The Big Board-Gaming Catch-All

My local gaming group, Leeds Meeples organised a tabletop day today, they also happen to have it at one of the best pubs in Leeds. Yeah. Anyway got in games of Ticket to Ride Europe, which was really close, only 5 points covered the first 3 places, I came 3rd, having lost out on longest route by 1 train.
Then Munckin with some people who really wanted to play it so I stepped up to teach them ,not quite sure they got it though and it meant I managed to miss out on the game of Citedals that was going on at the same time.
This was followed by Last Night on Earth which came down to the wire before the humans won, although we would have won a lot eariler if the nurse and drifter hadn't have got it on twice, once while in the car on the turn they wer due to drive off!
There was a 7 player game of Bohnanza, which I didn't do too well at but it was my first time and also I don't think the game should be played with tha many players, seemed like the players later in the round, like me were at at a disadvantage due to not getting to plant as much as the cards run out.
Then to round the night off was Cards against Humanity, oh dear lord I feel like a horrible person now

Last night I got Dixit: Journey, The Resistance, Kingdom Builder, and Skyline to the table. It was a good night.

Happy International Tabletop Day! Went to two parties today and had a blast. One was actually for gaming; got in some Love Letter, Munchkin, and Cards Against Disney (Disney Apples to Apples meets Cards Against Humanity with Canadian expansion) while other groups played Samurai Sword, a Doctor Who game, and a bunch of other stuff. Then after an Easter dinner with some friends, Balderdash came out. I won both Balderdash and Munchkin!

Cyranix wrote:

Disney Apples to Apples meets Cards Against Humanity

I must do this.

Demyx wrote:
Cyranix wrote:

Disney Apples to Apples meets Cards Against Humanity

I must do this.

When you pull an A2A prompt, use the CAH responses and vice versa -- it can get weird fast.

Yesterday I played 4-player game of Smallworld with 2 of my sons and one of their girlfriends. The girlfriend, who had never played before, picked it up quickly and seemed to have a good time.

We played a game each of Bohnanza and Android: Netrunner yesterday at home. My kids said they thought Bohnanza was a bit too simple a game, but I'm hoping it grows on them. Netrunner, on the other hand... well, let's just say I'm glad I spent ~45 minutes watching a tutorial video, because otherwise I think we would've gotten lost just setting up the game. All in all, a good day.

Played some High Noon Saloon and Sentinels of the Multiverse last night. Two of our five for Sentinels were newbies, and both picked up copies of the game after our play.

We played a quick game of King of Tokyo and one massive 4 hour marathon of Spartacus. The time was very close to being cut in half but I managed to stop one player from reaching 12 influence with one measly reaction card. Still a great game.

Recap from table top day in Michigan (cross posted in the MI thread; it was also Jon's birthday!)

Jon, John, Mr. and Mrs. Domano, and I were present. Jon cracked open his copy of Risk Legacy and we had a couple fun games of that to start. I spread myself thin through Africa and South America in the first game, but Jon valiantly assaulted my bunkered Middle East headquarters and Mrs Domano swept in for the victory the next turn to sign the board for the first time and establish Kateopolis in Brazil (I put the minor city of Jagburg in South Africa). The following game we changed up factions, and a South American focused strategy allowed me to take the victory, thanks to the fierce Honduran defense force. Henceforth, you shall refer to it as South Jagmerica!

Jon left and we had a four player version of Kingdom Builder. Hotly contested, I beat John by a slim two points on a lucky final card draw (and some heads up playing...I might humbly add).

We also ended up doing a b2g1 with Domano picking up Kingdom Builder, Jon some weird puzzle gem fighter game, and myself getting the disc flick fest Catacombs. Very excited to play that.

I finished a game of Dungeon Command with my son last night. I enjoyed it and I think he enjoyed it up until I killed his Dragon. I still need to work out all of the movement types (shifting, sliding, burrowing, flying, etc.). But I think I have worked out how to use the order cards and when you can use what (the manual really is sh*t when explaining this stuff).

Is the following correct?

Standard actions - have to be done during your turn (creature's activation) and you have to tap the creature to use it.

Minor actions - have to be done during your turn (creature's activation) and you do not tap the creature to use it (can be used whether the creature is tapped or not).

