What game is hitting your table?

[Bix Conners]

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.

[R Newell]

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...

[Kage]

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.

[Bix Conners]

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) 

[Kage]

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) 

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.

[Kage]

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.

[Colin Dearborn]

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.

[Bix Conners]

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!!!!

[Bryce Robinson]

 if Russia cant have the world no one will.

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!!!!

[Tempest]

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.