Looking for thoughts on the following games for play with family (ages 8 & 11) and spouse...

Survive: Escape from Atlantis
Escape: Curse of the Temple
Ingenious
For Sale
Lost Cities
Hey! That's my Fish!
Power Up! Expansion for King of Tokyo

As well, has anyone played the solitaire game Friday?

Last week, I ordered Sentinels of the Multiverse and (I believe) all of its expansions.

It seemed like a no-brainer. I love super heroes and co-op games.

It should be delivered today!

We have another game night set for this Saturday. It's one of my buddy's girlfriend's birthday and she has requested an Arkham night.

Given that Saturday is March 16th, our plan is to drink Guinness, eat green colored food and try to play on Irish characters. I think there will be five of us and, so far, we identified five Irish characters: Michael McGlenn (the gangster), Skids O'Toole (the ex-convict), Rex Murphy (the Reporter), Finn Edwards (the bootleger) and Sister Mary (the nun). The last one is a bit of a stretch, but she's Catholic and her name is Mary, so...

Looking for thoughts on the following games for play with family (ages 8 & 11) and spouse...

Survive: Escape from Atlantis
Escape: Curse of the Temple
Ingenious
For Sale
Lost Cities
Hey! That's my Fish!
Power Up! Expansion for King of Tokyo

As well, has anyone played the solitaire game Friday?



Survive rocks. Very good for family too. I played the 80s version when I was a kid and loved it, then picked up the remake as an adult, and love it still. It's not a game to obsess over, like a certain railroad building game, but it is really strong.

Looking for thoughts on the following games for play with family (ages 8 & 11) and spouse...

Survive: Escape from Atlantis
Escape: Curse of the Temple
Ingenious
For Sale
Lost Cities
Hey! That's my Fish!
Power Up! Expansion for King of Tokyo

As well, has anyone played the solitaire game Friday?

Lost Cities is a fun, light game, only for two players. My wife and I enjoy it, my sister liked it too and she's not a big strategy gamer or anything. It's a rather simple card game though compared to most games in this thread, but it has a fun strategy to it.

Last week, I ordered Sentinels of the Multiverse and (I believe) all of its expansions.

It seemed like a no-brainer. I love super heroes and co-op games.

It should be delivered today!

Sentinels is my current favorite game. Did you get the Shattered Timelines expansion that just came out or just the first two? Either way, I hope you enjoy it.

Cracked is a bunch of hipsters now? :confused:

Apparently.

Ripping on Risk -- without acknowledging its place among the gaming Mt Rushmore along with its flaws -- is pretty much the end of any credibility for that particular writer.

And it doesn't speak well for Cracked's editorial staff that they ran a basically holier-than-thou hipster piece.

Apparently.

Ripping on Risk -- without acknowledging its place among the gaming Mt Rushmore along with its flaws -- is pretty much the end of any credibility for that particular writer.

And it doesn't speak well for Cracked's editorial staff that they ran a basically holier-than-thou hipster piece.

I thought the point of hipsters was to stop liking/rip on things because they were popular? The writer actually makes some pretty good points in that almost all of the games he rips on are pretty terrible at being games. Risk is easily the one that fits the bill least, but to be fair it's not exactly the pinnacle of strategy.

Sentinels is my current favorite game. Did you get the Shattered Timelines expansion that just came out or just the first two? Either way, I hope you enjoy it.

One of the designers is working on a new game so I'm partly hoping Sentinels won't be expanded much more just in case Plaid Hat Games's superhero game ends up being lacking, and I want to get Sentinels instead. I'm behind enough, I don't need more expansions. :lol: I think there's at least one more, but not sure beyond that. I liked Legendary more than I thought I would, but I know somebody who owns it.

Keyflower should be sent by Thursday.

Just played Summoner Wars for the first time. I played PE vs TO and really enjoyed the balance of the game. I esPecially liked that not all big units were overpowered.

One of the designers is working on a new game so I'm partly hoping Sentinels won't be expanded much more just in case Plaid Hat Games's superhero game ends up being lacking, and I want to get Sentinels instead. I'm behind enough, I don't need more expansions. :lol: I think there's at least one more, but not sure beyond that. I liked Legendary more than I thought I would, but I know somebody who owns it.

Keyflower should be sent by Thursday.

Even with the new card game they are developing, SotM will most likely have at least 3 more expansions; 1 bigger one coming out this fall and probably a couple more of the current size. Since the creators have already developed the entire story before coming out with the game, there is a a definite number of expansions in mind and they will not be kickstarting SotM again.

I wouldn't bet on the Plaid Hat game sucking, especially since Colby Dauch is designing it. It'll probably mean I just own another superhero game

Had a game day at my house today with 3 other guys.
We played Tammany Hall twice. What a fantastic game. Very strategic. Very fun. Lots of table talk and possible back stabbing. Everyone really liked this game. I highly recommend it. I finished 3rd, then 1st.
Then we played a game of Munchkin. We were running out of time.

Really enjoyed the day.

We have another game night set for this Saturday. It's one of my buddy's girlfriend's birthday and she has requested an Arkham night.

Given that Saturday is March 16th, our plan is to drink Guinness, eat green colored food and try to play on Irish characters. I think there will be five of us and, so far, we identified five Irish characters: Michael McGlenn (the gangster), Skids O'Toole (the ex-convict), Rex Murphy (the Reporter), Finn Edwards (the bootleger) and Sister Mary (the nun). The last one is a bit of a stretch, but she's Catholic and her name is Mary, so...

We did end up playing Arkham Horror on Saturday. It was the longest game of Arkham Horror I think I have ever played. It clocked in at around 6 hours and 30 minutes.

The game never felt all that long. We had 5 players and everyone was very active and did things, but we kept getting knocked off track.

We had a number of monster surges, a number of times gates didn't open because of Elder Signs, we had an Elder Sign that removed one doom counter, two tomes that removed a doom counter and we killed Barnabus March, which removes a doom counter. So, we kept the game going thanks to that.

We eventually won, but it was pretty exhausting.

Oh, Glaaki...

On Sunday I finally cracked open Sentinels of the Multiverse. Me and a friend tried it. We played twice and got horrible beaten both times.

First time, I had Haaka and he had Wraith and we were up against the Plague Rat. That didn't go well.

Second time, I had Bunker and he had Ex-Patriette and we were up against Baron Blade. That didn't go any better.

HB, you can't win at Sentinels only playing two heroes. You need 3 bare minimum and really 4 to have a shot at winning. When playing two players, each person can control two heroes. Ive done it that way and it isnt too bad to manage.

I thought they changed the game to offer better scaling?

HB, you can't win at Sentinels only playing two heroes. You need 3 bare minimum and really 4 to have a shot at winning. When playing two players, each person can control two heroes. Ive done it that way and it isnt too bad to manage.

Thanks!

Good to know. I wasn't sure if we were doing something wrong - not understanding the rules (which are pretty basic) - or what, but we really weren't even close to winning either game.

Sounds like a great game of Arkham HB!!! My buddy and I have been playing (two investigators each) the past few Friday nights and I know a 3-4 hour game flies by!

Great game!

Sounds like a great game of Arkham HB!!! My buddy and I have been playing (two investigators each) the past few Friday nights and I know a 3-4 hour game flies by!

Great game!

It was fun. We were all pretty brutalized. One player had 3 madnesses and an unjury, I had two madnesses and an injury, and another player had a madness.

We also played with the Tulzcha herald card, which makes Cultists elusive - which is trickier than we anticpated - and makes them move towards elder signs and if they start the mythos phase in a location with an elder sign they remove it. That happened once in the game. In fact, we only had one character who had a high enough sneak to even find them.

I've been playing Sentinels solo since I got it a couple of weeks ago. I really like it. I'm working my way up to the more complex heroes.

I just got Mage Knight this weekend. I was too busy to play it. I'm looking forward to cracking it open soon.

I thought they changed the game to offer better scaling?

They did, but the scaling is for 2-5 heroes. If you have two players, it's best to either both control two heroes or do a variant where you each take one active hero and one on the incapacitated side.

Glad more people are getting SotM. I'm quite obsessed with it at the moment and it just gets deeper the more I play.

How's Sentinels of the Multiverse solo? I don't have many opportunities to play board games with a group...

Had a jam packed day yesterday but it ended with a nice turn out for game night. If one person who had said they were coming would have shown up we would of have tied for second most people showing up. One new couple said they liked euros, co-ops, and games from RGG, so I was happy to add somebody with a gaming history. I played the usual games so nothing new. I mostly got my butt kicked, but my role isn't really to win the games. Yeah, that's it. :lol:

How's Sentinels of the Multiverse solo? I don't have many opportunities to play board games with a group...

It's pretty good. It has a lot to keep track of at first. But the combinations once you pick up the expansions are pretty diverse. The team you put together really changes how the game is played. I've played five or six games, and they've all played differently.

I think you can pick up the game and all its expansions for less than $80 at miniature market, that includes all the extra characters that were part of Kickstarter promotions.

I just picked up Mage Knight and Pandemic. I figure that putting those two in the rotation with Sentinels will increase the replayability of all of them.

It's pretty good. It has a lot to keep track of at first. But the combinations once you pick up the expansions are pretty diverse. The team you put together really changes how the game is played. I've played five or six games, and they've all played differently.

I think you can pick up the game and all its expansions for less than $80 at miniature market, that includes all the extra characters that were part of Kickstarter promotions.

I just picked up Mage Knight and Pandemic. I figure that putting those two in the rotation with Sentinels will increase the replayability of all of them.


To add to this, it works really well solo though I'd recommend either the app or one the spreadsheets floating around for HP tracking (or some other device) because there is indeed a lot to keep track of.

There's also a lot of replay-ability in the core set and each expansion adds new mechanics and a different feel. Rook City is gritty heroes and the toughest villains in the game, infernal relics is complex mystical heroes and unique but easier villains, and Shattered Timelines (my favorite so far) is all about time travel/alternate reality and I think the best mix of awesome heroes and fun new villains to play. So if you don't want to get everything in one feel swoop, you can get the core + 1 expansion for less than 40.

Thanks for the replies... Ill keep that in mind about the app. I ordered the enhanced core set and 3 expansions. Should come in this week - looking forward to trying it out.

So this weekend we had one of our game conventions. The GoH was Steve Jackson. My 11 year old runs into him at the bathroom and says, "You're Steve Jackson. My dad loves your games! You made Power Grid, right?"

Speaking of Sentinels...Omnitron X is my new favorite hero.

Anyone ever play Jamaica?

It has the most amazing art work for a game I've ever seen, but it sounds like it might be a bit to light/random and more of a family game then a game you'd play with friends.

We played Shogun this weekend along with Le Havre and 7-Wonders. Seven hours of gaming spread around a dinner, and I just realized that I came in second in all three games.

Le Havre is just a great game for this group, but I hadn't played it with five in so long that I didn't realize it was going to be as tight as it was. We had a bunch of terrible scores, most of us just breaking 100. I typically go for shipping, and one guy literally built the first ship and then shipped one load. He then left his playing piece on the shipping line until the second to last turn of the game, only taking the goods offers. He completely foiled the shipping strategy for me. He had a pretty decent strategy for converting everything to finished goods for a big final turn trip over the bridge to Seine, but fell short of the win. For my part I didn't realize he was going to actively block shipping for the whole game until too late. So I didn't switch to building soon enough to get the win. No shipping also prevented me from wiping out my debt easily. This, like Eclipse, is a great game that I love, and am coincidentally terrible at.

One has to love the cube tower mechanic in Shogun and Wallenstein. You just really never know how a combat is going to go.

Speaking of Sentinels...Omnitron X is my new favorite hero.

I got Shattered Timelines last Friday. I haven't tried Omitron-X yet though. I didn't much care for Chrono Ranger, even though his Bounties really made taking out La Capitan easier.

Tempest is still probably my favorite Hero to have in a team.

Played Omnitron X tonight vs the Dreamer, got plating and component-ed up pretty quick and proceeded to be awesome. After Dreamer flipped I was using my base power to pull her projections faster because we were burning them down.