Immediate actions - can be used on your or anyone else's turn - tapping as needed

Had a great game of Mage Knight with my brother (Conquest Blitz). Reread the rules on units and just realized that they ready each round, rather than each turn. Just a small impact

UMOarsman wrote:

Had a great game of Mage Knight with my brother (Conquest Blitz). Reread the rules on units and just realized that they ready each round, rather than each turn. Just a small impact ;-)

Haha, yeah that's pretty big. Units are already just about the best investments you can make in my experience. Their being available right when they're needed most is a huge advantage over adding new cards to your deck that might come up any time.

UMOarsman wrote:

Had a great game of Mage Knight with my brother (Conquest Blitz). Reread the rules on units and just realized that they ready each round, rather than each turn. Just a small impact ;-)

Uh-oh, now I have to go figure out if I've been doing this wrong. Is a turn an entire day or night cycle, or is that a round?

Boudreaux wrote:
UMOarsman wrote:

Had a great game of Mage Knight with my brother (Conquest Blitz). Reread the rules on units and just realized that they ready each round, rather than each turn. Just a small impact ;-)

Uh-oh, now I have to go figure out if I've been doing this wrong. Is a turn an entire day or night cycle, or is that a round?

That would be a round.

carrotpanic wrote:

High/flexible player count games I love: 7 Wonders (2-7 or 8 depending on expansion), The Resistance (5-10), Saboteur (3-10), Citadels (2-7). Those are all easy to learn/teach and will get the backstabbing fun going (except for 7 Wonders).

I would add Incan Gold, Tsuro and For Sale to the "Light, Higher then 5" games that are quite fun as well. I also like Robo Rally and PitchCar for a larger group provided everyone is up for them, as they can get kinda crazy at larger numbers.
I personally enjoy Cosmic Encounters with 7 or 8 as well but that is a very developed taste and I have had a few friends get rather frustrated with large groups and Cosmic. It is also possible to win a game without ever actually having a turn in an 8 player game.

Sooo it is a little late, but at Pax East, I played a few games:

Incan Gold - was used as a light filler for large groups but can be problematic if players are not paying attention as everyone is always making decisions. I do like it as a light up to 8 player game.

Dune - hit the table and was another epic game where the BG and the Freman rode the manatees (Spacing Guild) to a default victory. This one was rather weird as we didn't get a nexus round until the 7th turn.

Race for the Galaxy - got played a couple of times. I feel like I understand the rules and enjoy playing it but do not understand strategy yet. I am going to have to learn the cards better to be able to actually make a plan over just doing what looks best at the time.

Sentinels of the Multiverse - I do like SotM. It is always so different. Picking out all of the different heroes, etc. always keeps it fresh.

X-Wing! - We did a large 200 point 2v2 on Saturday and really enjoyed it all the way through till it was just Boba Fett vs Lando, Luke and a couple A wings. We should have had Boba just fly off to fight again another day over slogging through the last 15 min.

Alien Frontiers - Which I like more then Lords of Waterdeep personally is a great worker placement but can suffer (like any game) when a couple players are being distracted by others. I am also not sure playing with five players is that great. It does better with 2-4 I think.

Love Letter - was the best little game I have played in a while. It has moved up to my fav quick line game. It is also a great little filler while waiting for other games to get started.

Ascension Rise of Vigil - was the last game I got in and it plays quite a bit stronger then the older Ascensions. I enjoy the energy mechanic but dang the cards have gotten stronger. I got one card that lets me kill all of the monsters in the center row for free!?

Tabletop day was pretty busy for our small group. We played:

Zombicide - Just me and the wife. The game never gets old and now that the insanely successful kickstarter for Season 2 is complete, I have some 20-30 new survivors and their zombie versions incoming!
Tsuro - Always a fun starter game
Race for the Galaxy - I never win, but its an entertaining solitaire group game.
Ghost Stories - I think Im done with this one. Its too hard to teach, too hard to play and not much fun in the process
Forbidden Island - Always a fun light coop game, good cleanser after Ghost Stories
Fluxx - This filled time while dinner was still a few minutes off. I still hate this game
Dominion - The classic ended the night. Tons of fun as usual.

