Board Games

[Solecismic]

Originally Posted by Carman Bulldog

Just ordered this as well. Is there any good way to keep track of things? I saw a few homemade scoring tracks on BGG that might be helpful.

What's in the box is decent. The tiles that outline scoring are very helpful, and allow you to keep the rules in the box once you've got them down.

At first, carefully go down the list of how to score a tile when you place a tile. By the end of your first game, that's second nature. The tricky part is the 2x tiles. But if you lock in the idea that they are the same as placing a tile, only you stop going down the list when you start dealing with other tiles, you're good.

I like that it's a good game with 2 and with 3 or 4, but very different. With the 2-player game, you have a lot more scoring opportunities, so you have to deal much more with the ramifications of passing 5-7 red bars in one turn. So tiles like the PR firm become far more valuable whereas in the 4-player game, they're more relevant to specific strategies.

I think this is definitely the best new game I've seen in years, if I haven't said that already.

[tarcone]

Storm The Castle is being shipped. Its coming Fedex. They deliver stuff to our post office. This is stupid. I live about 10 blocks from the post office. Then the post office delivers to me.
Im thinking I will get it by next Wednesday.

Im really looking forward to this one. It is semi-coop. And looks like it will have a lot of replayability. I like the idea of storming a castle. In my KS version I get a DVD of how to play and tactics. This will really help me. Im more of a visual learner. I struggle reading lots of rules and remembering them.

This one is going to be on tap for our Labor Day weekend gaming.

[Thomkal]

I see BoardGameGeek's Game Night! channel on YouTube takes on Sentinels of the Multiverse this week. Given how much its been talked about here, looking forward to seeing how its played:

GameNight! Episode 19 - Sentinels of the Multiverse - YouTube

[tarcone]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

I see BoardGameGeek's Game Night! channel on YouTube takes on Sentinels of the Multiverse this week. Given how much its been talked about here, looking forward to seeing how its played:

GameNight! Episode 19 - Sentinels of the Multiverse - YouTube

If you are interested in it, I will trade you my copy. Or sell it to you. Would prefer a trade though.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by tarcone

If you are interested in it, I will trade you my copy. Or sell it to you. Would prefer a trade though.

About the only board game I own is Talisman don't have a lot of people here to play the more recent stuff, so I was curious about Sentinels due to the theme and apparently good solo potential.

[CleBrownsfan]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

About the only board game I own is Talisman don't have a lot of people here to play the more recent stuff, so I was curious about Sentinels due to the theme and apparently good solo potential.

Sentinels is great for solo play. Probably my most played game I own because it plays so well solo.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Carman Bulldog

Just ordered this as well. Is there any good way to keep track of things? I saw a few homemade scoring tracks on BGG that might be helpful.

The main difficulty there is is in the wording for "every," "every other," etc. I have yet to use the player aids on BGG, but they are there.

[Matthean]

eekamouse's geeklist for GenCon.

This will be one of the better ones to look at.

[Vince, Pt. II]

If anyone was still worried about the quality of the punch outs on the second edition of Suburbia, rest easy. If you look at the punch boards askance, the things fall right out. Going to try to get our first game in tonight, but we have 5 people, so it might not hit the table.

My only complaint with the production value of the game is that almost every single coin is punched off-center, so they look a little goofy. We'll see if it bothers me once I'm playing, but it's sort of annoying.

[Matthean]

I use poker chips. Mine were off center as well.

[tarcone]

Hegemonic is on my radar. But Now Im not sure after watchin that video.
I want to see a game play of Rampage.

[Matthean]

My question on Hedgemonic is that it plays close enough to Eclipse that I wonder if it really separates itself. Also, the designer admits he made the mechanics and then slapped on the space theme, so I'm not really sure how thematic it is going to be. Lost Legends and Sentinels Tactics(Sentinels of the Multiverse via tactical miniatures) have been nice surprises.

[Vince, Pt. II]

I have been intrigued with Hegemonic for a while, mostly because I love Eclipse so much. One of the things that drew me was the political slant. I'm going to have to see more in-depth gameplay before I become less skeptical.

