut - I got this in a trade, and it will probably get recycled to spare others from this horrible game unless it is drastically better with 4 players (we played through as a duo, and....no.  Just no.)  Does anybody like this game? Serious question.

Also learned Sushi Go! (which I really like, and is easy to pick up).  Also played through a friend's copies of Stone Age, and Champions of Midgard (which seems like Stone Age with vikings to me) so was a bit repetitive in that sense.  Neither of those two really gets me jazzed up but it did let me unload my unplayed copy of Stone Age without any sadness, so I consider that a win.

Quote from: puggeroni on April 12, 2016, 08:27:51 PM
Machi Koro - Picked this one up in anticipation of the tournament at Fan Expo.  I like it; seems kind of like the bastardized lovechild of Catan & Monopoly.  It's fun.  I can't wait to upgrade the cardboard tokens to real coins though.  Yuck, cheap cardboard tokens.

:thumb-up

My wife and I play a lot of Machi Koro. The two expansions add a lot to the game.

Quote from: Matt Robertson on April 12, 2016, 10:40:10 PM
My wife and I play a lot of Machi Koro. The two expansions add a lot to the game.

Good to know! I just ordered them, along with a swanky playmat, so I'm hoping to get a lot of plays from the game. 


We recently did a run through of Niagara which was pretty simple to learn (I can see it being a great game for kids!!) but not as much fun as I had hoped.  Another play, and we'll see.  Sometimes it takes 2-3 plays to get into it.  If not, it'll go into my trade pile.

We also did a 2nd run of Black Fleet, and while I love it, I found that the revenge aspect to be frustrating with players who like confrontation; it sucks when you're ganged up on by everyone else at the table.  To avoid frustration I might consider making it a house rule that the same player cannot be attacked multiple times in a row (but worry this might handicap the game too much).  Will wait and see.

Mostly Werewolf, MTG, and then AGOT

Since last time I posted...

I played a few games of Star Wars: Epic Duels in celebration of the home release of The Force Awakens.  (I'll look for any excuse to play a Star Wars game.)  It's a fun beer-and-pretzels tactical miniatures game on a map that's small enough that trying to escape death is a fruitless exercise.  Not one of my favourites but I do enjoy breaking it out every once in a while.

I was taught the game VERTI-GO, which falls under the Jenga-style of dexterity games (build an increasingly precarious structure and hope you're not the one who makes it collapse).  This is a unique one, though, in that you're connecting like-coloured plastic cards (much like credit cards) that each have a slot in each corner that the corner of another card can rest inside.  The more cards you play, the bigger this "flower" of cards will blossom.  Knock cards off onto the table?  These get added to your hand of cards that need to be placed.  First player to have an empty hand wins.  Neat game that's perfect for the pub (so long as you have a stable, level table to play it on).

I took part in a 2v2 game of Talon, the new tactical space combat game by GMT Games.  Think Star Trek (big ship) more than Star Wars (dogfighter).  It's a neat production that tries to minimize the use of dials or tokens by having the players write and adjust their ships' stats right on the ship tiles using a dry erase marker.  I thought that sounded gimmicky but it was actually a pretty efficient way to communicate information.  I also got a kick out of the fact that you pimp out the game by throwing some q-tips in the box (to use as erasers).  Neat game that I'd like to explore further; especially the more advanced setups/scenarios.

Played a game of Love Letter.  Love Letter is Love Letter.

Got in a four-player game of Spartacus: A Game of Blood & Treachery.  I still like the game but my enthusiasm for it has dulled a bit over time.  It has a tendency to drag on occasion, especially the arena combats.  I do like how the expansions' additions of the Primus combats, though, enable four players to take part in a battle instead of just two, which reduces downtime.

I'm now 2/3 getting a victory when playing Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game.  One issue I have with the game is that actions that fulfil the secret objectives can sometimes feel a bit contrived.  Like the theme is forced rather than occurring organically.

I took part in a game of Maria, which is a reimplementation of a favourite of mine, Friedrich.  Well, it's more an advancement than a reimplementation, adding a few more layers of both rules and strategic complexity.  Friedrich is definitely the more approachable of the two.  I'm not sure if I really have a preference.  They're both completely brilliant designs.

That was followed by Favor of the Pharaoh, which I had a completely different reaction to.  This design is just a bad idea from the start.  "Let's take Yahtzee and make it more fiddly, take way longer to set up and play, and take up more space on the shelf and on the table!"  Blegh,

I played a game of Nexus Ops.  This is definitely one of the better beer-and-pretzels, dudes-on-a-map games out there.  No fuss, no muss alien combat in which every rule encourages aggression.  I still need to try it with a black light to make the most of the glow-in-the-dark units.