I like Chrono Ranger a lot, but he is dependent on at least one damage boost to be really good

I got Shattered Timelines last Friday. I haven't tried Omitron-X yet though. I didn't much care for Chrono Ranger, even though his Bounties really made taking out La Capitan easier.

Tempest is still probably my favorite Hero to have in a team.

Tempest is still up there for my favorite people to play as well.

I'm digging the new villains as well, if only for one reason: They balanced out the cards that kill hero ongoings/equipment. What always drove me nuts is the fact that certain characters (Argent Adept comes to mind first and foremost) are utterly pointless against certain villain/environment combos, because of a constant stream of 'remove all hero ongoing' cards. It's no fun when you can do absolutely nothing the entire game.

android netrunner.....................that is all

android netrunner.....................that is all

Is that just a two player game?

Is that just a two player game?

I think there's a multiplayer variant, but you need multiple copies of the game. It really is a two player game though.

I saw these at PAX East. Will be supporting DQ3's indiegogo and looking for local people to play some of the S&D games.

Drinking Quest: The Original Drinking RPG (http://www.drinkingquest.com/)
Smirk and Dagger Games (http://www.smirkanddagger.com/)

/tk

Plaid Hat Games put up the Bioshock Infinite board game for preorder. Of course, about the only thing that is known about the game is that it's based on the Bioshock Infinite game. :D Tons of miniatures but even the presale price is $59.99 with a $25 discount. Yeah, if they want me interested they are going to have to work for this one.

Just played a solo game of Sentinels of the Multiverse and I have a quick question. When a hero has an attack modifier (ie.,+2 attack)- does he get the +2 bonus when he/she plays a card for damage (one shot, ect.) AND his/her damage from power? I was playing where they get bonuses from both but not sure if that is correct.

BTW - great game. I played solo controlling 4 heroes. It took about 3 hours to complete (I beat Apostate) but sure didn't feel like 3 hours!!

Yup, the damage modifies each instance of damage. For example, a hero like Haka would get +1 do his base damage of two from his power in addition to any other damage he dealt. However, Fanatic's base power is to deal 2 instances of 1 damage each, so that would be 2 and 2 with the damage boost

Thanks for the clarification. Makes me feel a little better that I didn't have to "cheat" to beat Apostate ;)

Parents gave me money for my forthcoming birthday so I used some of it for games. I grabbed Samurai and Suburbia. I haven't played Samurai yet as I can't motivate myself to play it solo playing more than one player. Suburbia has two solo variants so I went and tried the one where you try to get as high of a score as possible against no bot but you have a high penalty for growth. I'll likely play against the bot for future solo plays. It felt like a little too loose with just the one restriction. Case in point, grab a Fancy Restaurant and then never play any of the other restaurants.

I had held off on Suburbia due to some component issues, but I finally caved. The issues weren't as bad as I had feared, but they were there. The printing of the ink for the money and investment tokens was off at the rate to where if it was right, it looked wrong. Some boards did offer tearing issues but the pieces tended to rip outward so it was mostly trimming the excess off. Only one piece really created an issues, and I Super Glued the torn piece to where it was hardly noticeable.

I got some Planos to get a couple more game organized. The stuff for Mage Knight I have to 100% put away because right now it seems like some of the pieces are going to be a pain to get out if they go where I think they do. Merchants and Marauders works near perfectly since the cover sits a little high now.

You'll have to let me know what you think of Samurai. I'm a big fan of older Knezia games (Ra, Through the Desert) and I've had my eye on that for a while

I can vouch for Blood Bowl Team Manager being a fun game.The Sudden Death expansion arrived in the mail a couple of days ago. There's some new stuff (rules and variables) in there, that I haven't even fully examined yet. The important stuff probably are the new teams, though.

Been playing Zombicide a fair bit in the last few weeks; definitely a fun game - especially if you've a pack of players ... its basically Left4Dead in board game format ..

Zombicide | A zombie havoc boardgame by Guillotine Games (http://guillotinegames.com/en/)

You'll have to let me know what you think of Samurai. I'm a big fan of older Knezia games (Ra, Through the Desert) and I've had my eye on that for a while

I research the heck out of games and aim to only buy games I would consider 8.5-9.5 type of games. I'll likely just say why I like it versus if it is good or bad.

I played another game of Suburbia versus the bot this time. I got a middle range score and beat the bot decently. Without the bot, the game is quicker but you have less potential for a higher score. It is a solid game, but this one is going to really need players to play against so there's some actual tension going on. I will say I cracked up seeing the low income housing type tile pop up. It gives you like -2 or -3 rep but +10 population, which is huge from one tile. Your rep gives you population at the end of your turn so you have to desperately want that tile to combo with others like schools, stadiums, etc.

I have a friend who is really into board games that has gotten me into the hobby recently. Anyways, over the last two months I ordered:

Agricola – All Creatures Big and Small - my favorite two player game
Carcassonne - haven't had a chance to play this one yet. I want to though.
Dominion
Evo (2nd edition) - Designed by the same person who designed Small World. At its heart, it's an auction game where you bid for evolution genes for your herd of dinosaurs. Along the way you must move your herd around the board to account for changes in climate while possibly having to fight rival dinosaurs for habitable ground. Just ordered it yesterday, but it's supposed to play in about an hour.
Forbidden Island
For Sale
King of Tokyo + PowerUp! Expansion - It's not a particularly deep game, but I have a blast every time I play it.
Lords of Waterdeep - I love Stone Age and Argicola: ACB&S so I decided to include this game in my most recent order.
Lost Cities Haven't played it yet, but added it to one of my orders to get over $100 since it's been recommended by several in this thread.
7 Wonders
Stone Age - my favorite game right now
The Boss - I just ordered this game as well. It's a deduction/auction mix mafia themed game with some potentially neat game mechanics such as your mafia (auctioning pieces) being sent to jail, the hospital, or even being killed. As far as I can tell, it isn't well known. The game intrigued me though based on the video I watched of it on BGG.

Welcome to the hobby.
I see you are in Indiana. I would recommend going to Gencon in Indianapolis. It is something you must see and be a part of.

Welcome to the life.
I see you are in Indiana. I would recommend going to the Players' Ball in Indianapolis. It is something you must see and be a part of.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g39/NittanyWestCoast/Fly-Guy-600x300.jpg



Fixed

Welcome to the hobby.
I see you are in Indiana. I would recommend going to Gencon in Indianapolis. It is something you must see and be a part of.

I might have to check it out. My friend who introduced me to some of the Euro games beyond Settlers and TtR lives in Indy actually. I only live about 90 minutes away (Louisville area).

Played a 6 player game of Game of Thrones for the first time and have to say it is much better when you have a full game. It was the first time we'd played where the game went to the end of the tenth turn and 5 of the 6 players were in position to have a chance to win on the final turn. Previous games had been fun but usually we would have one or two people running away with the lead and have it end by turn 7.

I thought I was finished on turn 8 so on turn 9 I decided to just get revenge on the Starks who had caused most of my losses and took Winterfell after he left it undefended. I got a bit lucky since he could have taken out all my ships I had to use to transport my troops to Winterfell, but thankfully I managed to make him think I was after one of his castles and then I was able to wreck his 4 stack of ships while attacking. It left me with only though it left me with only 2 victory points since I had to abandon a castle to take it while the leader had 5 at the start of turn 10. Thankfully I was able to take back the castle I had abandoned while no one else was able to move towards it and was also lucky enough to take a stronghold from the leader who tried and failed to take 3 different castles on the final turn leaving a 4 way tie with 4 victory points which I then won by having 3 strongholds.

Love when a 4 hour game can come down to the last 5 minutes, something that had unfortunately never happened when we played with 4 or 5 people.

So back for Christmas, my wife bought me a bunch of different games (basically she got Mage Knight + a couple dirt cheap games in a bundle).

We tried one of them last night. Hidden Conflict.

I have a one word review for Hidden Conflict: Horrid.

You'll have to let me know what you think of Samurai. I'm a big fan of older Knezia games (Ra, Through the Desert) and I've had my eye on that for a while

Samurai is awesome - although I have to admit I've only ever played the iOS version of it (I'd recommend that heartily).

Have only played the board game and agree Samurai is great.

Had my game night and knew it was going to be a mighty low turn out as people kept mentioning having plans and one person posted the day of being in Traverse City in the hospital with his grandmother. Well, nobody showed up, no room was unlocked, and driving home I found out I had a flat tire. Today I find out the power point slides announcing when our next game night is saying it is Dec. 22nd, which isn't even a Friday. I swear I'm never leading anything else ever again. :lol:

GoT should only be played with 6.

I think people on BGG say it is 5-6, but it does seem to benefit from having the most play. It is another reason I don't get it.

5 isn't bad for GoT. 4 or fewer and it suffers from major balance issues.

Just had a game night and played Race for the Galaxy and Notre Dame, two of my favorites. Race is incredibly hard to figure out the first itme - the icons on the cards are nuts. but once you crack it I find it's a ton of fun with a lot of replay value. Notre Dame I've only played a few times but I really enjoy it.

We did a game night to celebrate my B-day yesterday. Mainly to get Eclipse on the table again. 5 hours for a six player game...a bit longer than expected. Plus two of us were effectively out at the three hour mark. I'm not good at this game, but I love it. I can score well, but if anything goes wrong, I really struggle.

We did get Love letter on the table. It is a great quick filler that is very accessible, and fun. there are eight different cards in the game, each with a different power/rule as well as a numeric value. Some of the powers knock another player out of the game if used properly, others just grant you a temporary advantage. Anyone left in play after drawing through the 16 card deck compares cards, and the player with the highest ranked card wins the round. You play until someone wins a set number of rounds. We player to four with four players. It was quite a bit of fun, and will be hitting the table again.

Also picked up Fleet and played it. We butchered the rules a bit, but I think it has potential. A little euro that plays quickly, and seems to offer some depth of play and strategy. I'm looking forward to trying it again.

Really enjoyed playing Love Letter with my wife and 6 yr old daughter. Super quick to pick up but a lot of fun. Of course my daughter won, she schools me at all cards games (wins about 2/3rds of the time at Jaipur).

I'm really interested in getting Eclipse to the table as I picked it up on clearance at B & N last week for 35 bucks after half off and another 30% off coupon.

Picked up Empires of the Void. I have Eclipse, but it is a little to euro for me. Im hoping that this game scratches my sci-fi game itch a little better. Looks like a really fun game with war and politics.

I got Escape! The Curse of the Temple.
My family played it several times. Very intense and fun. My daughters enjoyed as did my wife. I may get some good play out of this one.

It is a good ten minutes of chaotic fun.

Just ordered Escape: The Curse of the Temple from Amazon. Looking forward to playing chaotic fun ;)

How's it play solo?

I havent played it solo. I imagine it will be very difficult. When you roll black masks that locks that die. You can borrow dice from other players if you are in the same room. So not having that will hurt badly.
There is a rule that allows having 3 gems on the side that will unlock your dice but you have to add it to the pile of gems to eliminate. Which would make it more difficult.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/g_QRczGzXqw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Love this game.

Also excited that from the preview at the end it looks like next time H to the usky Husky is going to be on the show.

Resistance is easily one of my top 10 games. I own 4 copies at the moment.

Also, want to plug a fantastic looking (IMO) tactical fantasy dungeon crawl / minis game that is on kickstarter.

Myth (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1700755582/myth-0)

Resistance looks like a real fun party game... I love watching Table Top vids

Resistance is pretty awesome. Usually it takes people until the second or third mission of their first game to really get it, but once they do it's hard to put the game away.

First Table Top Vid Ive watched and wow, im impressed. thats some high quality shit there.

While all games are to a point, The Resistance seems to depend on what kind of group you are playing with more so than others.

While all games are to a point, The Resistance seems to depend on what kind of group you are playing with more so than others.

This is true, but I've had success with The Resistance with an incredibly diverse set of groups. Many people who aren't at all "gamers" love this game.

Hey, we play something like The Resistance here... over in the Werewolf forum! :D

In fact ... there's a game in signups right now!

I'm looking for a game to do with a largish crowd (10-12) of casual gamers this summer. We do an event every summer, a geek pentathlon, with lots of crazy shit like atlatls and samurai swords. But we alwyas end with a sit down sort of game. In the past we've played Munchkin, Formula D, a miniatures battle.