[Vince, Pt. II]

So despite having 5 people, we put Suburbia on the table first. I 'officiated' and watched the other four play, making sure people were paying attention to existing effects and such. Very interesting to watch four very different strategies. The eventual winner rode a deficit spending strategy perfectly, playing nothing but residential tiles and lakes. He easily met his goal (Miser) by staying at -5 income the entire game. A close second was my roommate, who opted for a strong commercial/industrial strategy. Her booming economy enabled her to buy tiles seemingly at will, but on the last turn someone else played a Museum and tied her for number of Grey tiles placed, eliminating her hidden goal. Despite winning two of the public goals, she fell four points shy of the deficit spending Miser. The other two players went for a more balanced approach, one focusing slightly more on industry and the other slightly more on residential. The residential guy was never able to get his economy off the ground and was playing from behind the whole time. His environmentalist hidden goal (fewest industrial properties) was screwed when the deficit spending player never played an industrial tile. The balanced industrial guy was able to rack up a bunch of points with airports, but still finished well shy of the top two. Great game, looking forward to getting in on the action myself next time.

We then played another round of Legendary: Dark City. TL;DR version: the expansion is great, makes the game much more challenging and I think it's easily worth the money.

I really enjoy the give and take of a co-op game with an underlying competitive nature. For those that haven't played it, it's a co-op game. However, at the end of the game, if the heroes win, there is a 'winner:' the person who scored the most points by defeating the hardiest collection of villains throughout the course of the game. This can lead to some interesting strategic decisions as the game is played: do I do what's best for the team, or what is best for my interests? It's actually why we lost last time - two of the players had the option to forestall our defeat, but could get more prestige for their own persons by doing something differently. They both chose the selfish route, and the team eventually lost.

We fought Stryfe tonight and managed a stalemate (went through the entire villain deck before defeating him). We screwed the setup completely, so it wasn't a fully legit game (my roommate completely forgot to shuffle in one of the heroes, and a miscommunication led to the bystanders being left out of the villain deck) - we caught the mistakes early, but there were still a few rounds where things weren't right. Our heroes:

Daredevil: Big on guessing. Most of his cards read "Guess a number. Reveal the top card on your deck. If the card costs that number, ______" with the results usually being draw that card or add some attack power.

Iceman: Consensus was he's pretty weak. He synergizes really well with other Accuracy heroes - he'd be strong with Cyclops. With our setup, he was pretty lame.

Elektra: Meh. She's Versatile, so you can choose each hand whether you want her cards to be worth recruiting points or attack power, but there wasn't anything too terribly exciting about her.

Domino: Quite strong. She's like Elektra with the versatility, but her cards are just...better. Synergizes well with other X-Force heroes.

Jean Grey: Like before, she's big on rescuing bystanders. She has great synergy with...

Professor X: He seems to be one of the stronger heroes. He's got a wide array of powers. His ultimate card is pretty crazy - you get to recruit the villains you defeat into your deck and they keep their own attack power.

Stryfe as a Mastermind is...tough. He starts out with only 7 attack power, but each Master Strike increases his toughness by 1. We were sort of screwed in that we got three master strikes in the first 15 or so cards, and he quickly outpaced our little decks. By the time we got strong enough to defeat him, there was very little time left, and we only managed to beat him two of the four necessary times.

Still a lot of fun to play.

[SirFozzie]

Originally Posted by tarcone

If you are interested in it, I will trade you my copy. Or sell it to you. Would prefer a trade though.

If you're still looking for a selling partner, I'm interested.. Don't have much to trade, unfortunately.

Picked up the following board/card games at GenCon (along with some RpG stuff and a near fainting spell due to some Foz-Stupidity I'd rather not go into at this time)

Heroes of Metro City : Looks to be a "Build your superhero with various powers and try to become powerful enough to defeat your arch enemy before others can defeat theirs" game

Impact City Roller Derby: Yes, a roller derby board game by the folks behind Impact Miniatures. Looks interesting, and it was a bizarre enough hook that I failed my saving throw to resist)

ScrumBall: A combination of Blood Bowl and Wiz War as competing grand wizards send a team of creatures into the arena to try to grab a ball and take it to their portal to score.