Thanks for the advice guys. I have added them to my amazon wishlist and start getting them. I think Tsuro will be the first.

We played Dixit and eveyone really enjoyed it... went through it 3 times... played loose with the rules to extend the game a little too. I'm to the point where I think I need to seek out more cards if there are any. We all know each other so well once everyone knows the details on the cards the game gets a lot harder for the storyteller.

It seems like my mother and my wife prefer games with no long term strategy. They don't like having to think when they are relaxing... I don't understand that very well. lol

MonoCheli wrote:

Alien Frontiers - Which I like more then Lords of Waterdeep personally is a great worker placement but can suffer (like any game) when a couple players are being distracted by others. I am also not sure playing with five players is that great. It does better with 2-4 I think.

Were you playing with the factions too? I don't think we've scaled it up to 5 yet, but it feels like it would get cramped without the factions in play.

MonoCheli wrote:

I got one card that lets me kill all of the monsters in the center row for free!?

I still think that was originally a promo card they promoted to the set proper, as 9 cost cards were promos in the previous block. That said, Demyx and I played a few rounds of this set last weekend and she managed to get Oziah through Runes and the rest of the game was lacking in monsters for him to kill.

Yeah, Ascension is swingy as always. I think on the whole I don't really mind though -- if I want a less random deckbuilder, there's Dominion.

We played some Sentinels this weekend, was a great time. We stomped over Omnitron but then almost got our asses handed to us by Warlord Voss. The "bring all the minions back from the dead" card seems impossibly difficult until you learn how to deal with it. I guess learning to deal with what the villains and environment dish out is the core of Sentinels!

polypusher wrote:

Ghost Stories - I think Im done with this one. Its too hard to teach, too hard to play and not much fun in the process

Try the iPad version. It's much easier to deal with the inevitable new-player mistakes with a few quick games in brief succession.

My birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, and since my family all got together yesterday for Easter, I got a couple of my gifts I scored Catacombs and Friday! Now I have a bunch of sticker work to do. My daughter keeps saying "Won't flicking the discs hurt?" but she is looking forward to playing that one now. Hmm, my birthday, but she makes out too because I play most of the games with her.

UMOarsman wrote:
Boudreaux wrote:
UMOarsman wrote:

Had a great game of Mage Knight with my brother (Conquest Blitz). Reread the rules on units and just realized that they ready each round, rather than each turn. Just a small impact ;-)

Uh-oh, now I have to go figure out if I've been doing this wrong. Is a turn an entire day or night cycle, or is that a round?

That would be a round.

Okay, so using the Solo Conquest game as an example the entire game lasts for three full days - three day cycles, three night cycles. This is a total of six rounds, so any unit acquired in the very first day could be used a total of six times during the entire game, right? Barring any advanced cards or abilities that let you ready an exhausted unit mid-round. This is the way I've been playing. If units were readied at the start of each turn, you'd get far more chances to use them in combat or for their special abilities. As it is, I always find the question of when to use units one of the more difficult parts of Mage Knight strategy. I always seem to really need them when I've already used them that round.

Keithustus wrote:
polypusher wrote:

Ghost Stories - I think Im done with this one. Its too hard to teach, too hard to play and not much fun in the process

Try the iPad version. It's much easier to deal with the inevitable new-player mistakes with a few quick games in brief succession.

Only problem with the iPad version is that it appears there are mistakes in the way the game was implemented. At least two I've found - all players start with both a matching color token and a black token, and using the villager that will reduce ghosts' strength by one will auto-defeat strength 1 ghosts. Unless there has been a revision to the board game rules that I'm unaware of, both of these are incorrect.

Cragmyre wrote:

My birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, and since my family all got together yesterday for Easter, I got a couple of my gifts I scored Catacombs and Friday! Now I have a bunch of sticker work to do. My daughter keeps saying "Won't flicking the discs hurt?" but she is looking forward to playing that one now. Hmm, my birthday, but she makes out too because I play most of the games with her.

Oooohh... catacombs have been on my wish lost for quite some time now. When you have a chance to play it, report back on your experience with it?