What would be a good board/card game for this purpose? We were actually thinking Resistance but we need to be able to rank the winners and assign points. Any thoughts? Something that wouldn't take a long time, and that tired casual gamers can play.

I'm an OG Werewolf guy - my work makes my daily schedule completely unpredictable though, so I can't reliably commit anymore.

I'm looking for a game to do with a largish crowd (10-12) of casual gamers this summer. We do an event every summer, a geek pentathlon, with lots of crazy shit like atlatls and samurai swords. But we alwyas end with a sit down sort of game. In the past we've played Munchkin, Formula D, a miniatures battle.

What would be a good board/card game for this purpose? We were actually thinking Resistance but we need to be able to rank the winners and assign points. Any thoughts? Something that wouldn't take a long time, and that tired casual gamers can play.

Small World might be a good option. Sort of Risk-lite, without the huge time commitment. The scoring system is straight points, so rankings are easy.

I've been playing Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer on the iPhone. It's addictive as hell.

Yes I love ascension on the iPhone better than the actual card game

Oh my.
I dont know if there are any Supremacy fans on the board. It was a game from the 80s. It is a war game that is more in depth than A&A. It had a lot of expansions. It was a great game that my group of that time enjoyed tremendously. We had several of the expansions. Today, you would pay around $120 for the game. It has been OOP for a long time. I have always wanted to purchase it, as my friend owned it and his wife made him throw it out a few years ago. I found that out when I called him to see if he still had it.
WELL, guess what I just found on KS? Supremacy 2020. A redesign of that great game. I am already drooling. Unfortunately it has a $70 price tag on KS. Im not sure if I can swing that right now. There are 28 days left. And I just dropped money on Empires of the Void. I have to play my cards right with my wife.
Here is the link if anyone is interested.

SUPREMACY 2020 –Superpower Game of Nuclear Brinksmanship by Command Post Games &mdash; Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1743441977/supremacy-2020-superpower-game-of-nuclear-brinksma/)

Eclipse is out for iOS (ipad only)!

Our group has been into Suburbia lately. Interesting tile placement/city building game.

Tried San Juan. I like the mechanics, but it seems too tied to card-drawing luck.

At home, taught my son Citadels. That's a nice, light game - also a lot of luck, but really good for bluffing - especially in the two-player version.

Eclipse is out for iOS (ipad only)!

Never heard of this, what is it?

/tk

One of the most awesome board games ever

Never heard of this, what is it?

/tk

4X space themed board game with worker placement & resource management elements. And I agree with Danny :)

Eclipse is more of a euro type game with a little bit of battle. While a really fun game, not in my greatest category. Its a little too Euro for me.
But I will pick it up for the ipad. Good stuff.

I WON A GAME!
Over at BGG there is a guy who has a contest. I answered some questions he posed and put in the game I wanted and then re-entered every month I didnt win. Well, I finally won. I never win. But I cant say that now.

I won the game Dominant Species.

I am so excited.

Awesome, tarcone. I've always wanted to play that but don't have a regular game group so i haven't acquired it. I hope you like it.

I snagged a copy of Tzolk'in the other day when it was half off MSRP on CSI. Can't wait to play that, I don't own a solid worker placement game

Tzolkin is a really good one

I got to play Cards Against Humanity last night, that was a blast. I imagine it wears a little thin after a couple plays and the shock factor of some of the cards wears off, but it sure is fun the first time!

Eclipse is out for iOS (ipad only)!

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I bought Eclipse on Tuesday night, played the tutorial a bit. The next morning my 2 year old poured a glass of milk on our iPad. :(

FWI, for anyone interested in picking up Alien Frontiers (it seems to be an extremely hard find?), it's back on kickstarter along with an expansion pack.

Alien Frontiers 4th Edition by Springboard ... Powered by Game Salute &mdash; Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/springboard/alien-frontiers-4th-edition)

Just played two games of Sentinels of the Universe with a buddy( playing two heroes each). We beat Baron Blade pretty handily in the 1st game and got beat down by Rogue Rat in the 2nd. This is my favorite game ATM solo or with others...

Just played two games of Sentinels of the Universe with a buddy( playing two heroes each). We beat Baron Blade pretty handily in the 1st game and got beat down by Rogue Rat in the 2nd. This is my favorite game ATM solo or with others...

I've played this a few different times as well of late. I, too, really enjoy it. Super fun game (pun not intended).

Plague Rat is the hardest difficulty 2 villain, IMO, primarily because he hits hard and fast. Glad you're enjoying Sentinels, I've been pushing this pretty hard to friends and local gamers and everyone who has played really enjoys it

I played another game of Legendary. It just hasn't clicked for me despite the theme. Other people enjoy it, and I have yet to be on a team that has lost but every time I get the fewest points without hitting the main villain. I keep trying different things but nothing really works. I take out mostly mid level guys on the street and that's it. I feel like I'm building towards mediocrity and that's not that fun. This likely reconfirms me needing to play a character versus a mash up of a bunch of heroes.

I played four more games of The Resistance and while I liked my initial plays, it didn't quite stick. This time things clicked much better. I need to play with more people since 5-player games tend to reveal nothing in 2-player missions. Outside of that, this is moving up on my list.

Plague Rat is the hardest difficulty 2 villain, IMO, primarily because he hits hard and fast. Glad you're enjoying Sentinels, I've been pushing this pretty hard to friends and local gamers and everyone who has played really enjoys it

And then you fight Iron Legacy. And wonder why you ever thought anyone else was hard. :)

And then you fight Iron Legacy. And wonder why you ever thought anyone else was hard. :)

No kidding. Playing IL is for when I only have 20 minutes and want to play SotM, because it'll be over one way or the other in that time

One of the two main gaming stores and likely the nicest one is closing down. I'm not sure what happens if the other goes. The Lansing Board Game group would have to seek out a new place to play. There's only a small store that might be able to pick up the slack. There might be another comic book shop, but I have never been there so I don't know if they are set up for it. It might get to the point where I offer to be a place to host games since I host game nights at my church.

I played another game of Legendary. It just hasn't clicked for me despite the theme. Other people enjoy it, and I have yet to be on a team that has lost but every time I get the fewest points without hitting the main villain. I keep trying different things but nothing really works. I take out mostly mid level guys on the street and that's it. I feel like I'm building towards mediocrity and that's not that fun. This likely reconfirms me needing to play a character versus a mash up of a bunch of heroes.

I played four more games of The Resistance and while I liked my initial plays, it didn't quite stick. This time things clicked much better. I need to play with more people since 5-player games tend to reveal nothing in 2-player missions. Outside of that, this is moving up on my list.

When it comes to Legendary, I've had the best success going with one hero and getting one or two of a second hero who has some synergy. If you diversify, you can't really make any of the heroes shine.

Went to my local store that is closing and picked up the one anniversary edition of El Grande. It's OOP with no time frame that I know of for a reprint.

How much?

I may have to get you to pick me up a copy.

Game day/night at my house Wednesday. 6 of us playing. Starting with Attack! and the expansion. Then smash up and finish with Dominanat Species. or something along those lines.

Loking forward to it.

20% off. By all accounts I got the last copy since they have room on their shelves. I'm waiting to see what the next level is for discounts. There's some interesting ones left, but really not much. It was a comic book shop as much as a board game place. Their selection was mild at best. If they drop down to 40% though, I'm busting over there to see if Clash of Cultures is still there. $80 retail is too a high starting point for me with 20% off. 40% off beats CSI by $3 and without shipping. Kemet and some others might be a nice fall back if there.

Went to the local meet up. First game was Pillars of the Earth. If the event deck was better implemented, I don't think I could vote between it and Lords of Waterdeep. Second game was Vegas Showdown. It was interesting to see the similarities between it and Suburbia. One guy said he liked VS more, but I think I feel the opposite although I don't think there's that much difference. I just like the theme of Suburbia and how it is implemented better. Last game was T'zolkin. I got my butt handed to me compared to the guy who won. I enjoyed it, but it is another game I would want to study as much as play. Outside of the local meetups and Cons, I doubt I'll play it.

Had a game day yesterday.

We opened with Seven Wonders. Introduced the game to a relatively new gamer. While I took a slightly different approach to the game than I normally do, i must have been totally over confident, as I only managed to put up 59 points. That was good enough for fourth out of four, with the winner tallying 62. If you haven't played seven wonders yet, you are sentenced to go back and read the first 27 pages of this thread.

Next up with Kemet. This was one that surprised me. It boils down to a war game, where you earn victory points for winning battles and holding territories. There is a pretty straight forward technology tree with three tracks, red Offensive Magic, Blue Defensive magic, and White Magic that I'll sum up as magic that alters or enhances game mechanics. This is one I"m going to want to try again and likely again. It played quickly, and I just love a good technology tree.

We then played Edo, which I found at Gen Con last year, and really liked it. It was, for me, the second best game there. I can't explain why this was only my second time playing, as I really enjoy it. Edo is an economy engine building game, where players vie for control of townships while collecting victory points mostly by building houses, trading houses, and fortresses/Castles. The trick to it, is that you secretly set your three actions for the round before the round, and reveal them one at a time in turn order. Each player starts with three "action wheels" with four actions each, and you rotate them to select an action. So you may not be able to carry out two specific actions, because they are on the same wheel. To alter this a bit, there are a set of alternate wheels with a variety of bonuses for sale. I ended up with six wheels by the end of the game. This is another one I've put off buying for too long.

Next up was Archipelago. A semi coop game with secret game ending conditions and secret scoring options. Well secret in that each player is aware of only those on their one drawn card. This one has some potential, although we believed that it was too easy for one player who essentially drew the "traitor" card. He won if the game's mechanics prevailed. It may have only been so easy for him because we weren't very efficient building our economic engines, but it was not a difficult task for him to take advantage of many opportunities. We decided to try it again, but first we would remove the "traitor" card.

That'll have to do for now, we also played Mundus Novus and Divianre, but those will have to wait.

Really enjoyed Kemet the only chance I got to play it last month and would love to get it, but without a regular gaming group outside of the local meetup it probably wouldn't make it to the table too often as a 2 player. Though, Matthean, if your local store makes it to 40% and has multiple copies, let me know.

Been playing 2 and 3 player T'zolkin a lot lately and am pretty obsessed with it. It's my first true worker placement and it just works really well.

Half way through Sherlock Holmes consulting detective I think. If my first play through is any indication I think its a good thing I am not a detective lol

90 minutes left on galaxy defenders!

Galaxy Defenders - Co-op Sci-Fi Miniature Board Game by Ares Games &mdash; Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1402889231/galaxy-defenders-co-op-sci-fi-miniature-board-game)

If you do purchase, can you within 2 hours from joining - send a message (using the "Contact" button below their logo in the sidebar), including ONLY the words: "Agency, I was Recruited by "Daniel D."

We both get free figures that way

$90 is too high of a price point though. I paid like $65 + shipping for Eclipse. Yes, I know I'm missing out on rewards. I'm OK with that.

If retail is $90, game will sell for $60-65

I got in at early bird rookie agent $75

Game day tomorrow. I set up Attack! and the expansion. Played through a round with 6 players. Looks like it will be a fun game. I had fum, but it was hard on me playing all six armies.
Looks like the early strategy is getting the neutral minors and quickly. That gets you economic cards. Which is a necessity.
Tried to play all the rules. Need to do a naval battle.
Technology is a double edged sword. I spent 30 PPs to get the roll to 6. Got the tech, but it was secret service, which I wasnt all that impressed with.
The trade routes are powerful. I think throwing them out for bids when you are near the end of the rotation is the best strategy, esp. if others are building armies.

A few thoughts from my dry run.

Looks like Manhattan Projest will get a play. And depending on time, Im hoping Dominant Species hits the table. But that is doubtful. Tammany Hall will be on the agenda id DS doesnt make it.

Attack didnt make it to the table. :( Too much coming and going. Class, church caused a couple to leave early. One came late as he was teaching Summer school. Next time.

We started off with Cards Against Humanity. Waiting for the 5th to show. Good times again. I didnt win but was close.