I continue to be impressed with the elegance of Battle Sheep.  More than that, I appreciate an abstract that plays very well with more than two players.  Plus, I won!

And FINALLY I got to play Psycho Raiders, a hex-and-counter war game simulation of a 70s grindhouse horror movie (think The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Last House on the Left, or I Spit on Your Grave).  Four of us took on the roles on the titular Psycho Raiders while three played as the hapless campers being hunted through the countryside on the outskirts of a small town called Crucible.  Here are a few highlights:

- Torch being held by his fellow Psycho Raiders out the side of their black van (complete with a vampire mural) to blast the campers' ditched pick-up truck with his flamethrower until the campers had no choice but to escape into the woods and hide...
- Dawn (one of the campers) screaming outside the Crucible gas station for help until the mechanic came out to give her a ride in his "fixer upper"...
- Fluke (a Psycho Raider) forcing his way into the fixer upper and engaging in an extended fight with the occupants while careening along the road, finally killing the mechanic with a road sign he was carrying...
- Drunky (the town drunk) fruitlessly trying to break into the old store, until finally giving up and hotwiring the sheriff's patrol car instead...
- Randy trying to take off in his damaged pick-up truck but going less than 100 feet before Torch finished off the vehicle with his flamethrower...

And none of these events are my interpretations of abstract actions... all this and quite a bit more narrative emerged directly from the game mechanics and player actions.  Brilliant stuff.  My only issue with the game is that the production is quite cheap, which makes the game harder to play than it should be (a muddy paper map that doesn't distinguish topography nearly well enough, tiny fonts on the tokens, the tokens constantly wanting to slide around on the paper map, etc.).

I have to say that I had way more fun playing Psycho Raiders than I should have. Good times.

In the last 4 weeks I have played 7 games, a total of 14 times. They are, as always, in numerical order. I am maintaining a higher rate of games played this year than last, having played 84 games this year, while at this time last year I was at 61. I assume I will play something at International TableTop Day (https://www.facebook.com/events/257348407942778/) as well this weekend.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set, with 4 plays we are slowly, bringing the 5th expansion to a close, three of these games were losses as we lost to the second last expansion 4 times in a row. This game still chugs along and is ok for a relaxing night with friends.

The Last of the Independents, 3 plays from this area control game. It is light and interesting.

Peloponnes has 3 plays, because I am a sucker for Civ building games I recently purchased this and it's expansions, and the card game. The game plays fast, as we played 2 in less than 2 hours. It has a unique bidding style which makes the planning more difficult.

7 Wonders, 1 play, you should all know this game.

Dominion, 1 play at Amigos as I was teaching it.

The Great Zimbabwe, 1 play when it was the feature game at Amigos.

Sentinels of the Multiverse, 1 play. I still really enjoy this game, and it shows, as this was my 101st play.

Quote from: Jolo on April 28, 2016, 12:08:34 PM
The Great Zimbabwe, 1 play when it was the feature game at Amigos.

Awesome feature game!  Was there more than one game of it on the go?

Quote from: R Newell on April 28, 2016, 12:16:55 PM

Quote from: Jolo on April 28, 2016, 12:08:34 PM
The Great Zimbabwe, 1 play when it was the feature game at Amigos.

Awesome feature game!  Was there more than one game of it on the go?

Nope, I own the only one, I suspect there will be a couple of purchases later in the year when it is republished though.

We seem to be playing a lot of Hanabi recently; I think it's actually made our group better in a lot of ways; people are forced to listen to each other now ;)   Also great for working on your memory skills. 

Also brought out Kill Dr. Lucky again; just waiting for the anniversary edition so I can get my own copy (Game budget you say? What's that?).  Always love this one because of the confrontation between players when someone confronts the doctor.

Have also brought out Carcassonne a few times, and reminded myself why I bought it in the first place.  It's just a nice, simple euro without too many rules.  Going to be teaching this to my 10 year old niece pretty soon.  I think it will be a hit for her.

Going to be bringing out Dominion at the next game night.  Kind of nervous because I love games with expansions and expansions cost money....

In the last 4 weeks I have played 8 games, a total of 21 times. They are, as always, in numerical order. I am maintaining a higher rate of games played this year than last, having played 105 games this year, while at this time last year I was at 71. Some of this increase is due to me now playing C&C: Ancients more often.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set, 9 plays, and we are now solidly into the final expansion. I am not sure what I will do when it is done, sell it or restart with new characters.

