OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Fri Sep 08, 2017 8:02 am

Zarathud wrote:
hentzau wrote:Over the past six weeks I have had Outlive, Apocrypha, The 7th Continent, Storm Hollow, Pugmeier, the expansions for Champions of Midgard, the expansion for Xia, and the giant Massive Darkness box arrive.
I would love to play the 7th Continent. Been drooling over that one.

I'll see what I can do to get it on the table sometime soon and then get a game together with us all.

Oh, and I too got First Martians. Once again, still in the box, untouched.

Defiant · Post by **Defiant** » Fri Sep 08, 2017 9:09 am

Abandoned Planet is a recently released game by the developer of Resistance. In this game, everyone is trying to acquire sufficient resources (of the five different resource types) to build a rocket to leave a planet that's being hit by meteor strikes - but since you only have room for some of the resources requirements you need in your inventory, you need to ally with one other person in order to succeed.

The planet consists of six one (or two if the game has enough players) level locations surrounding the planet. Players choose where they're going to go using their own hand of card from 1 to 6, but one player, beforehand, knows where the next meteor will land (and they can share info on it if they want, although all communication in the game must be open for everyone to hear). Then, everyone reveals their card, and in turn, people go to the location (and choose which level if there is more than one). When you go to a location, you take the resource(s) from that location and put it into your loading bay. If someone else ends up going to that location, you must hand them items in your loading bay unless you can either bribe them or you can use a one time use item on them to stop them. After everyone is gone, the meteor is revealed, and if you're on a location that is hit, you lose the items in your loading bay, and that location gets replaced with one for places that get hit (if it gets hit a second time on a future turn, that location is gone). After that, the items in your loading bay get put into your inventory.

As you can see, the locations get tighter as the game progresses. It also means that specific resources may become very hard to acquire (though there's always an alternative, but less efficient, way to get any resource you want through the bank).

The game was interesting, but while we came into it thinking there would be a lot of shifting alliances and backstabbing, there wasn't really. What ended up happening was the two front-runners ended up allying with each other in order to win. The strategy was fairly basic (try to acquire half the resources - in general trying to get a few resources of each type rather than specializing in a couple is a good idea, though it may depend on the situation) and be lucky enough not to have to waste a turn from being in the same location as someone else or in a location the meteor hits.

IMO, it needed to have more incentive to get people to change their alliances, or maybe even an incentive for the people ahead to ally with the people that were behind in the game.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Sun Sep 10, 2017 10:18 pm

Having picked up a few Talisman expansions over the past two years, finally got a chance to spend the weekend playing them.

Added:
Harbinger
The Deep Realm

(Have yet to purchase Cataclysm)

Saturday:
Used Harbinger ending with the Armageddon Prophecy (mostly Character interaction effects, but we four players pretty much stayed away from each other, as we had all 4 corner boards and the Deep Realms to mess around in)
One player eliminated by Character death after expending all three of his choices. The other two were on their last character when one of them pulled the Gates of Hell event from the Harbinger deck (Draw 3 Harbinger cards< one of which was ANOTHER Gates of Hell) and all 5 cards to resolve were Events, including two Omen cards, moving us to the last Omen. Those two conceded the game to my Merchant who was loaded with Followers and Objects.

Sunday:
Used the Dragonic Ending, removed the Harbinger set. Much of the game was spent in the Woodlands by the 3 players, and 2 ended up attempting the Deep Realms regions (one on the Bridge, one in the Lower parts). Got to try a pair of characters from the Woodlands expansion I had never played before (The Spider Queen and the Tree). My son (using the Possessed) ended up with multiple cards from the Woodlands to control our healing and fate recovery and headed off to defeat the Dragon at the center.

Excellent couple of days doing laundry and playing games (including Terraforming Mars, where my son and I both broke the 100 point for Victory, me squeaking out the win by 4 points; and King of New York where Cthulhu reigned triumpant)

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Mon Sep 11, 2017 12:10 am

I sat down and ran through the starter scenario for Shadowrun: Crossfire today. I got my ass handed to me, but I have a decent grasp on the mechanics now. It's got a reputation for being bitterly hard anyway, so I think I'll just take my time and go with the flow. The solo does involve one player multi-handing it, but I'm fine with that. If you're willing to play multiple seats, then nearly every co-op game becomes a solo option.