Next was Tammany Hall, while waiting for the 6th to show. This was a great game. Very tense and back and forth. I made a big mistake in the 3rd election because of poor addition. Bid one less then needed, so we tied and I lost control of ward one. I ended up 2nd as I couldnt win Mayor the last election.

Then we played Smash Up. I was Steam Punk Dinosaurs. This was my first game. It was okay. But very luck driven. Based on what cards you drew. The guy that was Zombie Ghosts won pretty easily.

Last game was Manhattan Project. Also, my first time playing. There was a lot of things going on. It could get brutal. Lots of decisions. I was 6 points away from winning. I had a couple big Uranium bombs waiting for the uranium. But the guy on my left was able to build to Uranium bombs to win. I did detonate the first plutonium bomb. So I considered that a victory.

All in all a good time. Got to play new games that i didnt buy. Hooray. But I was disappointed that Attack! didnt make it. We plan on getting together after my vacation and playing Attack!

Finally went through Rick Royal's walkthrough for Mage Knight and took notes. It helped clean up some stuff on set up, but figuring out what tiles to use still wasn't 100% clear. I'm hellbent to get it played tomorrow so I can start playing it more often and move onto other stuff as well.

Looking to purchase King of Tokyo (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/70323/king-of-tokyo) but was wondering how does it play with two players? Watching some videos it looks like it may be pretty stale with only two players.

I would not play it with two players

I forgot to mention that we had a new guy play this last time. He hasnt played these types of games. Risk was the extent of his gaming experience. He fell in love. He cant wait for the next game day already.

I would not play it with two players

Yeah, not a great two player game.

The only way for KoT to be decent with two is have players use multiple monsters. You would need to change the scoring for being in Tokyo at the beginning of your turn to 1 if you were just using one monsters. Again, I don't think it is that great with two since you need more players for the press your luck factor. I'm rather certain there will be a team expansion which might make two-player games promising. A quick beat 'em up for two would be BattleCON. The base game gives you 18 different characters and the new forthcoming expansion/base gives you 30. There's tons of replay in the original game though.

Yeah - that's what I figured... bummer

How about any thought on Mice and Mystics?

If two players, you need to control more than one mouse, but that would be about the only downside. I think I need to start playing the game solo since I'm ahead in learning games compared to what gets played at my game groups. I could easily bring 5 games that would be new to the group before learning anything new.

Played a couple games of Suburbia. I won the first game in part because my secret goal earned 20 points versus the other player's 10. The follow up game was defined by the goals and the first player who grabbed the lake resort tile that gives your lakes twice the cash benefit and there was the goal for a player who had the most lakes. I tried keeping up with lakes, but I decided it was hurting me too much so I just tried to crank out enough population to counter losing out on the most lakes bonus. I was nearly screwed on money and rep for the whole game and even ended with -2 money and -1 for rep in terms of end of round bonuses. I think there was 5 different times I ended up being 1 money away from buying what I wanted with even many of them were consecutive rounds. We still ended up tied until money was counted when I got beat due to her lake strategy. There is a little randomness going on, but overall it is a very good game. It's going to be in my own Top 10 for a bit.

Suburbia's been our group's favorite for a couple of months now.

I wish I could find a copy for home. Seems like it would be a decent two-player game.

Reprint is in June I think. Getting the 2nd print run will be better since there were definite component issues during the first one.

I think I bought Mage Knight in April 2012. I finally got it played. I remember when hearing about it and going, "This could be like the best thing ever." I was not disappointed. It will take some more plays with even just the same hero but there is little reason to believe this will not take over as my favorite game.

Impromptu game night. Unintended but we played three Knizia games that I had never played.

Zombie Dice: The only game that wasn't done by Knizia. Wildly random in it's dice rolling as the other two players had runs of 8 brains as where my best I think was 4+ but it was on my final turn trying to take out the person who had the needed 13 brains while me being shot three as well, so I actually didn't even keep those brains. The only decision you really have is do you stop rolling or not.

Sushizock im Gockelwok: Another dice based game where you are trying to collect an even number of sushi(plus points) and bones(negative points) tiles. Any extra sushi tiles aren't scored and extra bone tiles are. Players can steal either by rolling 3+ red or blue chopsticks. 4+ of either lefts you steal from anywhere in other players stack. Scores were fairly close and it is a decent filler. It is rated 6.51 on the geek and that sounds about right.

Indigo: The is a light filler like abstract. There are three different colored gems. They score based on their rarity. If two gems collide, they are both destroyed. Players are given spots on the edges of the board showing where they want the gems to go in order for them to score. Depending on the players, you might have an area all by yourself to score and/or you might have an area where you share it with another player so you both score. You place one tile on your turn and then draw one, so there is the aspect of being at the mercy of the random draw. A variant does allow for drawing more than one tile, and I might lean on playing that way instead. Tiles are essentially like the tiles in Tsuro.

Outside of the random draw issue, keeping track of scoring can be difficult since captured gems are hidden and the co-op scoring aspect makes it feel like everybody is scoring the same amount. This does actually keep the scoring rather close though. Our game ended with two people tied for first, and I was one behind. Most gems wins the tie breaker. The single blue gem scoring 5 points is huge with the other gems being worth 1 and 3 points. Once I saw the path the blue gem was going to take, I knew it was going to be really difficult to get it into my area. I think during only one turn was it even remotely going my way, but the two other players made sure it didn't stay that way. I can see people saying this is a classic Knizia game where the subtle aspects are what stand out or saying it is a little too random for them. I think as a filler abstract is works rather well.

Lord of the Rings: This is the old co-op. Here's the thing, In the Year of the Dragon is infamously known for how brutal it can be for players to play since 10 of the 12 rounds something bad happens, and players feel like they are just trying to survive more than anything. In that game, at least all of the bad things are laid out for players to see. In Lord of the Rings, bad stuff is more on the random draw side although having to roll the die is almost always bad as where grabbing titles you have a decent shot at getting something good. We were terrible at drawing tiles. I think one player drew four straight even tiles. Still, we made it to the final lower board where the main action takes place as the upper board mostly tracks your journey throughout the game. The lower boards recreate players doing through a specific area. I think we fell about 2/3 of the way towards the final needed spot.

I need more plays of a number of co-ops to really say where it ranks, but I did enjoy it, and I think it is one of the better co-ops I have played. You just have to know going in that the game repeatedly beats you down and early on you feel like things as going easy, but slowly the attrition kicks in, and you find yourself scraping by more and more desperately hoping for a good tile draw and avoiding a die roll where one side is good and 5 are various levels of bad.

"To Hell and back again."

Indeed.

Love game night.
I have one planned for Thursday. We are planning a 10:30 am to 7 pm session. Attack! is on the agenda. I just purchased the deluxe enpansion and it is supposed to arrive via mail on Wednesday. Im crossing my fingers.

I figure the game will take 5 hours. There are 5 of us playing and none of us have played it before.

After that maybe a game of Tammany Hall. Then we see how time we have left.

I went to one game store and picked up a container like the Pro Deck things for Mage Knight cards, but it was another brand. They didn't have another like the one I had bought, so I hit up another store, and they didn't carry the brand at all. I found them online, and they have them in different colors. With Mage Knight and Defenders of the Realm, I figure I'll eventually get one of each.

When to game day at one of the stores, but it was mostly a Dominion tournament and Heroclix, so I shopped and watched mostly. I did pick up the Pathfinder Beginner's Box for 50% off so I was way pumped about that.

I think I have it figured out what stores I will use for what in terms of games I will play at them based on the type of player that shows up there. After mass research and debate about LCGs, I think I might simply infiltrate the one store with my Summoner Wars.

This week is my regular game night and my friend is coming out Wednesday for an extended weekend of Mage Knight playing and who knows what else. Fortune and Glory maybe if he brings it, but the idea is to OD on Mage Knight.

Less than 36 hours less for Euphoria (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jameystegmaier/euphoria-build-a-better-dystopia), a really fun worker placement game that I got to play a print and play copy of over the weekend. This is probably the best run board game KS I've seen: the designer is amazingly receptive to everyone and does a great job interacting with the backers. Also, the strech goals are going to make the components amazing

Agricola is out on iOS.

Agricola is out on iOS.

Very nice! Thanks!

Oh that might be one that's fun to play electronically--no fiddling with lots of boards and pieces, and you can just pick up and play.

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Agricola is out on iOS.

Played this until midnight last night - paying for it this morning :banghead:

So got a better run at Descent (2nd Edition) in today, and started the campaign for real. We played the starter quest "First Blood" and the first half of "Fat Goblin". I'm running as the Overlord (basically the Dungeon Master), and I have four friends playing as the adventurers. The team they are running:

Grisban the Thirsty (Fighter)
Leoric of the Book (Mage)
Widow Tarha (Mage)
Ashrian (Healer)

The first battle (First Blood) was a joke, as the heroes won it on turn two. They got an extremely lucky first turn, taking out my basic Ettin and stunning 3 of my 5 Goblin Archers. The berserking dwarf then took Mauler down in one turn to end the quest.

The first encounter of Fat Goblin was much more balanced. My goal was to make off with four bundles of grain, while the heroes were trying to secure the same four bundles into storage before I could get them. I quickly managed to snag one of the bundles of grain, but Ashrian's stun effects halted me in my tracks (literally). Though he managed to lock up my Goblin Archers for a couple of turns, I was able to get off a mind control spell and move him the hell away from my archers so they could start getting out of Dodge with the grain in tow. I got a second bundle of grain out the door and had a third most of the way there when my luck broke. Widow Tarha sprinted over and killed two of my goblins in one turn, stealing the grain in the process. Though I was able to kill Tarha before she could get the grain stored away, the heroes used some great teamwork to daisy chain the bundle (that had been mostly stolen) all the way back to the storehouse. I managed to kill Tarha, Grisban and Ashrian several times, but Leoric finally secured the last two bundles of grain. We'll be firing up the second half of the encounter in our next session.

Overall, I like the game. Positives:
-Although the rules are a little involved, they're not too difficult to understand.
-The heroes really have to use teamwork to get through the challenges, and the Overlord has to use everything in his arsenal to keep the heroes off his back. There were several points during that second quest where one side or the other seemed to be on the verge of a crushing victory. A well played card or a clever move swung the momentum back each time.

The negatives:
-Looooong setup time. There are a ton of little pieces, and finding which map segment goes where can be a pain. Although each map segment is marked, there are quite a few of them in the box, and several of them are very similarly shaped.
-Zero exploration. For a dungeon crawler, the fact that the entire map is visible and that every player has perfect knowledge of the whole situation is a little...off.
-Line of sight is...pretty easy to game. You draw lines from any corner of your square to any corner of their square. As long as you can draw a line that doesn't go through something, you have line of sight. Very rarely will you find that you don't have an option to get to someone with line of sight.

Still need more time before I come up with a definitive opinion on it, but so far so good.

Vince - I'm looking to purchase Decent (2nd edition) with it's expansion. Has it held up for your group to bring it to the table again? How would it play with two players (I'm assuming the Hero player would have 2 or 3 heroes he would control?)

5 of us got together yesterday and Attack! Deluxe Expansion finally hit the table. I had been wanting to play this game for awhile. I had only purchased Attack! and the expansion. I really wanted the Deluxe expansion and was able to find it at BGG. It came in the mail Wednesday, just in time for game day.
After going over the rules and setting up, we started playing the game around 12:30. It was everyones first game. So we had to reference the rules a lot. We made a couple errors. that we fixed as we played.
We decided to play Total War. This is the 12 round game. You get 3 or 4 actions a round.
Well, we made it to round 5 by about 6 pm. Yes it took us almost 6 hours to play 5 of the 12 rounds.
We had to quit at that point. One guy had to leave.

I really liked this game. I started out playing Risk and A&A and the other big box games of the late 80s (Fortress America, Shogun, Supremacy). So this game was right up my alley. I like the battle dice. I like the neutral minors and how you can capture them through negotiation or battle. And the fact that the neutral minors become more powerful as the game rounds proceed is very nice.
The action cards are cool also. Really adds a lot to the game.
Having only 3 or 4 actions per round makes for some interesting decisions. And I like to get the 4th action you have to burn oil (Oile certificates or an oil marker, expensive). Very good.
The tech tree is a great addition to the game. It makes for some difficult decisions. Sacrificing units for a tech is a good idea.

