The Big Board-Gaming Catch-All

Igneus wrote:
Bogoran wrote:
pyxistyx wrote:

Also: I'm also putting all my Arkham LCG tokens in coin capsules. They feel so good to jiggle around in a bag!

YES. Putting those tokens in coin capsules is the single best upgrade I've ever made to a game. Such a huge difference in how easy and satisfying it is to draw a token out of the bag.

Is that so they have weight for when you draw it? or universal sizes? I am curious what issue it solves since I am not familiar with the game. To me It seems they would just make the tokens to big and cumbersome.

It actually fixes the problem that the tokens are too light and small and it can be difficult to grab the quantity you need (usually one, but not always). It also makes the bag weightier and causes it to make a noise when shaken, and brings the tokens up to a size that can be comfortably grasped in your fist when pulled out of the bag and then opened dramatically. Overall much more satisfying.

It also protects the tokens from wear if you play the game a whole lot, though that's the least of the reasons I recommend them.

What kind of coin capsules did you get? The flexible ring kind?

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/Wnh9sUa.jpg)

IMAGE(http://gif.co/HbRj.gif)

MisterStatic wrote:

What kind of coin capsules did you get? The flexible ring kind?

I got these ones: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...

Ha, Mermaid

To be fair to our librarians, one of them goes to the regular open night and has just started a 11-18 yr old Friday game club at the local library with modern classics and lighter games discussed here on offer. There is also a board game mad family who's teenage kid has volunteered to go along, lend and teach more complex games to the older kids, Blood Rage being one I believe.

They've had a library Warhammer night open to all for ages, same chap I think. I'm not bothered but it's another thing hey.

Guess library game nights depend on who your librarians are.

MisterStatic wrote:

What kind of coin capsules did you get? The flexible ring kind?


these are the ones' I've gone for
... the 25mm sizes fit absolutely seamlessly around the AH LCG tokens

IMAGE(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51tXaU62TZL.jpg)

I've also just ordered a different set of larger capsules to try on my Eldritch Horror Gate Tokens, which are bigger

Anyone comment on Ghost Fightin Treasure Hunters for play with an almost 7 year old?

El-Producto wrote:

Anyone comment on Ghost Fightin Treasure Hunters for play with an almost 7 year old?

While I've not played it, I have heard outstanding reviews of it. As well as it being perfect for the 7-10 age range.

Funnily enough I watched a review of that just the other day...looks fun. Bit simple maybe but I imagine it'd be good for kids.

(also this guy is probably my favourite board/ PnP reviewer that I've found on Youtube so far (behind SuASD)

We got it last year to play with 6yr old after recommendations from here and he got it no problems. Plus because it's a co-op game it works better as a family game than some others because non competitive and teamwork, rather than kids Vs grown ups.

We play the basic game where you can collect treasure in any order. However there is an advanced variant that might be there to make things more interesting for adults where you have to collect the jewels in a specific order.

It's pretty random, but very well balanced with the basic rules, we've played aybe 10 times and usually win or lose very narrowly, by one or two turns at most. The advanced rules can imagine being hard as nails depending on how lucky you are with treasure placement, each are numbered.

Recommended though, defo.

I’m looking for a little assistance remembering a board game that was mentioned on the Podcast several months or possibly even more than a year ago. I’ve done some searching but can’t seem to locate the specific episode.

Here’s the setup: The context may have been gaming with others and one of the hosts mentioned a two-player cooperative game he was playing with his wife (possibly Shawn and Karla, but I’m not sure). What I remember is that it was a story-based game where the game progressed by reading passages out of a large storybook. I think the game setting started in a bedroom. If I recall, the name of the game had a more juvenile feel to it (ie. nightmares, dreams, monster, bed??) but the host was clear that despite its name the game was targeted to a more complex player base. Finally, I did look the game up and I believe the book and other game parts were a bit “chunky”, meaning they looked well made and durable.

Sorry for the sketchy details, but I’m just hoping this rings a bell with someone because it sounded like an interesting game and I’m looking for some games for my wish list that accommodate two players.

Stuffed Fables?

IMAGE(https://www.plaidhatgames.com/images/u/PH2200-Game_Setup-Web.jpg)

Had my eye on this one for a while. I don't think it's released yet though. (Or that might be just the UK)

pyxistyx wrote:

Stuffed Fables?