Harkonis · Post by **Harkonis** » Mon Sep 11, 2017 5:02 am

don't forget to scale the start of the crossfire cards based on number of heroes fwiw, makes a pretty big difference. If I remember correctly when playing with 2 characters you go around 2 times before even flipping the first card. It's pretty crucial to clear a scene asap before you get crossfire levels at all, thus getting your deck built up a bit before things turn hard

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Sep 11, 2017 12:15 pm

It was solo saturday this past weekend, so I fired up a couple of games of Warfighter WWII. All I can say is, wow. What a deep, thematic and challenging game. I'm really glad I grabbed it and its predecessor at Gencon on the cheap at the coolstuff booth.

The game is highly intuitive, which is a big plus in my book. Whenever I had a rule question, it almost always ended up being exactly how I thought it should play out. I also loved how suppression works in the game. You roll two sets of dice when attacking, a cover die and an attack die. If one misses but the other hits, you put a suppression token on the target and they lose their next attack. Since you only remove one suppression token per hostile turn, you can lay down a wall of fire from others in your group and keep moving forward.

The game has reloads...but they go even further and make you use matching ammo for weapons. So you can trade with other members of your group...but only when you're using the same ammo.

Then I played a solo game of Too Many Bones, of course. I ended up losing during the final tyrant battle, but I was pretty impressed that I got that far on the middle of the three difficulty levels, and playing against a tier two (of 6, I believe) tyrant. I still can't get enough of this game. I'll definitely bring it to Octocon in October.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Sep 11, 2017 12:36 pm

Still haven't played the WW2 version, but I love the original. It's really not that complicated, and yes, I did find it intuitive. The real benefit (for me) is the insane amount of variables and ultimately the replay that it will provide. It's a great game.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Sep 11, 2017 12:49 pm

I picked up the Tabletop Simulator port a while back, but I prefer playing the analog versions whenever possible. Still, i'll need to tinker with the TS version to see if it's worth setting up online games with at some point.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Mon Sep 11, 2017 1:13 pm

Harkonis wrote:don't forget to scale the start of the crossfire cards based on number of heroes fwiw, makes a pretty big difference. If I remember correctly when playing with 2 characters you go around 2 times before even flipping the first card. It's pretty crucial to clear a scene asap before you get crossfire levels at all, thus getting your deck built up a bit before things turn hard

That's only true if you play with fewer characters. I played with all four, and skipped the 'multiple runners' rules that seem to have you running multiple roles with one deck, as there is only one mission that supports solo play that way. I just ran it as if there were four people at the table and rotated between the four runners.

Montag · Post by **Montag** » Mon Sep 11, 2017 2:00 pm

Played Spirit Island. Cooperative repel the Invaders with different player abilities. Really liked it, but it is already sold out. Next availability is in December.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Sep 11, 2017 2:18 pm

That's high on my list. I can't wait to try it.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Mon Sep 11, 2017 2:27 pm

I really wanted to play a 2 player game of Dragonfire solo, but work put me in a piss-poor mood that I didn't recover from until mid-Sunday, so it never got on. Maybe tonight...

Defiant · Post by **Defiant** » Mon Sep 11, 2017 7:24 pm

Portal is a game based on the computer game we all know and love, except this one has actual cake(!). There's a bunch of rooms (starting off 3x6), and players place and move their test subjects in the room. At the end of each turn, the current player chooses which room on the very end of one of the three rows to activate, destroying everyone in the room and giving whomever had the most test subjects in the room a benefit (more test subjects, some cake, a one use card, etc). cake is also on the map, and a player can move cake (including another persons cake) with their test subjects (thus allowing you to try to grab someone elses cake, move it to the front and let it be destroyed with the room. There's also a turret which can come in play that destroys everyone in a room, and a companion cube that can prevent a rooms benefit from being used.

Overall, the game was ok, although it felt like it ended too soon to really get a feel for a strategy. I imagine players that know the game better can do a better job of not having the game end quickly than we did. But it seemed very difficult to really gain test subjects to put on the map (You start with four of your eight on the board, and the main way to get more was to activate one of the rooms that allowed you to gain a test subject, with a few allowing you to put two. But that still requires losing at least one test subject).

The theme, while not essential, was cute, especially with the small turret and companion cube models.