This is a really fun game. And I cant wait to play again. I imagine it will go faster next time (I hope). Everyone in our group enjoyed it.

Vince - I'm looking to purchase Decent (2nd edition) with it's expansion. Has it held up for your group to bring it to the table again? How would it play with two players (I'm assuming the Hero player would have 2 or 3 heroes he would control?)

So we started a campaign with the full 4 heroes, and we really enjoyed it. We played the two already mentioned quests on our first shot, and the second time we got it to the table finished off the second half of the Fat Goblin quest. In it, I (as the Overlord) had to take prisoners - simple cardboard markers turned upside-down - and carry them via goblins to my main 'boss' goblin. Once they're nearby, the boss can interrogate them - if he passes the skill check, I can flip the token over and determine whether or not the prisoner is my target prisoner. Meanwhile, I as the overlord did not get any reinforcements this quest, so anything the heroes killed stayed dead. I had some goblins, spiders and was allowed to choose another monster type from a collection of possibilities. I (of course) chose a dragon. The dragon was actually weak as hell - despite getting off a nice breath attack that hit two of the four heroes, it went down in short order. I was able to use the spiders and a couple of goblins to slow down the heroes just enough, however, and after identifying the correct prisoner on my second attempt I was able to retreat my boss goblin and win the day!

Well, all but one of us enjoyed it. One of the guys playing a hero decided if we were going to play D&D, why don't we just play D&D? Since he's still a major part of our core gaming group and we don't want to exclude him, Descent hasn't gotten to the table again. We simply haven't had time to get around to it - it'll get more play eventually.

As for scalability, the overlord has a set number of creatures from each group that he gets to place that varies based upon the number of heroes opposing him. Since I was facing a full complement of heroes, I got a full complement of spiders and goblins (I want to say 5 each). With fewer heroes, I would only have had a couple spiders and goblins to throw at them.

I've read a little on the campaign, and it seems that later on in the campaign, once the heroes have leveled a bit and gotten some equipment, they begin to be very difficult to defeat for the Overlord. It also sounds like groups of adventurers who are small (1-2 adventurers) struggle a bit to win early on. If each player controlled multiple heroes to keep a full 4 hero complement, it would probably still play quite balanced.

Played a competitive play for the walkthrough of Mage Knight. I won due to lack wound cards. We played a co-op full game and lost the game while scoring 100 points, which likely isn't too bad. We captured two of the three cities, but the last one we knew we had zero chance of beating so we looked for points elsewhere. We learned a ton, but I got further confirmation of just how bad my friend's AP issues are. I even asked why his brother-in-law never plays games although he shows interest, and my friend's AP issues in epic games is the main reason. I think the full game clocked in around 9 hours. Even if it was a learning game for the the full game, we had played the walkthough 2-3 times for him and 4 times for me. We learned a lot in terms of strategies so we'll be better next time. Hopefully he gets better and better at the rules since there are a large number of them so our playtime gets cut down. The walkthrough is nice, but the full play is a lot better.

Official game night offered another play of King of Tokyo, and I continued me streak of wins as I got the final needed 2 VP before the other player went and won due to VP as well. Played another game of Hanabi, which I have as one of my highest rated games but unfortunately play with people who can't play without giving overly suggestive hints. We played Lords of Waterdeep, which I am 1 point away from being tied or first in. This was rather close for score until the secret scoring happened where the one player pulled away from everybody. I got last. I don't know what I would have done differently. I got screwed over my mandatory quest and such, but I overcame all of it and did what I wanted to.

AP is a killer. That was part of the problem in our game of Attack! And the guy with the worst AP wasnt even there playing.

Ohhh man - my new addiction ;) Just realized there is a pretty nifty trading database on BGG. Any of you guys use this tool to trade games?

This would require me giving up games and right now I hold my games rather dearly. Maybe at some point when I have played through my collection and have 10 or so plays on everything, and I feel the need to finally trim down the collection knowing what ultimately works or doesn't. If I wasn't the lead guy for the game group at my church, I would cut way back. Eventually I'll slim down the collection, but I'm a long ways away.

This would require me giving up games and right now I hold my games rather dearly. Maybe at some point when I have played through my collection and have 10 or so plays on everything, and I feel the need to finally trim down the collection knowing what ultimately works or doesn't. If I wasn't the lead guy for the game group at my church, I would cut way back. Eventually I'll slim down the collection, but I'm a long ways away.

This is me too, minus the "eventually." My mom is a huge pack rat...I managed to be better than she is, but my collections are extremely hard for me to whittle down in any way.

Well, like to trim down and actually trimming down are two different things. :lol: I think it is a case of knowing for me to get all of my games the proper plays I want I need a certain rotation and even now I have more than I need with some others that I would like to add. I already know my friend and I will play Mage Knight easily for the next 10 years, and I would rather keep games like that versus ones that get played once every 1-3 years.

Ohhh man - my new addiction ;) Just realized there is a pretty nifty trading database on BGG. Any of you guys use this tool to trade games?

I've completed 42 trades and sold 100+ games on there through auction. Its a good tool, but increasing shipping costs are hurting the ability to trade unless something fits in a medium flat rate. I frequently looked for local trades when I lived in LA to avoid shipping.

I am waiting to next years Geekway to the West. They do a trade table there. I have several games Im willing to part with.

Didn't find a specific tabletop games thread so I'll just toss this in here.

Started thinking about the roller derby sim Roller Rumble (from Plaay Games) last week, started digging through some old files on a recovered hard drive, found most of the notes & stuff from a project I started a number of years ago but never really finished.

A little searching on the Delphi Forums and I discovered just how long it'd been: last played that in 2004 ... but between what I'd posted on Delphi and what I've found, it seems likely that I might be able to resurrect that campaign project from pretty much where I left off.

A pretty cool advantage to the board/tabletop, no worries about DRM or discontinued server support :)

I have been thinking of trying out Roller Rumble for years. I'm guessing that is your fault, as I'm sure I learned about it here.

Ohhh man - my new addiction ;) Just realized there is a pretty nifty trading database on BGG. Any of you guys use this tool to trade games?

I trade fairly regularly. In fact I just traded Merchant of Venus, the new ffg version for Keltis and its expansion. The game is harder to find in the US than a typical game, and the expansion even more so. My wife loves Lost Cities, and I hate it. So I'm hoping the twists here make the game more palatable for me.

Oh and as far as my trade goes. I decided that I didn't want to give up MoV, so I bought the game new on Amazon and just shipped it to the guy trading me Keltis.

Looking at the images for the expansion to Lords of Waterdeep from Origins and I'm liking what I'm seeing.

Looking at the images for the expansion to Lords of Waterdeep from Origins and I'm liking what I'm seeing.

I have Lords of Waterdeep (not the expansion obviously) shipping to me today. That with Descent and Legendary should keep me busy for a while. I love this hobby but it isn't cheap! :p

Didn't find a specific tabletop games thread so I'll just toss this in here.

Started thinking about the roller derby sim Roller Rumble (from Plaay Games) last week, started digging through some old files on a recovered hard drive, found most of the notes & stuff from a project I started a number of years ago but never really finished.

A little searching on the Delphi Forums and I discovered just how long it'd been: last played that in 2004 ... but between what I'd posted on Delphi and what I've found, it seems likely that I might be able to resurrect that campaign project from pretty much where I left off.

A pretty cool advantage to the board/tabletop, no worries about DRM or discontinued server support :)

:thumbsup:

I've still got my 1993 Strat NBA replay under my bed. I'll finish it one day. Soon.

Waterdeep is a fun game that I'm much more interested in buying now after seeing what the expansion adds. More lords removes some of the obviousness of knowing what bonuses your opponents have and the corruption mechanic seems pretty cool. I got some Amazon giftcards for Father's Day and I'm debating between Waterdeep or Survive.

I have been thinking of trying out Roller Rumble for years. I'm guessing that is your fault, as I'm sure I learned about it here.

If you remember the TV era of roller derby then it's a remarkable game IMO.
For me, it feels more like what's it trying to recreate than any sports game I've come across.

Waterdeep is a fun game that I'm much more interested in buying now after seeing what the expansion adds. More lords removes some of the obviousness of knowing what bonuses your opponents have and the corruption mechanic seems pretty cool. I got some Amazon giftcards for Father's Day and I'm debating between Waterdeep or Survive.

Both have done well at the game night I run, but the edge goes to LoW so far. I think it might be the favorite overall right now. My friend who I played D&D with talked about it quite a bit after his first play. My only complaint is it feels like 85% of game so once the expansion hits, I don't even see playing without it.

Im thinking seriously of taking a walk into the war gaming genre. I am looking for a solo game. And I think Im going to purchase Thunderbolt Apache Leader. I asked for recommendations on BGG and this is the one that seems to be one I could really get into.

As for the Rooler Rumble discovery and the comment about the NBA game under the bed. I have a Statis Pro Baseball season that I started in 1981. I made four 4 team divisions and started playing a 162 game season. I still have the game and the season. I am in game 158. But Im reluctant to finish. I guess I feel a bit of my childhood will end if I finiah the season. I kept stats for all the players on paper. And have them all. I am disappointed in my lack of some stats. But I was young.

Love those old text sims.

And Here is a link to s site with Paydirt and some other old sports games. I havent delved to deep into the site, but they own the rights to the formulas used in the original games. Odd Man Games is what it is called.

HOME PAGE (http://www.oddmangames.com/)

I haven't bought a wargame that is specifically built for solo play, but TAL would likely be the one I would pick. Marco gives a good overview of it.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KdUgpy44jds" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Played the new 2-player version of Le Havre last night. I haven't played the full version, but the person I played against has. We both thought it was dreadful. My complaint was that it seemed rather random, even though there's very little luck element. Her's was that it sucked a lot of the fun out of the original game in order to cut game time. Still, it was a long game for two players (almost two hours, though certainly subsequent plays would get shorter).

The game board for resources was a nice touch, but you either accumulate resources or you don't. I liked that you both had to move resources to the right and up to do certain things, but that tied you into specific strategies. You can "use" your opponent's buildings. I think that was added in late so that it wouldn't be a completely inter-actless game that depended solely on who got to go first in each round. But the rent seems too low for using them, and it's too powerful early on and not powerful enough later.

My guess is if you go first, you play a money strategy and if you go second in round one, you play a resource strategy. Going first is very important when the powerful buildings for your strategy become available.

In all, I think it's a complete waste of money - wish I had played it elsewhere before buying. Though my friends swears I'll like the full game of Le Havre if we can move our gaming sessions to a period when we can play for an entire day.

So I sat down and started into TAL. I punched it. Looked at it. Then I opened the rule book. The rulebook is pretty easy to understand and straight forward. It took me some time to get through the set up section. I quit there. It took some time to see what the rulebook was saying about the units and cards. That was enough for a night.
Im going back tomorrow and am going to set up a game then read through the rules as I play. That is the best way for me to learn a game. So tomorrow I will really get into it and try and play a scenario.

This game looks really cool. I cant wait to learn how to play. And really start to play.

Had a buddy come over to play Descent (2nd edition / with expansion) We played the intro lvl and the 1 of 2 encounter of Fat Goblin. He (Heroes) beat me (Overlord) pretty handily in the intro and I stole 3 of 4 bunches of "food" in the 1st half of Fat Goblin. We both loved it and I am sure it will be the go to game for some time!

Had a buddy come over to play Descent (2nd edition / with expansion) We played the intro lvl and the 1 of 2 encounter of Fat Goblin. He (Heroes) beat me (Overlord) pretty handily in the intro and I stole 3 of 4 bunches of "food" in the 1st half of Fat Goblin. We both loved it and I am sure it will be the go to game for some time!

Glad to hear you enjoyed it :) The intro mission is laughably easy for the heroes, interested to hear how the second half of Fat Goblin plays out.