Commands & Colors: Ancients, 5 plays, I started teaching it to a couple of friends, so now we play once a week
Sentinels of the Multiverse, only 2 plays and they were both on Monday as a break from Age of Industry

7 Wonders, 1 play, Brenda and I taught this to a meetup group.

Age of Industry, 1 play, sorta Brass, but simpler. I failed to win...

Nations, 1 play, the winner of AoI picked this and the game went three turns due to Imperium Rex being flipped for the event card.

Peloponnes Card Game, 1 play, at Amigos as the feature game.

Viticulture, 1 play at Amigos as the feature game.

Quote from: Jolo on May 25, 2016, 01:52:07 PM

Nations, 1 play, the winner of AoI picked this and the game went three turns due to Imperium Rex being flipped for the event card.

I recently played this for the first time at a friends place, and this exact thing happened. Third turn, game ends next turn. Even the game owner was stunned as he said of all the times he played it, he had not seen that card come out.

This was the first time we played with that card...

We've been playing a lot of Dominion, and Forbidden Island lately.  Trying to work my way through 25 plays of Dominion before we crack open Dominion Seaside.  Not going to be much longer :)

Quote from: Jolo on May 25, 2016, 04:27:00 PM
This was the first time we played with that card...

I have played twice more, and BOTH times that card came out, so I over ruled it and got a new one

Since the 25th, I have played 13 games, a total of 30 times.


I am playing Commands & Colors: Ancients with some friends now on Thursday afternoons as we are all unemployed. so I have 8 plays of this in the last month. I love this game.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set, with 4 plays, is now complete and we are off to:

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set, which we just started this month with 4 plays.

Sentinels of the Multiverse, 3 plays for "ole reliable"

7 Wonders, 2 more plays at a Meetup

Bohnanza, with 2 plays, this has become the "hot game" to close out a night at Amigos.

Nations 2 brutal plays, one with Dynasties and one without

Age of Industry, 1 more play, they let me win to stop my whining.

Food Chain Magnate, 1 play as introductory, but there is so much going on it should be a crime.

Mombasa, 1 play, need to play it some more so I can understand it better.

Small World, 1 play, 5 player, the 10 year old crushed us.

Steampunk Rally, 1 play as the feature game at Amigos

My June plays:

Mr. Jack Pocket - clever and easy to learn
Hive - 5 plays - finally gave this game a try and I quite like it
Battle Line - I'm still figuring this one out
Friday - a clever solo game by Friedeman Friese
Karuba - 2 plays
Dead Drop
Chess
The Ravens of Thri Sahashri - still trying to grok this one - two plays
Happy Salmon
Food Chain Magnate - liked this enough that we bought a copy
The Big Book of Madness - a clever coop game
Akrotiri
Ticket to Ride Map Collection Volume 5 - we played the Pennsylvania side for the first time and I really liked it.
Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries - probably the best TtR for 2
Eggs and Empires
T.I.M.E Stories: A Prophecy of Dragons
The Castles of Burgundy: The Card Game - I've not played the full version but this one is quite good
World's Fair 1893 - clever, easy to teach but with lots of strategy
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective - we failed to identify the killer but we had a blast being wrong :)

And tonight... Scythe.

Jim

After a slight delay, I am back with an assortment of games:

Commands & Colors: Ancients, I am still playing this but they both got jobs (industrious jerks!), so 9 plays since June 28th
Memoir '44, I hosted a C&C day at my place and taught this, which got me 5 plays.
Animals on Board, a pretty light game I played at Amigos one Monday night, some planning but nothing really exciting but 4 plays that one night
Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set, we finished Rise of the Runelords, so one guy picked this up, we have been tied up so only 4 plays in one night
Food Chain Magnate, oh my! 2 plays of this outstanding game, so much so that it is being run at ToonCon (http://www.tooncon.ca/).
Scythe, a good solid game that mixes a ton of options, 2 plays
Simurgh, worker placement game that seems odd, I have not figured out my issue with it, besides it being WP, 2 plays
Angola, too bad this is so long, I would be willing to play this again! 1 play.
Formula D, I taught it one night at my place, 1 play
Pax Porfiriana, great game, another experience game by Eklund,    1 play
Vegas Showdown, 11 years on, and it remains a really good game, currently the most popular game for ToonCon, 1 play

I have not posted in here for awhile, so I thought it was time for an update. I have been playing lots of games ranging from light, social party games to meaty monsters. A great variety pack. I will only touch on some of the highlights here:

Merchant of Venus
This game continues to deliver. (See what I did there). It is always entertaining and I feel justified in all of the time and money I have spent in augmenting this game to make it a showcase game. I was surprised to learn that I have logged 28 plays of this. That is a large number of plays for me to log of any game, let alone a 4+ hour epic. I love it now as much as before and will continue to play the crap out of this. Another great aspect of this game for me is that I can come in first on one game and dead last in another so the game play is not hampered by experienced players beating out inexperienced players. The board state, exploration tokens, and market system make this highly re-playable.