Another game I got to play was Nevermore. Drafting your hand of five cards is the main gameplay mechanic. There are 5 types of cards, and depending on who has the most, you might be able to do/get different things. (The person who has the most of a card takes that number minus the number of whoever has the second most to see how much power it has) You can attack someone if you have the most attack cards and make them lose health. You can heal up if you have the most heal cards. You can gain a card (with a one use ability) if you have the most magic card. You can gain VP chips if you have the most of that type of card. And then there's the raven card. Each one of them in your hand forces you to discard another type of card from your hand, although if you have five raven cards, everyone else loses their turn and you deal them one damage. Also, if people lose all their health, they become ravens, and need either five of a kind or one of each type of card to become human again and be able to play to win, again.

Overall, I will say that while I'm not normally a fan of drafting, I did find this game enjoyable as a light, quick game.

Harkonis · Post by **Harkonis** » Mon Sep 11, 2017 7:47 pm

Blackhawk wrote:
Harkonis wrote:don't forget to scale the start of the crossfire cards based on number of heroes fwiw, makes a pretty big difference. If I remember correctly when playing with 2 characters you go around 2 times before even flipping the first card. It's pretty crucial to clear a scene asap before you get crossfire levels at all, thus getting your deck built up a bit before things turn hard
That's only true if you play with fewer characters. I played with all four, and skipped the 'multiple runners' rules that seem to have you running multiple roles with one deck, as there is only one mission that supports solo play that way. I just ran it as if there were four people at the table and rotated between the four runners.

As far as I've seen, every mission supports playing with fewer than 4 runners. We often play with 3 people/3 runners which means one person is two roles/colors. Usually me. All 4 roles have to be accounted for, but you don't need 4 runners for any run I can think of from either base or expansion.

MonkeyFinger · Post by **MonkeyFinger** » Mon Sep 11, 2017 10:09 pm

hepcat wrote:It was solo saturday this past weekend, so I fired up a couple of games of Warfighter WWII. All I can say is, wow. What a deep, thematic and challenging game. I'm really glad I grabbed it and its predecessor at Gencon on the cheap at the coolstuff booth.

Oooo... that looks to be right up my alley. And there's only what, 14 expansions out for it? Sweet!

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Mon Sep 11, 2017 10:35 pm

hepcat wrote:It was solo saturday this past weekend, so I fired up a couple of games of Warfighter WWII. All I can say is, wow. What a deep, thematic and challenging game. I'm really glad I grabbed it and its predecessor at Gencon on the cheap at the coolstuff booth.

Was that the one in the huge box? I had it in my hands a few times, but just wasn't sure about it. Now I wish I'd made the buy.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Tue Sep 12, 2017 9:08 am

Played a couple more rounds of FIRST MARTIANS last night. I'll have to say the game is really growing on me.

Played two new scenarios on Easy - one in which a probe gets loose and you have to track it down, and another where you're gathering materials to make Martian concrete. One of the many things this game has in common with Robinson Crusoe is the wildly varied scenarios. Having played 3 of the 6 now, each one focuses on entirely different game mechanics and strategies.

Here are some general tips we've learned to make your time with the game more enjoyable. The game really is NOT as cryptic and hard to understand as a lot of people are making out. While the rulebook does leave much to be desired, be patient and underneath you'll find a really fun and challenging game.

- Icons are everything in this game. Keep your icon reference handy, because once you understand what they mean, a lot of game mechanics become much more clear. Really study the board. Every symbol is there for a reason.

- There are some great FAQs for the game out on BGG already, and the vast majority of the questions we've had have been answered there.

- I cannot stress enough how important it is to read scenario cards carefully. A lot of common FAQ questions I ran across were answered right there on the scenario card if people would read them. The scenario cards in this game contain a LOT of information, and it's critical that you understand the changes to phases, new special actions you can take, etc. before you begin. Every "custom" aspect of a scenario is crucial in order to win the game.

- Just like Crusoe, it's imperative that you resolve every phase and every action in the proper order. We had a situation last night where we literally had a chance to win the game simply by virtue of one action occurring before another action (per the rules). There are very valid gameplay reasons why things occur in such a precise sequence.

Last night we won the Scenario 2 on Easy quite handily, and lost Scenario 3 by a single die roll (in fairness, we could have won but made the wrong gamble earlier in the turn. Still a well-played game and we held our heads high).

Even after three scenarios there are certain game mechanics we haven't touched yet, so I'm looking forward to finishing out the standalone stuff and getting into the campaign.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Sep 12, 2017 9:23 am

Blackhawk wrote:Was that the one in the huge box? I had it in my hands a few times, but just wasn't sure about it. Now I wish I'd made the buy.