Played the new 2-player version of Le Havre last night. I haven't played the full version, but the person I played against has. We both thought it was dreadful. My complaint was that it seemed rather random, even though there's very little luck element. Her's was that it sucked a lot of the fun out of the original game in order to cut game time. Still, it was a long game for two players (almost two hours, though certainly subsequent plays would get shorter).

The game board for resources was a nice touch, but you either accumulate resources or you don't. I liked that you both had to move resources to the right and up to do certain things, but that tied you into specific strategies. You can "use" your opponent's buildings. I think that was added in late so that it wouldn't be a completely inter-actless game that depended solely on who got to go first in each round. But the rent seems too low for using them, and it's too powerful early on and not powerful enough later.

My guess is if you go first, you play a money strategy and if you go second in round one, you play a resource strategy. Going first is very important when the powerful buildings for your strategy become available.

In all, I think it's a complete waste of money - wish I had played it elsewhere before buying. Though my friends swears I'll like the full game of Le Havre if we can move our gaming sessions to a period when we can play for an entire day.

LeHavre is one of my favorite games, but I'll admit that I didn't really enjoy my first two plays. I only stuck with it because I could see the potential of building a successful economic engine. In my third outing, late in the game, something clicked and I put together a late run using a shipping strategy. If one of my opponents hadn't come across an "engine" of his own, my late run would have been enough.

As for your feeling that starting position can lock you into a strategy, I'll disagree. Starting position can queue you up for initial plays like, taking the franc tile and then buying the "8" construction yard or buying the Market place on your first turn. There are a few quick combos that starting position impacts, this is mitigated by the fact that the order of the goods tiles is random and hidden during the first pass across the board.

Your strategy is more of a mid-game decision, once you've established some sort of a foundation based on your early selections. The two basic strategies are building buildings and shipping goods. You can also be successful with a hybrid approach, and these are often influenced by the "special buildings" cards. I've seen a guy make a crazy combo using the zoo that allowed him to nearly run away with the game. We had to strategically waste one or two of our own actions to slow him down.

Oh on the building "rents" being too low...If you think those rents are low, you have too much food =). Go into debt and invest your actions into something else.

Again, the long game is much more satisfying than the short game, and I found it difficult and head ache inducing my first few times out. However once it clicked, it really worked well for me.

So I'll suggest you give it a couple more tries before you write it off. What's the worst that can happen, but a couple of headaches?

If you remember the TV era of roller derby then it's a remarkable game IMO.
For me, it feels more like what's it trying to recreate than any sports game I've come across.

Knock that off! You aren't helping me hold off. My wife has started talking about curbing my game buying habits again already. I'm trying really hard not to give her any fuel for that particular fire.

That said...What sets of players are you using? The historic ones or the fictional sets? In most games, I prefer the fictional route. However, I don't really have any memories of the players themselves from back in the day. I just remember watching, and having fun rooting for random teams.

Had 7 people tonight, so we were able to play our first ever full-table game of 7 Wonders. The game doesn't play much different with 7 than with 5 or 6, but it was still a fun game. The winner took it with a balanced approach, slight emphasis on military and science. The player who focused entirely on science was able to get 25 points out of green cards, but only ended up in 4th place. I was the runner up with an ignore science approach, balanced military with a slight emphasis on blue victory cards. Still haven't played it enough to identify strong base strategies, but it appears the game is well balanced enough that you're going to want to be flexible based upon your neighbors' strategies. When the player on my right decided not to play ANY resource cards in the entire first age, I had to switch things up because I couldn't rely on him to produce anything. Almost pulled it out...but came up 5 points short (58-53).

Also got a 6-player game of Game of Thrones in tonight, first in a while (we're usually 5 players). It's incredible how much more balanced the game is with a full complement.

I have remarkably bad luck rolling dice, and for the last 4 times we've played Game of Thrones, I get to choose my house last. Which means I've been Greyjoy 4 times in a row (house preference tends to lean toward Baratheon/Lannister/Tyrell as the top choices). Finally notched my first win this evening despite playing the entire first half of the game without bidding on the influence tracks - so I had no 'Starred' options for my planning phase for half the game. Made nice with the Starks early, we decided to split the Neck - he'd go down the eastern half toward the Eyrie, I'd stick in Lannister's craw around the twins. Caught a break and wiped out the entire Lannister fleet, secured Lannisport and Riverrun, then turned on Stark and marched on Winterfell to complete the sweep on the second to last turn.

I've come around on House Greyjoy strategy wise - their house cards are incredibly strong, and if you can stay afloat (groan) until it's time to bid on the influence tracks (and you've been hoarding power tokens), then you end up a very strong competitor. Focus early musters on ships, snag Seagaurd and take control of Ironman's Bay and you have a strong starting position.

Game of Thrones is easily the house favorite right now, with Power Grid and Eclipse getting the most table time after GoT.

I have a game set up for today. Starts in about an hour. Looks like only 4 of us today. But that means Empires of the Void is going to hit the table first. Hopefully.
Not sure what else will hit the table. Maybe Dominant Species as well. But learning one new game may be all we can do.

Great day of gaming. We played Empires of the Void and Tammany Hall.
It was everyone 1st game of EotV. That is an outstanding game. I like it more than Eclipse. Not as deep as Eclipse but that's what i liked. Good techs. Great planet bonuses. Nice variety of ships. Love the event and diplomacy cards. Our group really liked this game. I do wish there was a little more variety on the board to mix up planets and their bonuses.

Tammany was fun as usual. I was leading until the last election. I got teamed up on and that killed me. Finished 2nd. This is a group favorite.

Overall a very good day of gaming.

I know some on BGG say they like EotV better, but I've never played it so I'm uncertain how much I would like it, or if I would ever want to get it. It costs too much to do a blind buy on it.

I bought it blind. And Im glad I did. It is a 4 player game. It isnt euro like Eclipse.
I learned a lot when I played. I didnt research some of the techs I should have. I didnt move as much as I ahould have. Left ships anchored to my planets. It doesnt take as long as Eclipse, though. And you cant really turtle. If there is an aggressive player or 2, turtling will really not help at all.

But you are probably right about playing before buying. But I will be trading my copy of Eclipse. This scratches my Sci-fi gaming itch. In fact I was thinking of checking out Hegemonic when it comes out. But I doubt I will be looking at that now.

I researched it again. It's from Game Salute so you buy it from them, Amazon, or a LFGS who has partnered with GS, and there's no real discount so it's $60, which is on the high side. I looked up reviews in the 6-7 range and the rules are suppose to be horrendous with an updated rule set already out. They even changed the number of actions you get on a turn. Add in other add-ons post production and people are saying it isn't really a finished game. There's an expansion being worked on that's taking extra long to get done, but it might be worth a revisit after it is. My LFGS has a copy, but I don't recall a demo copy being an option.

I bought it from an auction on BGG for $40. The rules are not too bad. There were a lot of clarifications in my edition in the rule book. As for more actions, I could see that. 3 is almost not enough. At the end game. I had a powerful fleet that were not close enough to do anything.
But then again, you have to really plan what to do with your 3 actions.
The one thing I didnt like was the one ship that could move 6 spaces. It could only be gotten from taking a planet. It was a ship that was almost too powerful for only one person to have.
But, I will re-iterate, I like it a lot more then Eclipse.

It does offer a lot of replay value. There are about 10 different races. And 24 (I believe) event cards. And you only use 9 in a game.

Tammany was fun as usual. I was leading until the last election. I got teamed up on and that killed me. Finished 2nd. This is a group favorite.

It became an instant favorite with my group too, highly recommend it.

There's a mini expansion to Keyflower on Kickstarter for $5. If you don't own the game, you can get both for $39. Keyflower normally sells for $50. The KS offers free shipping as well.

Have you played key flower?

It's about the only thing I haven't done. I watched Rahdo's Run Through, which is nearly 47 minutes of gameplay and review. I bought it, read the rules, and took it to game night, but we decided to play something else. I'll likely do a solo multiplayer play of it before I take it again just to make sure I have everything further down and get a better feel for it. It has moved up to #106 on BGG. I have played Tzolk'in and to me this seems more interesting.

Has anyone played Forbidden Desert yet? If so, is it worth getting if you already have Forbidden Island?

I just checked, and it looks like it only officially came out in Europe unless there were some copies at Origins. The US keeps getting pushed back and now is in July. CSI even list it at September.

I started to play Dominion online. I still am terrible at this game, and it doesn't click for me like other games. Deck builders as a whole haven't really either for me. It's interesting, I think Mage Knight with its mass of rules has easier decisions than Dominion does even though it has like four pages of rules. I know one person at least will argue that Dominion or other deck builders avoid the issue of a bad draw compared to CCGs or other card games, but I simply don't see how. The fact that you have a bad hand one turn simply means you have a better hand coming in any type of card game. I'll still give it an 8, but move it lower in the mass of games I gave the same rating to.

I just checked, and it looks like it only officially came out in Europe unless there were some copies at Origins. The US keeps getting pushed back and now is in July. CSI even list it at September.

I started to play Dominion online. I still am terrible at this game, and it doesn't click for me like other games. Deck builders as a whole haven't really either for me. It's interesting, I think Mage Knight with its mass of rules has easier decisions than Dominion does even though it has like four pages of rules. I know one person at least will argue that Dominion or other deck builders avoid the issue of a bad draw compared to CCGs or other card games, but I simply don't see how. The fact that you have a bad hand one turn simply means you have a better hand coming in any type of card game. I'll still give it an 8, but move it lower in the mass of games I gave the same rating to.

The idea is that you choose every card that goes into your deck, outside the starter cards. And there are usually mechanisms in place to remove cards, so you can get rid of those if you don't like them. Certainly there are less beneficial hands, but with a well-built deck, you can always have a good play to make.

I've played dominion enough to know the better player usually wins, especially sine that is not me

Im not a fan of Dominion. But I just dont like deck building. And I agree with Danny.

I've played enough Puerto Rico to know the guy who is sitting to the left of the worst player usually wins.

The idea is that you choose every card that goes into your deck, outside the starter cards. And there are usually mechanisms in place to remove cards, so you can get rid of those if you don't like them. Certainly there are less beneficial hands, but with a well-built deck, you can always have a good play to make.

But Dominion doesn't always add ways to trash cards. Even if there are ways to trash cards, you come back to the same basics. Everybody starts with the same deck and adds from the same cards. All players are still at the mercy of the card draw.

Started to look through the Race for the Galaxy rulebook, and I'm still amazed somebody decided to design cards with I-V on them versus the words of what the actions actually are.

It became an instant favorite with my group too, highly recommend it.


Tammany hall totally flopped with my group the first time out. No body willing to deal or negotiate, and a couple of guys who didn't like from the outset. Mostly declaring that the leaders got huge rewards making it harder for the pack to catch up.

I liked it myself,but I don't think it is the sure fire hit I thought it was going to be.

Started to look through the Race for the Galaxy rulebook, and I'm still amazed somebody decided to design cards with I-V on them versus the words of what the actions actually are.

Your amazement is only beginning. I love Race for the Galaxy and it's one of the games we play the most. But the guy who designed it clearly does not think like other human beings. The amount of symbols he crams into the cards, in what he clearly thinks is an intuitive fashion, is mindboggling. It took an entire game just to crack the code the first time we played.

Took down Iron Legacy over the weekend, in a 4 person game of Sentinels.

And ya know, we've tried Seven Wonders multiple times now, and I just can't get into it. I *want* to like the game, but it just doesn't click with me.

Probably too high a price point for many here but I sold my reaper bones for $250 so I am going in at $280 for Cthulhu wars which seems super awesome to me!

Cthulhu Wars by Sandy Petersen &mdash; Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1816687860/cthulhu-wars)

I've played enough Puerto Rico to know the guy who is sitting to the left of the worst player usually wins.

Assuming players of equal ability. A superior player can compensate, but it certainly can throw a wrench in things.

I've found if you take PRE-emotive captains or sub-optimal craftsmanship can alleviate this, since most new players craft and captain at the wrong times. At least if you are controlling when, you can deny the player sitting to the left of the weak player reaping the full fruits of sitting in the advantageous position.

Took down Iron Legacy over the weekend, in a 4 person game of Sentinels.