THAT'S IT!! Thanks so much. Looks like it releases next month.

After playing a lot of Friday the 13th, I've got an itch for Horror Games.

Anyone ever play Camp Grizzly?

Coincidentally I just got a notification that my copy of Stuffed Fables is about to ship. So, it's very close to being released.

jrralls wrote:

Anyone ever play Camp Grizzly?

it does a great job of evoking the theme but there's very little strategy to it.

Played Azul again today (won big, yeah!) and borrowed it from my buddy for the evening to help indoctrinate my wife and son. The fact that the back of the board is an open canvas once you learn the core mechanics is fantastic. Please play this game if you have an opportunity. It takes less than a minute to learn the basics, a round to learn the scoring, and who knows how long to learn the long-term strategy. So much fun and a 30 second set up time.

El-Producto wrote:

Anyone comment on Ghost Fightin Treasure Hunters for play with an almost 7 year old?

It's excellent. Get.

Hi me again, turning the topic back to Burgle Bros... sorry if this has been hitting this topic a bit heavy.

My family of four played this weekend and it was awesome. We all had a great time (doing exactly what Fredrik said, strategizing together) and we beat the game... There was one moment when we did turn back the clock in a way that the iOS app would not have let us, but it was not in a way that un-revealed a secret tile. It was simply along the lines of "what if she just stayed back here on this floor?" and that one tweak meant one of us still took the same damage, but ended with four survivors instead of two.

I think part of the reason for our success was that the floor layouts in the booklet for that first heist is a good set for beginners. We had a rough time of it, but nothing like with the iOS app, which has a tendency to do things like create a hallway that is 3 tiles long... sometimes impossible to get into without some deadly sacrifices. (That said, it did make me realize that the iOS app becomes a good companion for game setup if you want to randomize wall placement without having to think much at all.)

I also think just seeing all three floors at the same time had a huge impact on our success and enjoyment of the game.

The physicality of rolling REAL dice was important as well, as not only are the iOS app dice obviously digital; their physics feels off a bit, and real dice just can't be fudged. I'm not saying there is fudging going on in the iOS app - you just start to wonder if there's something more than bad luck involved in some of those rolls, because WOW.

My son noticed the back of the player turn cards that shows how many of each card to expect in the building... the process of elimination told us what cards were left - a tactic I hadn't really used at all on the app.

Anyway... we loved it... thanks for the suggestion!

A couple more quick notes: As I mentioned - previous to the above post I had beat the iOS game once in a hundred plays. Since beating the board game I have beat the iOS game twice out of four plays. I think this was from picking up little strategies and understanding the mechanics a lot more. (Don't get me wrong I understood the rules and how to play... but when you realize the details... like the limited number of room tiles and the quantity and content of the guard movement deck; let's just say my brain started working a slightly different way for the mobile version.) That shift in itself is enough reason to pick up the board game over the iOS app. They sort of help each other out, really.

Just one of our tiles in the board game has a weird chip out of the back of it. This is a laboratory, everybody now knows it, and is also a bummer. Not as much of a bummer as if it was stairs or safe... but still a bummer. I wrote to the company to see if they had a spare sitting around, although I know that's a longshot.

I didn't pick characters at random, as the game manual suggests, but pulled what I thought the family would enjoy playing the most/would most likely result in us having a chance of winning. (rook, hacker, spotter and hawk) I told my kids this at the end and they immediately asked that we play by the rules next time. I love my kids.

Finally, we DID play about half the board game with the the optional "expansion" cards that allow a guard to lose track of the player... an option that is not available on iOS, that I could find. I say "half" because I noticed them still in the box (along with a few unused cards) and added them to the stacks. While their absence didn't seem to affect the first half of the game, they saved our collective butt several times throughout the latter half.

Ok done with this topic for a bit. We welcome this to our table going forward. My little girl (8 yo) in particular, loved it to pieces (then again she's into Slytherin and Kylo Ren -- I can't imagine what her first date is going to be like...) and I think we all loved playing the bad guys for a change. Although my brain did (just now) wonder if there's an alternate ruleset we could create to be the guards, lol.

I’ve hit critical mass with my collection. I can’t justify taking up more space in the house so I have started to switch from acquisition to pimping out and enhancing.