There's an "ammo box" version of both games that is gigantic - it's a storage solution and lite expansion. It's not necessary to enjoy by any means, but it does raise the cost of entry and take up a ton of space. You can just get the base game (of either) for around $45. I've come to learn that there's an apparent love/hate relationship with DVG products, but I'm a fan.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Sep 12, 2017 9:38 am

Yeah, you're probably thinking of the ammo box. There were copies of the core version of modern warfighter up until Sunday morning though. That's when I snagged my copy for less than 30. The WWII version was my first choice and I snapped up the only copy I saw at the coolstuff booth on Friday morning.

But as smoove said, you can get them online for around 45 bucks or so. Well worth it, in my opinion.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Tue Sep 12, 2017 10:07 am

YellowKing wrote: one in which a probe gets loose and you have to track it down,

Bonus points if you call him Speedy.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 9:45 pm

Did another 3 player game of Dragonfire last night. Did the basic Dungeon Crawl adventure, trying to figure out some strategy before we embark on the actual campaign adventures. Got our butts pretty well handed to us. We were able to beat the first scene pretty handily, taking minimal damage before dispatching all of the encounters we were facing. The second scene was another thing altogether. The Dragonfire cards really started to hurt us pretty badly, and my cleric and the wizard were down to only a few hit points by the time we completed the scene. The third scene was a joke...we were all unconscious by the second round.

We checked and after we were defeated, we had each only added another 3 cards to our decks, so we were still fighting with mostly base 1 damage cards. My cleric didn't get his hands on a healing spell until the end of the second scene, and by then we were so beat up that it wasn't enough to keep us going. Getting stunned without any recovery of hit points is really brutal...odds are good that you are going to be unconscious on the next round.

We gained 3XP for that adventure, and are going to give it another try next week. But it's pretty brutal.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Thu Sep 14, 2017 10:29 am

hepcat wrote:Yeah, you're probably thinking of the ammo box. There were copies of the core version of modern warfighter up until Sunday morning though. That's when I snagged my copy for less than 30. The WWII version was my first choice and I snapped up the only copy I saw at the coolstuff booth on Friday morning.

But as smoove said, you can get them online for around 45 bucks or so. Well worth it, in my opinion.

Dan teased a Fantasy Warfighter game a while back and said it would be Kickstartering months ago. But not dice yet. When that hits, I will be all over it!

Sadly, Rhiannon, who made the news videos, no longer works with DVG. Her videos were a great mix of cute and informative and it was great for DVG to have these vids (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFuIoGnpbSE). You apparently will be able to mix Warfighter Fantasy and WWII (or others)...

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Thu Sep 14, 2017 11:07 am

I was just thinking that the Warfighter series could easily be adapted to any theme without much issue. I was hoping for a horror or sci fi based theme, but a fantasy theme would be cool too. I love the idea of being able to introduce a Weird War II theme to my games though.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Thu Sep 14, 2017 11:21 am

There was someone on BGG that created an entire Vietnam themed set of decks using the Warfighter models. He did it in his spare time and it looks just as good as a DVG product - it's like a 1000 new cards, complete with art, but I don't think it's fully translated yet (he's from France). Maybe DVG is going to buy it from him, I have no idea; it's insane. I was also curious about he possible expansion into a Fantasy-based theme, but figured they were having problems with testing or the logistics.

Setup is a bit of a killer for Warfighter, but if you use those card holder stands, you can keep it all out and ready to go.

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Thu Sep 14, 2017 12:15 pm

baelthazar wrote:
hepcat wrote:Yeah, you're probably thinking of the ammo box. There were copies of the core version of modern warfighter up until Sunday morning though. That's when I snagged my copy for less than 30. The WWII version was my first choice and I snapped up the only copy I saw at the coolstuff booth on Friday morning.

But as smoove said, you can get them online for around 45 bucks or so. Well worth it, in my opinion.
Dan teased a Fantasy Warfighter game a while back and said it would be Kickstartering months ago. But not dice yet. When that hits, I will be all over it!

Sadly, Rhiannon, who made the news videos, no longer works with DVG. Her videos were a great mix of cute and informative and it was great for DVG to have these vids (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFuIoGnpbSE). You apparently will be able to mix Warfighter Fantasy and WWII (or others)...

Having my group of spec ops soldiers go up against a dragon would be really cool. I've been playing the modern warfighter game more often now that we have table space but I'm now tempted by the WW2 version. I think I'd stick with the base game this time around since going all in is really expensive. Have no regrets though with my kickstarted "all expansions and a nice box for it all" purchase of the modern game.

