The Big Board-Gaming Catch-All

LockAndLoad wrote:
@Crispy: Count on a Twilight Imperium game on this year's IGWJD. That's happening with both expansions (new one is coming out) and as many people as we can get to play.

I've been dying to play Twilight Imperium, haven't yet though! Not sure how casual pick up & play friendly it is though. Or when I can get a day to actually play.

It's not very casual pick up & play friendly, unfortunately. It's one of those games where it's very nice to have someone who's familiar with the game.

Poppinfresh wrote:
LockAndLoad wrote:
@Crispy: Count on a Twilight Imperium game on this year's IGWJD. That's happening with both expansions (new one is coming out) and as many people as we can get to play.

I've been dying to play Twilight Imperium, haven't yet though! Not sure how casual pick up & play friendly it is though. Or when I can get a day to actually play.

It's not very casual pick up & play friendly, unfortunately. It's one of those games where it's very nice to have someone who's familiar with the game.

There will be a short seminar run by Toph513 detailing the rules before we start.

Seriously.

Also he doesn't know he's running it yet but he is.

Tanglebones wrote:

Telestrations is incredible. If you can find the NY/CT meet up thread from last October, there's a few descriptions of how ridiculous things got with 8 Goodjers playing together :)

Anytime I've played this with GWJers, I've almost vomited from laughing too hard and being unable to breathe. And the tears of laughter flow freely.

IMAGE(http://imgur.com/DP0Vil.jpg)

That's obviously a reference to the separable lower half of Krang's robot body.

Stronghold Games' reprint of the classic game Survive! continues to be a favorite around here.

Have you tried Dixit? More along the line of Telestrations (meaning less strategy and more of a party game), but we've found it is fun and intriguing. It's hard to convey how it plays (and not just because I'm inarticulate) since so much depends on the excellent artwork, but the basic rundown is here. The twist is as Storyteller you want at least one person to guess your card but never everybody. Worth a look, and it plays up to 6.

booty wrote:

Have you tried Dixit? More along the line of Telestrations (meaning less strategy and more of a party game), but we've found it is fun and intriguing. It's hard to convey how it plays (and not just because I'm inarticulate) since so much depends on the excellent artwork, but the basic rundown is here. The twist is as Storyteller you want at least one person to guess your card but never everybody. Worth a look, and it plays up to 6.

I got that for Toph513 for Christmas... Haven't heard back about it. I am pretty sure he hates it and me.

Forever.

booty wrote:

Have you tried Dixit? More along the line of Telestrations (meaning less strategy and more of a party game), but we've found it is fun and intriguing. It's hard to convey how it plays (and not just because I'm inarticulate) since so much depends on the excellent artwork, but the basic rundown is here. The twist is as Storyteller you want at least one person to guess your card but never everybody. Worth a look, and it plays up to 6.

We played it at PAX and to be honest it felt more like Apples to Apples than Telestrations. The art on the cards was fantastic but honestly it left us a little flat. It was only played once.

I'm a fan of Dixit. Super easy to explain, great art, and a very relaxed play experience. Based on the description of Telestations, there's less of a Yuks factor in Dixit, but it can still get fairly ridiculous depending on who you play with. The other thing is that if you play with the same group all the time, they'll start to associate certain code words with specific art cards, taking some of the creativity out of the game.

For a boardgame night, it's not a main course game, more of an appetizer. But it's also the type of game that's really easy to introduce to people who don't normally play games.

Haakon7 wrote:
Maq wrote:

Team Tabletop Assemble!

Tagging for future win.

Makes me feel like we should have another go at a games day. Maybe Dudley would finally get to play Junta.

I'm totally down for that. Haakcon'10 was great fun.

I'll make sure I know the Junta rules backwards before we all get drunk next time

I'm so happy to find this thread! Subscribing.

Dreaded Gazebo wrote:

Not a fan of Shadow Hunters, but I've only played it once. Felt too similar to Bang which I really dislike (too random and drawn out).

Shadow Hunters is also unbalanced, but the casual gamers that I've introduced it to always ask to play it.

7 Wonders hit the table for the first time Friday night. Everyone immediately wanted to play again, so it got 4 consecutive plays. Can't really give a better recommendation than that.