I have been using bead boxes and Plano type tackle boxes to sort and organise games. I jumped on the Paladin sleeves Kickstarter and plan some serious sleeving and after over a decade of not picking up a brush I’ve begun painting mini’s to enhance the play experience.

Anyone else find they are spending time enhancing their hobby instead of expanding it?

dRailer wrote:

Anyway... we loved it... thanks for the suggestion!

Super happy you guys liked it!

Prozac wrote:

Anyone else find they are spending time enhancing their hobby instead of expanding it?

I've told myself "no more board games for a while", even though I don't have a huge collection. I've started painting minis for our D&D games and my buddy wants me to paint our Gloomhaven minis so I may do that. There are some games I'd like to pimp out some but I don't get to play board games enough. When we get the group together, it's for D&D so we have to fit board games in here and there. Recently, it's always been Gloomhaven.

I've never sleeved anything until recently when I sleeved some cards in Gloomhaven. I sleeved my player abilities, mainly so I knew which ones I was using, not so much for the protectiveness.

What games are you painting the minis for?

-BEP

Just got my Unstable Unicorns kickstarter. The game is pretty fun and the artwork is adorable. Interestingly it plays a lot like a simplified MTG minus creature attacks and mana management. Plus the NSFW pack is absolutely hilarious.

Those of you who went ballistic-nutballs-all-in on 7th Continent -- I also went ballistic-nutballs-all-in, with separate shipping for both waves or whatever. Having done that, am I getting anything soon-ish? I know I should know this, but it is actually a little hard to find the details on the site. I was of the impression that something like bonus content would happen in the fall, but that we might get something to play sort of soon? Sorry for the confusion.

IIRC, we're getting the core set in March, everything else next fall.

GrandmaFunk wrote:

IIRC, we're getting the core set in March, everything else next fall.

This sounds true, full disclosure I did nothing to validate this, just what I recall as well.

Anyone else find they are spending time enhancing their hobby instead of expanding it?

I'm at a similar point – buying more games seems like a bad idea due to space and money issues. When that happens I start trading games. I try to trade locally, mostly, to save money.

I got to try out the 2nd Ed/Expansion to the coop game, Aeon's End: War Eternal. The update to the art and components is quite nice. It is definitely a challenging game. There are parts I really enjoy, like the fact that you do not shuffle your draw deck, rather you have some say in the order in which you discard your played hand for future draws. However, this is largely mitigated by the random draw of turn order each round. You shuffle in player number cards (two each for a two player game) with two Nemesis cards and draw to see who executes their action from the six card deck. It is possible to end one round with back to back Nemesis cards and start the next round with BtB Nemesis cards. When this happens, it is likely that it is game over. Obviously, it can work the other way as well. This randomness does not feel good to me. I understand why they went in this direction, however there was no way to shift the odds of this that I have seen. Maybe there is a character ability, but if so, we have not played it yet. Coop games really shine for me when you can coordinate character strengths in to strategy and tactics. This pure randomness scuttles these plans in a way that does not feel "fair."

Even with a shuffled deck in other deck builders, the ability to add and remove cards gives some level of control is shifting the odds, which has not come into play in Aeon's End. For me, the greater control of the player draw deck does not offset the pure randomness of the turn order. The elegant, character and ability specific initiative order mechanic from Gloomhaven may have completely spoiled me on this front.

From the family Azul test runs: Son enjoyed it. Wife responded at the end "Stupid game, nothing like Splendor." Sigh. I was hoping this could work its way into the full family mix, but looks like it will be resigned to 2 player and gaming with others.

Finally, I got two more solo games of Terraforming Mars in as well, winning both. Broke 100 in one game, which was a first. Now I have to find with the expansion maps were stored.

lostlobster wrote:
Anyone else find they are spending time enhancing their hobby instead of expanding it?

I'm at a similar point – buying more games seems like a bad idea due to space and money issues. When that happens I start trading games. I try to trade locally, mostly, to save money.

I've definitely slowed down on the acquisition front... maybe 2 or 3 new games a year now. Trying to focus on stuff that provides at least semi-unique experiences now. I've got Root and Rising Sun coming from Kickstarter but other than that nothing else in mind for the year.