There is a board game "Relaxicon" going down this coming weekend in Newark, DE, sponsored by Days of Knights (a popular gaming store in Newark).

Here is the list of games my friend and I are thinking of pooling together:
• Dungeon Command (Heroes, Orcs, & Undead)
• Castle Ravenloft (or one of the others D&D adventure games)
• Android: Netrunner
• X-Wing (with expansions)
• Marvel Legendary

Most of the store's regulars will be staying the weekend, we'll only be showing up for Saturday. Should be fun.

Boudreaux wrote:

all players start with both a matching color token and a black token, and using the villager that will reduce ghosts' strength by one will auto-defeat strength 1 ghosts. Unless there has been a revision to the board game rules that I'm unaware of, both of these are incorrect.

The first one is in the rules, at least as far as I interpret both your claim and the rulebook
The second might actually make the game playable! I realized about 1/3rd of the way in that we were cheating and didnt say anything because we were STILL fighting an enormously uphill battle (and not really in a fun way) The cheat was that we weren't haunting tiles immediately when a ghost hits the last dot on the card. We were haunting after the ghost moves off that, onto the tile. Even with that we were way behind thanks to a combination of really hard ghosts and getting Tokens AND a die locked at the same time on very hard ghosts.

I had the iPad version on AppShopper watch list for a long time, waiting for either a sale or a meaningful update. By the time I took it off the list, I dont think it had even updated beyond 1.0, maybe one hotfix near launch but they clearly weren't supporting the product.

(cross posting from the BioShock: Infinite thread)

Plaid Hat Games are now taking pre-orders on BioShock Infinite: Siege of Columbia with a $25 price-cut if you order direct. They have product page with more details (ie. the rulebook) coming soon.

Cragmyre wrote:

My birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, and since my family all got together yesterday for Easter, I got a couple of my gifts I scored Catacombs and Friday! Now I have a bunch of sticker work to do. My daughter keeps saying "Won't flicking the discs hurt?" but she is looking forward to playing that one now. Hmm, my birthday, but she makes out too because I play most of the games with her.

Fredrik_S wrote:

Oooohh... catacombs have been on my wish lost for quite some time now. When you have a chance to play it, report back on your experience with it?

Soooo good.

Seriously, I love this game. I also like Crokinole, so it's not that big a surprise. There's enough of a skill requirement to show off (if you can) and enough of a "lucky bounce" component to require a huge amount of skill. There's also some excellent razzing opportunities for those times when someone totally misses a shot.

Oh, crag, tell your daughter to push the tokens with her fingers instead of flicking them; it only hurts if you whack the tokens with your nail to get them moving.

polypusher wrote:

The first one is in the rules, at least as far as I interpret both your claim and the rulebook :)

Further research shows this was a change made in the 2nd printing. In the 1st printing rulebook that I have, all you get is one token of your monk's color.

The second might actually make the game playable! I realized about 1/3rd of the way in that we were cheating and didnt say anything because we were STILL fighting an enormously uphill battle (and not really in a fun way) The cheat was that we weren't haunting tiles immediately when a ghost hits the last dot on the card. We were haunting after the ghost moves off that, onto the tile. Even with that we were way behind thanks to a combination of really hard ghosts and getting Tokens AND a die locked at the same time on very hard ghosts.

Pretty sure the second item is still wrong - there's an errata in my copy of the game that specifically states the "weaken ghosts" space will reduce the strength of ghosts BY one, to a minimum of one. It shouldn't auto-defeat one-strength ghosts like it does in the app. But yeah, it would make it easier.

I really like Ghost Stories, and my kids absolutely love it. We've played it easily 40 or 50 times. In all that time, we have won the game exactly....once. I think this is part of why I like it so much - all the pieces are there, but figuring out how to best fight off the ghosts, prevent hauntings, and make it through the deck is always a challenge. We also incorporate the White Moon expansion, which adds a bunch of other stuff to worry about - and a few really nice benefits.

What I find uncanny is how many games we'll see a ridiculous chain of events. One ghost will bring out another ghost, which brings out ANOTHER ghost, and that one will lock our tao tokens or immediately haunt a tile or some other terrible curse. We can go from being in great shape to on the verge of failure in a single turn.