Played Stone Age as well. As someone in the group quipped "I'm really enjoying this and I have no idea why". So generally everyone liked it, but thought it went on too long. Is that a common feeling? Or is that more of a function of being played so close to a good quick game like 7 Wonders?

Stone Age was neither here nor there for me, unfortunately, but Seven Wonders is awesome! Obviously, if you play nothing else but, it will wear out its welcome, but for what it offers (Civ-very lite), it's great!

How have I missed this thread until now?
/tagged

Tigerbill wrote:

How have I missed this thread until now?
/tagged

Was wondering where you were. Now Team Tabletop is complete!

We had our game night on Saturday. Here's what got played:

Snow Tails - Reasonably simple dog sled racing game. We played the introductory course with five people. It took a bit for people to understand some of the strategies, but people enjoyed it.

Robo Rally - Played with two teams of four as a team race. We'd never tried the team race before, and people had a lot of fun with it.

Shadow Hunters - Played with 7. Unfortunately, this was total chaos, and not the game's fault. My grumpy, overtired daughter came home while I was explaining the rules, and trying to finish explaining while trying to take care of her didn't work very well. Fifteen minutes later, our takeout Chinese food came, so we took a break for dinner. It seemed interesting, but I want to try it again under better circumstances.

Vegas Showdown - Played with 5. I'm always impressed how much people enjoy this game. It is a lot of fun, though I'm not very good at it.

padriec wrote:
Tigerbill wrote:

How have I missed this thread until now?
/tagged

Was wondering where you were. Now Team Tabletop is complete!

Do we have to do some kind of Voltron thing now?

Maq wrote:
padriec wrote:
Tigerbill wrote:

How have I missed this thread until now?
/tagged

Was wondering where you were. Now Team Tabletop is complete!

Do we have to do some kind of Voltron thing now?

Something like this?

IMAGE(http://mantiseye.info/img/caps/36/shot02.jpg)

Uncanny

Poppinfresh wrote:

Vegas Showdown - Played with 5. I'm always impressed how much people enjoy this game. It is a lot of fun, though I'm not very good at it.

Vegas Showdown is one of those games I never get to play enough. I really like it.

Has anyone played Defenders of the Realm? It came out last year and a lot of people described it as Pandemic with a fantasy skin.

I was intrigued but not enough to pay $60 without seeing more feedback.

booty wrote:

7 Wonders hit the table for the first time Friday night. Everyone immediately wanted to play again, so it got 4 consecutive plays. Can't really give a better recommendation than that.

Played Stone Age as well. As someone in the group quipped "I'm really enjoying this and I have no idea why". So generally everyone liked it, but thought it went on too long. Is that a common feeling? Or is that more of a function of being played so close to a good quick game like 7 Wonders?

I just picked up 7 Wonders this last weekend, and really looking forward to playing it. I've heard nothing but good things, and with a 30-45 minute play time I anticipate it hitting the table pretty frequently.

We played Mansions of Madness the other weekend, to good effect. It took about 2 hours (with some good prep time on my part, including getting good rules summaries), and the group was interested in playing another time or two to see what kind of legs it has.

Also, Merchant's and Marauders is an excellent pirate/merchant game in the vein of Sid Meier's Pirates. Seems to run longer (around three hours), but it's dripping with theme, the components are great and lend an immersive feel, and the mechanics are tightly integrated and do a good job of approximating the systems they're modeling: e.g. Trading, merchant raids, boarding actions, upgrading your ship, etc.

Finally, I also just picked up the new Battletech intro box set. So looking forward to playing it in the coming months. They did a great job on putting together a great starter.

My latest board game shipment is coming in later today. Picked up the two newest Summoner Wars races, 7 Wonders, Survive! Escape from Atlantis, and Nightfall. Pretty excited to get all of them to the table in the next couple of weeks.

Made a couple trades on BGG this week. I have 2 de Mayo, Stone Age and Hellas on the way. Looking forward to digging into them all!

Scaphism wrote:

Has anyone played Defenders of the Realm? It came out last year and a lot of people described it as Pandemic with a fantasy skin.

I was intrigued but not enough to pay $60 without seeing more feedback.