And ya know, we've tried Seven Wonders multiple times now, and I just can't get into it. I *want* to like the game, but it just doesn't click with me.

Taht's too bad, Seven Wonders seems the most wildly popular game of the ones we have. My biggest game geek friend loves it, but it also works with newbies and kids.

7 Wonders didn't feel as gateway as I had assumed it was meant to be. I messed up on the military aspect on my first play, or I would have done at least decent, but it felt like I didn't know what just happened either. I would like to get some more plays of it though. My intro to it was rather brief so I did what I could.

My biggest problem with it I think is it's so reliant on the people to your side - you're royally fucked if your neighbors can't produce what you need (also if your neighbors don't need anything you have, thus making earning money hard as hell), and it's nigh impossible to dig yourself out of it if you have the wrong leaders. This can cause a chain reaction too, with one side of the table being completely screwed.

I checked into the Empire of the Void issues on BGG. There is a free PnP expansion. I am going to print it tonight. And there is a new rule book that I will print as well. The expansion adds 4 new races and some new Techs. So I think it will make the game even better then it already is.

7 Wonders didn't feel as gateway as I had assumed it was meant to be. I messed up on the military aspect on my first play, or I would have done at least decent, but it felt like I didn't know what just happened either. I would like to get some more plays of it though. My intro to it was rather brief so I did what I could.

I've found it can be bad if there's one new person with experienced players. I was playing in a 4 person game where 3 of us had a lot of games played and it was the first for the other. The new guy built tons of brown resources resources despite me trying to hint at him he might want to do otherwise without trying to sound like a dick. The result was me and the other person next to him didn't have to build any and just used markets to buy cheap off of him and the person sitting across the table wound up not having enough resources to build anything. The two people sitting next to the new player had the two highest scores we've ever had while the other two had two of the lowest.

4 of us are getting together for another game of Empires of the Void. I got the free PnP expansion. It does change the game and does add to it. Should be an even better game.
Will be a short session. One game of EotV and then possible another depending on time.
I will report back on how the expansion addd tot he game.

7 Wonders definitely takes a couple game sto get an idea of how to score, what to emphasize. What I love is I don't feel ilke there's only one right way to play, so there's more replay value. Heck my son on his first game (he was 9) basically only played Science cards and ended up with a decent score, some ridiculous value for science and almost nothing else.

Thought the Board gamers here would like this-a top 10 (actually top 10's from 3 people) list of Essential Games every gamer should own-done by Tom Vesel and thedicetower gang.

Top Ten Essential Games EVERY Gamer Should Own - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMqgifAkR_Y)

I watched that earlier today. The one game that really jumped out at me was Jamaica. That may be my next purchase. I think my family would like that.

I bought a 1966 copy of Acquire from a BGG auction last year, so I finally broke that open to play a solo four-player game since I wanted something easy to pick up and play. I'll finish the game tomorrow, but it is a fascinating little game.

Thought the Board gamers here would like this-a top 10 (actually top 10's from 3 people) list of Essential Games every gamer should own-done by Tom Vesel and thedicetower gang.

Top Ten Essential Games EVERY Gamer Should Own - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMqgifAkR_Y)

Thanks for the link. Went out and bought Pandemic and played two games with the family. Love it!

Pandemic is pretty fun, but our group agrees with Jim (Solecismic)'s review: eventually, it feels like you're playing Clock Solitaire. If the outbreak cards are in the wrong place, you lose no matter what you do. If they're not, you're probably going to win.

I still enjoy it, but it doesn't get too much table time at our place.

Thanks for the link. Went out and bought Pandemic and played two games with the family. Love it!

Glad I could provide some fun for the family :)

I'm actually surprised Pandemic wasn't on more of their lists, but for some reason the Dice Tower guys love Shadows over Camelot.

Thought the Board gamers here would like this-a top 10 (actually top 10's from 3 people) list of Essential Games every gamer should own-done by Tom Vesel and thedicetower gang.

Top Ten Essential Games EVERY Gamer Should Own - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMqgifAkR_Y)


Is there somewhere that lists what their top 10 was without having to watch the video?

Sam:
10. Gemblo
9. Kahuna
8. Say Anything
7. Small World
6. Jamaica
5. Summoner Wars
4. King of Tokyo
3. Stone Age
2. Shadows over Camelot
1. Ticket to Ride

Zee:
10. Telestrations
9. Biblios
8. TZAAR
7. Nexus Opus
6. Werewolf
5. Jamaica
4. Shadows over Camelot
3. Factory Fun
2. King of Tokyo
1. Pillars of Earth

Tom:
10. Pillars of the Earth
9. Summoner Wars
8. Dominion
7. The Resitence
6. Lost Cities
5. Wits and Wagers
4. King of Tokyo
3. No Thanks!
2. Tickect to Ride
1. Pandemic

Thanks!

I bought a 1966 copy of Acquire from a BGG auction last year, so I finally broke that open to play a solo four-player game since I wanted something easy to pick up and play. I'll finish the game tomorrow, but it is a fascinating little game.

Acquire is a great game that needs more play. It definitely needs multiple plays to get strategies down, but it really opens up with additional plays. It also scales well.

Sam:
10. Gemblo
9. Kahuna
8. Say Anything
7. Small World
6. Jamaica
5. Summoner Wars
4. King of Tokyo
3. Stone Age
2. Shadows over Camelot
1. Ticket to Ride

Zee:
10. Telestrations
9. Biblios
8. TZAAR
7. Nexus Opus
6. Werewolf
5. Jamaica
4. Shadows over Camelot
3. Factory Fun
2. King of Tokyo
1. Pillars of Earth

Tom:
10. Pillars of the Earth
9. Summoner Wars
8. Dominion
7. The Resitence
6. Lost Cities
5. Wits and Wagers
4. King of Tokyo
3. No Thanks!
2. Tickect to Ride
1. Pandemic

We should do our own lists.

Is there somewhere that lists what their top 10 was without having to watch the video?

They list them at the end of the video. :)

Acquire is a great game that needs more play. It definitely needs multiple plays to get strategies down, but it really opens up with additional plays. It also scales well.

I played Acquire twice as a kid (about 13 years old) and remember really enjoying it. I was playing with a group who was very familiar with the game, so I had a hard go of it, but I still enjoyed myself. Been meaning to pick it up for my own collection and have never gotten around to it.

We should do our own lists.

I love lists :)

Honorable mention: Agricola, Lords of Waterdeep, Carcassone, Puerto Rico, Balloon Cup, The Resistance, Arkham Horror, Small World.

1. Eclipse
2. Game of Thrones the Board Game (2nd Edition)
3. Dominion
4. King of Tokyo
5. Power Grid
6. 7 Wonders
7. Ticket to Ride
8. Brass
9. Risk: Legacy
10. Settlers of Catan

Problem is - I haven't even played 10 games since starting this hobby ;)

Honorable mention: Agricola, Lords of Waterdeep, Carcassone, Puerto Rico, Balloon Cup, The Resistance, Arkham Horror, Small World.

1. Eclipse
2. Game of Thrones the Board Game (2nd Edition)
3. Dominion
4. King of Tokyo
5. Power Grid
6. 7 Wonders
7. Ticket to Ride
8. Brass
9. Risk: Legacy
10. Settlers of Catan

I would sub in some of the honorable mentions and Cosmic Encounter, but your list is already better than any of the Dice Tower lists. I think my issue is I would need to create a second account so I could list 11-20 as well. :lol:

Here's mine, not my favorites, but ones everyone should have:

1). Settlers of Catan
2). Ticket to Ride
3). Cosmic Encounter
4). Modern Art
5). Puerto Rico
6). Tigris & Euphrates
7). Formula De
8). Summoner Wars
9). El Grande
10). Power Grid

El Grande should be 6ish, but otherwise this is my list. My top 10 favorite games is different.

If you guys have some time to kill, there's a podcast on games and game design that I really enjoy. Bill Abner's been on it and the guys that run it are pretty interesting and have strong topics:

http://thegamedesignroundtable.com/

You can find it on iTunes and it's free to download. They deal a lot with both tabletop and digital games. They also focus a lot on the design process and interview some pretty interesting and influential board game designers. Just an FYI

Game day turned inot a 5 player affair. So we broke put Attack! again. One guy had to leave at 3 pm. We started at 11 am. In that time frame we got 3 years of play in. We left it set up and plam on finishing it Tuesday. I really enjoy this game. But im an Ameritrash guy.
When the one guy left we played a game of Empires of the Void with the expansion. Much better game. I had to shut it down at 5:30 since I had to ref at 6:15. We got through 6 rounds of this game. EotV is not good for the conservative player, which I tend to be. We have one guy who is aggressive and the game really played into his hands.

Im not sure what my top 10 of essential games would be. But I think EotV would fall in before Eclipse. Eclipse is a much more in depth game and much more time intensive. EotV is lighter but still very strategic and has the same aspects of Eclipse.

Finished up my game of Acquire. Turns where you place a tile in no man's land kind of stink even if you can still buy stock. It would be nice to have more freedom in how you can sell your stock, but those are really my only complaints. The player who won benefited from investing a company that got merged while having the only stock in the company so they go both first and second place bonuses. They used the windfall to buy stock as much as possible and turn that into more stock as companies got bought out and eventually they became the primary shareholder in the biggest company and used that for a $30K kick in the end.

I might put it around a 7.5 or 8. I can see how this could eventually lead to 18XX games, but I'm not there yet. I already own American Rails so I'll go there for my next financial game and see how I like it and what I like about it.

Finished up my game of Acquire. Turns where you place a tile in no man's land kind of stink even if you can still buy stock. It would be nice to have more freedom in how you can sell your stock, but those are really my only complaints. The player who won benefited from investing a company that got merged while having the only stock in the company so they go both first and second place bonuses. They used the windfall to buy stock as much as possible and turn that into more stock as companies got bought out and eventually they became the primary shareholder in the biggest company and used that for a $30K kick in the end.

I might put it around a 7.5 or 8. I can see how this could eventually lead to 18XX games, but I'm not there yet. I already own American Rails so I'll go there for my next financial game and see how I like it and what I like about it.

Never let someone be the only investor in a company, I learned that the hard way. Also, never merge companies if you don't know what will occur in said merger.

The first happened due to it being my first play. The latter kept me thinking towards the end part of the game.

Game night was solid. We played a rather bizarre game of Suburbia. The two people with the highest scores didn't get either of their personal goals. Mine was lowest number of green tiles and another player never played another green besides their initial one. I got the waterfront realty and had the lowest lakes. I built up my income and doubled down on my one starting title to boost rep and tried to survive the number of red bars I was going to burn through. I gave up on my secret goal so I decided to try to build as big of a lead as possible. I actually ended up maxing my rep and money bars on my last turn. I felt like it was my best played game yet so I was disappointed with not getting my secret goal. I've never seen anybody not play a second green when it wasn't related to a goal.

Usually when we play a game, we replay it, or play something else but there has been no real negative commentary on the games we play. This time the new player said it lacked interaction, which I found to be odd. I'm kind of bummed because if this ultimately means they don't want to play it all that often, one of my favorite games is getting pushed to the side.

Second game was Glory to Rome. One player sat out so we did a rematch between I and another player. Due an error on her part for figuring final scoring, we ended up tied. We had enough of the game put away to not go back and continue. The previous game was long due to a couple of reasons so it was a nice change up to play this and have it end at a proper pace.

Final game was Citadels. I had gotten this last year but hadn't played it yet. Probably gonna need to switch out the Assassin, but it was enjoyed by both people so it is going to get some more play. I broke the potential tie in the end by using my Warlord ability to destroy another player's district as my final action. It will help to get some more plays with it, but it is a solid game for something more on the meaty filler side.

Just had a short little game night here...

We're pretty big into co-op games.

We played Sentinels of the Multiverse. We took down Spite.

Then we fired up a game of "Defenders of the Realm" and ended up losing after only taking down one general, the demon, and having the undead general take Monarch City.

Glad to hear you enjoyed it :) The intro mission is laughably easy for the heroes, interested to hear how the second half of Fat Goblin plays out.