XIA: legends of a Drift System
Another space epic. Another game that take 4+ hours to play. I currently have 13 plays logged of this beast and it is always entertaining and full of laughs. The game draws some critique because of the amount of dice rolled, but to me that only adds to a very colorful narrative. Fun times with lots of glorious moments and epic fails. One of the great highlights for me was playing two simultaneous games, (eight people), with rules that had players switching universes.

The Gallerist & Kanban: Automotive Revolution
I have played CO2 and thought that was a clever design. I recently played The Gallerist and Kanban: Automotive Revolution and I am amazed at the rules density of these heavy games. Even with the deep rules density, these games become intuitive after a round or two of play. I have a ton of respect for a designer who is able to accomplish that kind of clarity of play with so much happening on the game board. Vital Lacerda: you are a master. I think Vlaada Chavtil could take a lesson or two on rules clarity from you.  I am looking forward to exploring these titles deeper and getting some quality time in with Vinhos Deluxe at some point.

Auction Forty-Fives
This is a trick taking card game that is popular in the Maritimes. It is obscure and bizarre but very enjoyable to me. I generally have a strong distate for trick taking games like Tichu and Kaiser. This on the other hand, has a very warm spot in my heart.

Imperial
Did a bit of a deep dive to explore Imperial. Great game that has a very different take on world conflict. As a financier, you need to overcome the desire to get involved in world conflicts when it is not profitable to do so. It is hard to take off the mantle of military general and put on the mantle of a financial power broker.

Onitama
I was very pleasantly surprised by this beautifully crafted abstract game. I really like the card element in that you need to be aware of what you use and how it will be used against you in the future from a card standpoint. This would be an insta-buy for me if Kathy liked abstracts. *sigh*

Compounded
Blew the dust off compounded for a couple of plays. The game can be congenial or nasty depending on the mood of the players (scientists) and whether they will trade with you or even set your experiments on fire. I like that the game takes on a different feel with different play groups.

Valley of the Kings
I quite enjoy this new take on a deck builder. With two expansions released, there is lots of variety and game play combinations. Enjoyable with 2 or 3 players. I have not tried 4 yet.

Targi
This is my current favourite of the 2 player only games. I think the game play is innovative and engaging.

Medina (Second Edition)
I picked this up at the last ComicReaders sidewalk sale and I am glad that I did. It is a beautifully crafted and presented abstract game for 2-4 players that does not feel too abstract. (Meaning that I may be able to get Kathy to play it).

Food Chain Magnate
What can I say? Splotter titles are amazing.

We're playing a lot of Urbania.  It came in one of those board game subscription boxes, so I didn't really know what to expect.  Low BGG rating made me doubtful but we really enjoy it so far.  Maybe another 10-15 (wishful thinking!) plays, it might change, but for now it's one of our favorites.

Also getting in more Dominion, now that I have a couple expansions through math trades. 

August, I last posted in August?

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set, 20 plays, we are working our way through this campaign now and just started the third box

Commands & Colors: Ancients, 7 plays only, both jerks have jobs now, so it is even harder to play now.

Via Nebula, 5 plays, good game, has a bit of a Brass feel to it but is much more accessible.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set, 4 plays, we are playing through this using the special characters from the class decks.

7 Wonders, 2 plays, 46 plays in my life, it is ok, but no longer is as big a draw for me.

Food Chain Magnate, 2 plays, still a really good game, just hard to get to the table.

The Grizzled, 2 plays, interesting co-op

Power Grid: The Card Game, 2 plays, like, yesterday. I prefer Power Grid still as I prefer the route building mechanism as well.

Railways of the World, 2 plays, table size means it is not really portable.

Sentinels of the Multiverse, 2 plays, because we are playing Pathfinder...

Andean Abyss, 1 play, I like COIN games still, just tough to play on a Wednesday night

Chaos in the Old World,  1 play, I still love this game. The theme ties in so well with the game, can be off putting to some

Conquest of Paradise, 1 play, neat Civ building game.

The Last of the Independents, 1 play, run a car company, not great but a good one hour game

Pampas Railroads, 1 play, another Wallace train game

Power Grid, 1 play, still great

Power Grid deluxe: Europe/North America, 1 play, very nice looking, some slight rules changes but still good

Primordial Soup, 1 play, I like this game but have not played it since 2007.

Star Realms, 1 play, neat game, but dunno if I will play it too often.

Thunder Alley, 1 play, a race game I just don't play often enough.