I'm a fan of Defenders of the Realm, but I know it won't be everyone's cup of tea. It really is Pandemic with a fantasy theme, increased play time (closer to two hours for a game) and higher luck factor. At the same time it also feels more epic than Pandemic as you do feel like you are fighting off hoards of minions as the big bad guys slowly march towards the city. I think the characters really make the game as they all have pretty powerful special abilities that make you feel overpowered and awesome. Fighting the bosses is exciting, too, since you usually scrape up just enough cards to tip the odds in your favor while other times you are under pressure and have to risk it. The dragon expansion and the free print-and-play expansions really help flesh out the game even further; we now always play with the Winds of War variant as it forces tough decisions on how to play special cards.

So yeah, I love it but if the idea of a longer, more thematic Pandemic doesn't sound appealing to you I'd pass.

HedgeWizard wrote:

Also, Merchant's and Marauders is an excellent pirate/merchant game in the vein of Sid Meier's Pirates. Seems to run longer (around three hours), but it's dripping with theme, the components are great and lend an immersive feel, and the mechanics are tightly integrated and do a good job of approximating the systems they're modeling: e.g. Trading, merchant raids, boarding actions, upgrading your ship, etc.

My group only tabled up Merchants and Marauders once and we were not impressed. Production quality is top notch but I found the game incredibly lacking. It seemed like there was no reason for merchants to end their turn at sea, which meant the pirates really didn't have much interesting to do. Maybe we missed something or it was just the group mindset but we were really disappointed.

Friend of mine managed to get a copy of Warhammer Quest for cheap off of Craigslist. It came with a few expansion characters and a bunch of the expansion treasures. We've played a few times now and it's fun although I wish it was more tactical. Still, it's a nice alternative to Descent when you don't want someone running the bad guys. I think the nostalgia factor is pretty high for my buddy, though, as he's been absolutely loving it.

Dreaded Gazebo wrote:

So yeah, I love it but if the idea of a longer, more thematic Pandemic doesn't sound appealing to you I'd pass.

Sounds like something I'd like to try exactly once. 2 hour games are rarely better than 2 one hour games, but I do enjoy pandemic a great bit.

Got to play 7 wonders 3 more times last night, this time with a group of six instead of three. The three new players grasped the mechanics quickly, but the scoring and the strategy less so. My observation is that you can't start a game with a single strategy, but need to adapt and play off your neighbors strategy. That can be tricky, since your neighbor is probably also playing off his neighbors strategy, and so forth. The indirect impact of this was intriguing, but still hard to predict. Overall, I find I was underestimating strategy and tactics of this game. However on a given night, this certainly wouldn't be the only game I want to play. "Filler" isn't the best description because of the negative connotations with that word, but it doesn't hold up mentally to something like Race for the Galaxy. I still recommend 7 wonders heartily though.

I've been really interested in 7 wonders for awhile, with it's scalability, short play time and interesting flavor. But I'm worried about a lack of depth.

I think I'll wait to see how the expansion is received this summer before I pick up a copy. Or maybe just the next time I'm in a games store and fail a will save.

Dreaded Gazebo wrote:

My group only tabled up Merchants and Marauders once and we were not impressed. Production quality is top notch but I found the game incredibly lacking. It seemed like there was no reason for merchants to end their turn at sea, which meant the pirates really didn't have much interesting to do. Maybe we missed something or it was just the group mindset but we were really disappointed.

Each player only has 3 actions each turn, 1 can be a port action (buying, selling), and it takes 1 to move sea zone to sea zone, 1 sea to port, and 1 port to sea. For a merchant to so regularly avoid being caught at sea would mean they only move every other turn, which in our experience is a big waste of actions. In fact, the storm events were the very few times players reliably avoided ending a turn at sea.

Player 1 would go
Turn 1: port actions & nothing else
Turn 2: sail to sea, move to next sea zone, sail into port
Turn 3: port actions & nothing else
Turn 4: sail to sea, move to next sea zone, sail into port

In addition to having to stay away from any/all NPC pirates (who will move directly towards merchants and eventually draw them into conflict), this is pretty inefficient compared to other players who will take port actions and move on the same turn. Over the course of a few turns, the money earned could be pretty substantial.