[Autumn]

Our friends picked up Forbidden Desert and though I've only sat in on part of a game, the kids have been playing it constantly and loving it. In my brief time I was impressed, I think I will enjoy it more than Forbidden Island. It has a bit more of a Pandemic feel to it somehow and the cooperative aspects are fun, having to maintain each other's water.

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

If you're still looking for a selling partner, I'm interested.. Don't have much to trade, unfortunately.

Picked up the following board/card games at GenCon (along with some RpG stuff and a near fainting spell due to some Foz-Stupidity I'd rather not go into at this time)

Heroes of Metro City : Looks to be a "Build your superhero with various powers and try to become powerful enough to defeat your arch enemy before others can defeat theirs" game

Impact City Roller Derby: Yes, a roller derby board game by the folks behind Impact Miniatures. Looks interesting, and it was a bizarre enough hook that I failed my saving throw to resist)

ScrumBall: A combination of Blood Bowl and Wiz War as competing grand wizards send a team of creatures into the arena to try to grab a ball and take it to their portal to score.

THREE for THREE in my opinion. Darn I'm interested in what you think of each of those. I nearly Kickstarted Impact CIty and I love me some super hero action, so I'm closely watching Heroes and am awaiting a broad release.

As for Scrumbrawl, a fantasy sports game, right up my alley. I signed up for a test session at last year's gen con, but the designer, who was to run the game was a no show.

So we'll need a follow up post, with details man, details!

[Danny]

I have a copy of the original edition of scrumbrawl. The game is fun, but super super random. As long as you play it light heartedly it is a lot of fun.

[Matthean]

Game Night.

Played Cranium. I've come to the conclusion that the only trivia game I will play is one of the Wits and Wagers games. Some of the questions were on the sane side but others were you had to guess what somebody was drawing while blind were essentially impossible to guess. Add in a roll and move mechanic and it was not a pleasant experience at all. Another person wasn't fond of it either so we slugged through it and moved on.

Next we played Lords of Waterdeep. I was cruising to a nice sized lead, but the one player was the house lord so they were going to get a bunch of points at the end. I had everything calculated out towards the end to try and make sure I had a big enough lead when the one person who has little issue screwing people and them helping point out how to screw other people over became a wet blanket for the night.

The third player plays a mandatory quest on the other person. By all accounts her turn is done when the one player points out how I have a number of high point quests just sitting there, so the third player switches the mandatory quest to me. I shake me head and I say I should protest. The other player then goes, "Well, here's another mandatory quest so you are getting one anyway." Now I got two of them. The third player goes and plays a 20 point quest on her turn and the other player has an "Oops" type moment. During the final round, I burn off the two mandatory quest and have myself set up to get a 25 point quest played when I realize I can't get the cleric and one gold using my final worker. I ended up losing by like 9. I was...not happy. Even the third player makes a comment how it was just a game, and I divert it by saying I was mad because I had everything planned out only to realize I was wrong, and I couldn't pull off what I wanted to which technically was true.

This lead up to Survive. The other player continued on her ways and rubbed the third player the wrong way although the other player won the game. Needless to say blood was in the water by the second game of Survive. The other player ended up in last in that one. There was a definite, "So this is what it is like when people go after me" moment. I still have yet to win a game of Survive, but I at least didn't finish last which I had done in all but 1-2 games.

[mauchow]

Strategy Board Games for sale at Amazon, Gold Box Deal of the Day...

Might be a few good ones for people out there...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/goldbox/ref=cs_top_nav_gb27

[Arles]

Nice deal on Summoner Wars

[Matthean]

Looking good.

[Danny]

Yeah battlelore jumped near the top of my list

[Vince, Pt. II]

Originally Posted by mauchow

Strategy Board Games for sale at Amazon, Gold Box Deal of the Day...

Might be a few good ones for people out there...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/goldbox/ref=cs_top_nav_gb27

Damn it. I had just told myself I was done buying board games until 2014. So much for that plan.

[Danny]

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II

Damn it. I had just told myself I was done buying board games until 2014. So much for that plan.

I am officially not buying anything until Christmas, thankfully I already own 12 of those titles and the others I have no interest in

[Vince, Pt. II]

I've heard too many good things about Summoner Wars, and Castles of Burgundy is cheap enough at that price that it's a go for it. Since I was already buying, I picked up Formula D too - both my roommates race cars, so it'll be an interesting game to take a look at.