We finished up Fat Goblin with the Heros beating me by killing Splieg. I think if I played it a little differently (he was able to block me in a tight passage way and i couldnt get past) and had better rolls I could have easily snuck Splieg out. One of the Heros is a Necro and the raised familiar ability is actually a really strong attacker.

Next my buddy selected Castle Daerion as the next quest. We finished the 1st encounter with me killing 3 of 4 villagers but he did light all four beacons. Looks like the killed villagers become zombies in the next encounter ;)

Overall we both still think this game is great.

On another note.... My wife is now officially a board gamer!!! For the past few nights we have played Lords of the Waterdeep, Forbidden Island, and Ticket to Ride. I'm so glad she finally "broke" and tried some of these games. Much better quality time spent together than watching TV or surfing the web ;)

The Assassin in Citadels is fine, the thief is actually a bigger pain in the rear. The key with both the assassin and thief is they target a role, not a player. Most new players get this wrong. So I can assassinate the king, but I cannot target Frank. Now if Franks happens to select the king...

The Assassin in Citadels is fine, the thief is actually a bigger pain in the rear. The key with both the assassin and thief is they target a role, not a player. Most new players get this wrong. So I can assassinate the king, but I cannot target Frank. Now if Franks happens to select the king...

The thief is hard to pull off though. The role might not be an option and the person who has the role might be broke. The magician can be annoying if the person with the role has no cards. I pulled this off and got 2-3 cards out of it with giving the other player none. The person who played the assassin the most also came in last. Yeah, you randomly prevent somebody from playing their turn, but you also don't get a beneficial power to help yourself either.

Right, the thief is much more powerful in my opinion. The main value of the assassin to me is offing the bishop towards the end game if you need to catch up, since the Bishop is immune to the Warlord.

Has anyone tried Pandemic? Seems fairly highly regarded and looking for a fun game for the wife and I (and maybe my 8 year old as well).

Yep. Pandemic is a fun game. And being cooperative makes it great for your 8 year old. It is tense and sometimes frustrating. But in a fun way.
I enjoy playing Pandemic.

Has anyone tried Pandemic? Seems fairly highly regarded and looking for a fun game for the wife and I (and maybe my 8 year old as well).

I have Pandemic. It's a very solid co-op game.

I would also consider "Defenders of the Realm." The game play and mechanics are, in some ways, very much like Pandemic, but it's set in a fantasy world and instead of being various CDC folks fighting diseases you're various fantasy types fighting different armies. I think, overall, our group prefers "Defenders of the Realm" over Pandemic. Both are pretty easy to play.

Defenders of the Realm is very similar to Pandemic. The main "issue" for me is that it's twice the price of Pandemic and the theme isn't that much more engaging to justify the cost, personally. Flash Point is another solid co-op with a fire fighter theme, but I find Pandemic to probably be the most accessible.

I am working on a data take on ranking the games I have played. Maybe not really a Top 10 or whatever, but the games that ended up having the biggest impact in terms of rating, plays, and time invested. Pandemic is the highest ranked game that I or my one friend doesn't own on said list. It is one of those unavoidable games if you get into playing board games by going to a game store's game day or conventions. It's very solid and likely as well designed of a co-op that I have come across. It does suffer a little bit in the dry euro, cube pushing aspect despite the theme. I think Flash Point isn't as well designed of a game, but more fun even though I rate both as 8s. I'm sure at some point I'll find a co-op that is clearly better for me, but it is likely the safest pick for a co-op going. It's kind of like picking Ticket to Ride for a gateway or Agricola for a worker placement. It could bomb, but the odds are rather low. Side benefit is it has one of the better expansions out.

...or Agricola for a worker placement. It could bomb, but the odds are rather low...

I'm still bitter my group hates this game. I really, really want to get more plays, but it's impossible to get to our table.

At least there is a solo option. I'm getting it at some point. I'm not 100% certain how it will go over, but I partly don't care. I'll solo it if I have to dang it. :lol:

I have Pandemic. It's a very solid co-op game.

I would also consider "Defenders of the Realm." The game play and mechanics are, in some ways, very much like Pandemic, but it's set in a fantasy world and instead of being various CDC folks fighting diseases you're various fantasy types fighting different armies. I think, overall, our group prefers "Defenders of the Realm" over Pandemic. Both are pretty easy to play.
Defenders of the Realm does look more my style - the problem is I want my wife to play (she's just getting into games). And, if I break out a "D&D/Medieval" style game she will tell me to put it right back in that box ;)

So, the theme of Pandemic may be more palatable for her...

Game Day tomorrow. We are going to continue our Attack! game. 10 am start. 3 of us have scheming about a player who is currently in the lead. :)
I was going to attack South Africa from Australia. That gets me on his African continent. But said player goes first next round. Im not sure if Im ready to make the move. I may burn an oil chit and take my Winter turn. That would make it better for me.

This game is fun and right up out groups alley. We are definitely an ameritrash group.
If the game ends in mid afternoon, I will break out an euro. Dominant Species. Still waiting to play this one.

Miniature Market is having a clearance sale on a bunch of games you're probably not interested in. But they are only $6.99 each. It's also Buy 5 get the sixth free. It's worth taking a look (http://www.miniaturemarket.com/clearance/sales.html?utm_source=Miniature+Market+-+Full+List&utm_campaign=db6b3b8f87-Board_Game_Blowout_and_Photo_Contest_6_28_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_be5b9f7f95-db6b3b8f87-24900461&mc_cid=db6b3b8f87&mc_eid=4820c6beab).

Random & totally not ready for prime time game note ... my still has to finish his Eagle project Scout agreed to help another guy earn a badge: Game Design

They're currently working on a tabletop sports game modeling ...
professional kickball :)

Defenders of the Realm does look more my style - the problem is I want my wife to play (she's just getting into games). And, if I break out a "D&D/Medieval" style game she will tell me to put it right back in that box ;)

So, the theme of Pandemic may be more palatable for her...

If she's not a gamer, Flash Point might even be the better option. I've never played it, but I hear it's a bit more accessible than Pandemic even (and very similar). If she's into gaming, just not D&D style, then Pandemic all the way.

Flash Point can be more on the random side.

Anyone here play the game Tobago? Its reviews are fairly positive and I think it won a few BGG and Dice Tower awards but you don't really hear that much about it.

Tobago is ok, it's very pretty, but mechanically was eh. I sold it away

Miniature Market is having a clearance sale on a bunch of games you're probably not interested in. But they are only $6.99 each. It's also Buy 5 get the sixth free. It's worth taking a look (http://www.miniaturemarket.com/clearance/sales.html?utm_source=Miniature+Market+-+Full+List&utm_campaign=db6b3b8f87-Board_Game_Blowout_and_Photo_Contest_6_28_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_be5b9f7f95-db6b3b8f87-24900461&mc_cid=db6b3b8f87&mc_eid=4820c6beab).

Anyone played this?
Campaign Manager 2008 (Clearance) - Board Game Blowout - Clearance (http://www.miniaturemarket.com/zmg4058.html)

Anyone played this?
Campaign Manager 2008 (Clearance) - Board Game Blowout - Clearance (http://www.miniaturemarket.com/zmg4058.html)

It is a bit dated already as you can only simulate Obama vs Mccain. It supposedly is decent, but lacks re-playability. I actually have Swing States from VPG for solitaire play. Its nice because each side has several candidates you can match up.

There's a Mage Knight character expansion coming out. Kind of sad it is one of the things I'm most looking forward to this year, and it is merely a character expansion.

Anyone played this?
Campaign Manager 2008 (Clearance) - Board Game Blowout - Clearance (http://www.miniaturemarket.com/zmg4058.html)

You could try the game on Yucata.

http://www.yucata.de/en/GameInfo/CampaignManager

There is also a YouTube video on that page for the game's DiceTower review from back in 2010.

I own the following political election board games: Swing States 2012, 1960: The Making of the President, Campaign Manager 2008, Divided Republic, and Candidate (Avalon Hill version). I would give all five games a rating of 3 out of 5, but if I had to rank them, Campaign Manager 2008 would probably be last.

It is still a simple, fun two player game and can be played in about an hour or so. I think it is a good deal for only $6.99 (I think I paid $9.99 for my copy.), but you might only get two or three plays out of it before you move on to something else. Why? Because, it is about the 2008 presidential election.

Finished our game of attack! The last place guy was boxed in SA. He had no where to go. Small armies. Lots of pressure. But he was able to do a blitz into NA and hit a Capitol. HE won the battle and ended the game. I finished 3rd out of 5.

Dominant Species hit the table. 1st game. It was a learning game. We only got through a few rounds before people had to leave. Again, it was a learning game. But I really like it. I cant wait to get through a whole. game. Very deep. Lots of decisions. Lots of strategy.

Anyone played this?
Campaign Manager 2008 (Clearance) - Board Game Blowout - Clearance (http://www.miniaturemarket.com/zmg4058.html)

At that price, I found it hard to resist, so I picked it up last month. Amy and I took it on our trip this month. Played it a few times.

I like it, but I find myself leaning strongly toward the strategy of selecting as many cards as possible that allow me to draw new cards and fighting hard for bigger states - there's very little incentive to put effort into smaller states. The use of issues is interesting, but essentially random. So I agree there might be limited replay value. There is also very little difference between Obama and McCain strategy-wise (just the text and pictures on the cards). The media bias stuff is a little weak. The cardboard bits are good quality, but the cards are a little flimsy, like Battle Line.

Dusted off Summoner Wars. God, I love that game. I finally had the Cave Goblins go down swinging for the first time, and it was the Deep Dwarves that did it. The Dwarves have come across as ok so far so I was mildly surprised they won.

I like both sets of dwarves. The Deep Dwarves definitely have a different play style. I still think my favorite race is the Shadow Elves?

There's a Mage Knight character expansion coming out. Kind of sad it is one of the things I'm most looking forward to this year, and it is merely a character expansion.

I am glad to hear that. I need to play a game or two of this competitively. We always play coop since we usually have newish players.

I haven't figured out a favorite faction. The Cave Goblins finally did seem to click for me though.

CSI does have Pandemic on sale for $21.99 even though it isn't listed on their July 4th sale listing. I know they have options for $5ish shipping so it would be cheaper than Amazon with a Prime account.

Pandemic (2013 Edition) (http://www.coolstuffinc.com/p/184259)

Even though they are considered one of the weaker factions I quite like the cloaks. Especially with my custom deck using some reinforcements.

The Benders can be evil, not necessarily strong, but certainly fun.

I'm a big fan of Jungle Elves, personally

I first played Cloaks before I had bought them and got trounced with them. I enjoyed playing them once I got them, but I haven't played them since. Jungle Elves are a recent add and fun. Benders need time to work, but they can lock down an opponent to where the game simply feels over at that point. Tundra Orcs and Mountain Vargath are two others that stand out for me as well. I honestly have a shorter list of factions that I'm not as fond of versus the opposite. The Vanguard feel like they need the reinforcement packs the most.

A lot of pro like the Vagarth, but I have never gotten them to work well. I have yet to figure out what I am doing wrong with them.

They are pure go from the start. Their summoner gets involved more than others since he can move around with a pack of commons who can inflict some nice damage. I like the champions for the most part. The huge one is alright. Warriors are so strong against commons. I have a wall at the edge of their side when I get the chance so they start on the opponents side if possible and thus become a 2/2 for 1 magic against other commons. The events tie nice into that kind of a tight pack of moving together and clearing out stuff. About the only thing I'm not fond of is the brutes with knockback. The faction has one single ranged attack. There better be a really good reason to push something back 3 spaces when you can only move forward 2. You are basically limited to pushing back a melee champion to give yourself room.

Ordered the last of the reinforcement packs. This completes the first summoners for me.

Well, found the next game I buy. 1775: Rebellion. Birthday coming up. Time to tell my wife what I want for my birthday. :)
I was interested in this as a KS, but didnt pull the trigger. It will be in stores in a month.
I watched the review I posted below tonight. Found it can be played solitaire and still remain a good game.
Theme is what Im looking for. It has dice and cards.

The review is by Marco Arnaudo, who is my favorite reviewer.

BoardGameGeek | Gaming Unplugged Since 2000 (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/video/31130/1775-rebellion/video-review)