[tarcone]

The Resistance is something Im interested in getting. The others not so much.
But then i heard The Resistance/Avalon is better. But like Danny, Im trying to stop buying until Christmas as well.

[Danny]

If you do not own either, I would just get Avalon. I wouldn't say specifically it is better, but you can play base resistance with Avalon. I own both because I got the original edition first, but Avalon adds enough for me to have got that as well

[Danny]

My Christmas gift budget is $200, so right now I am looking at something like this (would have to remove one game most likely to meet budget.

Civilization- wisdom and warfare
Lords of waterdeep scoundrels of scullport
Rampage
Battle lore
Eldritch horror
Downfall of Pompeii
Lotr confrontation

[Danny]

Its tough though, so many cool new games I am seeing from gencon.

[tarcone]

Tomorrow is the next purchase for me. This one looks like a lot of fun and right up my groups alley.

And I agree about so many cool games coming out. Hard to keep away.

[Matthean]

I went to the local game store to pick up a comic and hung around to play four games of Boss Monster. I have low expectations of a small box filler type of game, but it is rather good actually. It definitely falls into the area of a 7+. If I gamed more with my friends from high school, this is something we would easily play as a 30 minute filler.

[Danny]

For those going to look it up, Its Boss Monster

[Matthean]

Heh. I did a search of BGG for it, and due to Master being in the full title it still came up and thus I got confused.

[Danny]

Ah lol.

Some good looking stuff from gencon. I think battlelore is the biggest must have with eldritch horror and firefly next depending on initial reviews. I may have to bump rampage from my buy list if eldritch and firefly are winners

[SirFozzie]

My thoughts on Heroes of Metro City:

Game's for 2-4 players:

It's a bit wonky to set up, as there are many sets of powers and energies, some of which will not be used in each game (you randomly choose types of energy and powers that will be used in the game, and only those stacks of powers are used in the game)

After you determine the types of energies, and powers that will be in the game, you go around selecting a small amount of powers/energies to shuffle into your base deck (each successive person gets one additional plot point in their selection).

One cool thing is that each player names their hero (this is because for certain types of energy, you get a bonus if your hero's name satisfies a condition on the energy card, for example, for Technological Marvel, the mid range Science energy, if your character has the name of a metal in his hero name, when you activate a power using that energy, you draw an extra card.)

You improve your character by using plot points, earned by defeating foes and "Storyline" cards such as "Origin Story'. (these are from the powers that you randomly drew at the beginining of the game.

You have four energy slots on your character board that power your abilities.. you start off with only Sparks of Energy (which only provide 1 power, but can stack in each turn) and you can spend plot points to get more powerful energy sources. You use these energy sources to fuel your powers (attacks, abilities and the like) against the bad guys.

There are three types of foes, minions (easy to defeat), Villains (named villains, such as the multi-armed Hitt Squad), and ArchVillains. You need to defeat the Arch Villain to win the game. On each person's turn there will generally be one of each on the board, and any villains that are not beaten on your turn will attempt to destroy part of Metro City (there's a chance the police will delay the destruction each turn, but it's not high and gets tougher the more powerful the villain is).

If not defeated or delayed), at the end The bad guys destroy one or more cards on the board (energies, storyline and powers). If they manage to get to the point that they CAN'T destroy something on the board (for example, a villain whose city destruction power says "Destroy one ranged or melee power on the board"... if there's no ranged or melee powers left on the board, the game is over, and the villains have won).

At the end of your turn, any cards left in your hand (and any cards you played, except the slotted energy cards), go into your discard pile (you cycle through fairly quickly, especially if you use card draw powers)

In the first pick up game, we had three heroes, and we used the base setup that they recommend in the instructions. The villains won, as we just didn't get the powers to defeat the minions in time to keep up with the arms race (it didn't help that all of the villains and the arch villain targeted power cards)

The second game, featuring all Science abilities (thereby setting up a cycling mechanic, as the energy abilities and the powers we randomly drew increased card draw) turned into a victory for my hero (the Steel Soldier)

So, it's rather a pain in setting up, ESPECIALLY the first time (you have to seperate all the powers and aoll the energy types), but it's a fun beer and pretzely 1-2 hour game per.

The other two games will have to wait till I get home and the box arrives, as I don't have enough room in my luggage, so they're getting shipped home via UPS

[Danny]

Hmmm, some initial reports I read about firefly are pretty negative

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Danny

Hmmm, some initial reports I read about firefly are pretty negative

I think it is a classic case of people being excited merely due to the IP. I don't have high hopes that it ends up being a standout game.

I'm hoping there's a number of post GenCon reports that adds to the list of things that look exciting to me because right now there isn't much. Do note I want a small collection, and I'll likely settle down to getting maybe a game or two game for the year so I'm going to be incredibly picky on what interest me.

[Fidatelo]

Looks like Legendary is going to expand outside of the Marvel universe and into... Aliens? Definitely not my cup of tea, and the odds of me getting that expansion are quite low. At least its a bit original and not another Zombie or Cthulu game (I'm looking at you, Smash Up).

[bob]

Shoot, meant to pick up Resistance and forgot all about it. Oh well - i'm sure it will go onsale again before my kids are old enough to play (currently 6, 3, and almost 1 ).

[Danny]

Originally Posted by Matthean

I think it is a classic case of people being excited merely due to the IP. I don't have high hopes that it ends up being a standout game.

I'm hoping there's a number of post GenCon reports that adds to the list of things that look exciting to me because right now there isn't much. Do note I want a small collection, and I'll likely settle down to getting maybe a game or two game for the year so I'm going to be incredibly picky on what interest me.

That's a factor for sure. I general after seeing some more play I think I can probably cross it off my list as I have xia kickstarted and that seems much not dynamic and interesting game play wise.

I don't remember, but are you more or a euro gamer? If so then Essen reports would be a bigger deal for you.

How lean do you keep your collection? I keep mine around 300 or so but in general go by what fits on my shelves so I can likely fit in about 215 after I just sold a bunch and did some rearranging. I have several kickstarters I am waiting for though so that might take up the room I hVe.

[Danny]

Three little pigs looks like a winner in the King of Tokyo mold. At a low price point I think I may have to find room for it.

[tarcone]

I would like a review of Xia. This looks like an interesting game. It looks like a game I would enjoy.

[Danny]

Keep in mind that Xia isnt due out for quite a while, so dont expect any more reviews anytime soon.

[tarcone]

Yeah. I missed it on KS. And realize it may be 6 months. But would value your review. So I was getting a request in early.

[Danny]

Ah ok . I think its actually expected in March and with the usual kickstarter delay I would say probably April or May unfortunately.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Danny

I don't remember, but are you more or a euro gamer? If so then Essen reports would be a bigger deal for you.

How lean do you keep your collection? I keep mine around 300 or so but in general go by what fits on my shelves so I can likely fit in about 215 after I just sold a bunch and did some rearranging. I have several kickstarters I am waiting for though so that might take up the room I hVe.

I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm more of a American style background with a decent interest in the euro side, but I think I'm kind of tapped on euros for now. My current collection is just under 50 base games, and I don't see much need to go beyond 50. Based on the rotation of my games, I could easily trim down and not miss much of anything. I would just rather have a smaller collection that has games played 10+ times versus some huge collection where games get played only a couple of times. My collection currently fits in my closet. Someday I might get shelving since my have such a huge bedroom to store them in.

For another Battlelore video, go to just before 48 minutes.

boardgamegeektv - Gen Con 2013 Live Coverage

[ColtCrazy]

Got a wild hair and drove up to GenCon today. Came away 160 poorer, but got some good stuff.

Snagged a $30 copy of Field Commander Napoleon that was unpunched but had a damaged box.

Got a Buy 2 Get One Free at Columbia Games and got Richard III, Hammer of the Scots, and Julius Caesar.

My impulse buy was Panzer General: Allied Assault for $15. Looks light, but worth a chance at that price.

[Matthean]

Wargame talk reminded me of this. This would be of second tier interest by be.

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

My thoughts on Heroes of Metro City:

...

The other two games will have to wait till I get home and the box arrives, as I don't have enough room in my luggage, so they're getting shipped home via UPS

Cool Fozzie. That sounds interesting. Definitely worth some more research on my part.

Oh and I look forward to the other stuff as well.