Now I would really love a mission where my squad is going after some insurgents in the jungle only to run into some kind of predator...

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Thu Sep 14, 2017 1:36 pm

hepcat wrote:I was just thinking that the Warfighter series could easily be adapted to any theme without much issue. I was hoping for a horror or sci fi based theme, but a fantasy theme would be cool too. I love the idea of being able to introduce a Weird War II theme to my games though.

They plan a Sci Fi version for the future as well.

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Thu Sep 14, 2017 1:46 pm

baelthazar wrote:
hepcat wrote:I was just thinking that the Warfighter series could easily be adapted to any theme without much issue. I was hoping for a horror or sci fi based theme, but a fantasy theme would be cool too. I love the idea of being able to introduce a Weird War II theme to my games though.
They plan a Sci Fi version for the future as well.

Starship Troopers! (or some equivalent setting that doesn't run into copyright issues.) Or the war against the machines using a mix of scavenged modern and "futuristic" weaponry (again avoiding the usual copyright issues)

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Thu Sep 14, 2017 1:53 pm

I think it should take its theme from the film Idiocracy.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Sat Sep 16, 2017 1:14 am

Having blown about 200 bucks on games this week, it was time to try some out.

First up was the Talisman expansion Cataclysm.
It replaces the center board (the main board) and has some nifty stuff starting on the board, Remnants.
Mostly beneficial objects/magic objects.
The Chapel, Graveyard, Castle, Village, Tavern, and City are Denizen draw spaces.
The Denizen deck is filled with those people you meet (Mystic, etc) who have a "trait" that either matches any of those space names or could say "any" or have multiple traits or no traits.
If the Denizen you visit has a trait that matches the space it is on, it will stay. Otherwise it gets discarded after being visited.
So those spaces have nobody to start, and as the game progresses, you build a collection of Denizens to visit.

Now a warning... do NOT play this expansion by itself. It needs some base game cards to balance out the Cataclysm adventure deck.

--------------------

We played the Super Mario Bros Power Up game, a marvelous beer and pretzels silly game.
Every one gets a card worth 1 to 12. Starting to the left of the dealer, the players decide to keep their level card or trade with the next player.
The dealer keeps his card, reveals it, and decides to keep or trade for top card of the deck.
Any players with matching levels get a special card.
then players can play specials, mostly modifiers (positive for your own, negative for others).
All players with the lowest level lose a life (you begin with four).
This continues until only one player has any lives left and is the winner.

---------------------

Finally, we played the Walking Dead BANG with the We Are The Walking Dead expansion.

In this version, when a player dies, they become a Walker. they start as a Walker and discard all of their cards, going up to their starting life total, keeping their Character abilities. One their turn they draw two cards and play their cards.
There is a specific list of cards they are allowed to play, and they are immune to the effects of any Lurker, Roamer, or Walker cards as well as Infection(dynamite).
If the Walkers outnumber the Humans, the Walkers win. If a death would cause Multiple Win Conditions, Walkers trump others and win instead.
(So a dead Savior/Outlaw becomes a Walker and no longer wins with remaining Outlaws/Saviors... and the Renegade/Hilltop must be sure to kill the Walkers before other Teams to avoid being outnumbered).
Very different strategy involved.
I had been disappointed with Walking Dead BANG, as it is just a Basic set of BANG with WD Flavor (characters and cards match the original game) but with this expansion it becomes a Variant version that I quite enjoyed.

-----------------------

We rounded out downtime with Pass the Pigs and Martian Dice.

Good times.

Defiant · Post by **Defiant** » Sat Sep 16, 2017 1:21 pm

Got to play Werewords, which is like One Night Werewolf meets 20 questions. One player is (publicly) the mayor, and they get to see a word and will answer questions that others will try to figure out asking questions with a time limit imposed. Everyone will have a secret role (including the mayor), where they're either a villager, a werewolf, a seer or a beholder. The villagers (everyone but the werewolves) are trying to guess the word correctly. The seer actually sees the word, but wants to lay low, because if the werewolves figure out who they are, the werewolves win. The beholder knows who the seer is, but not the word. If the town guesses correctly the time limit, they win unless the werewolves can ID the seer. If the town doesn't guess the word, the werewolves win unless the town can id one of the werewolves.

It's not as complex or deduction based as the other One Night games, but it's another fun, quick, casual game, and may be good if you have people that prefer word games or more traditional party games.

And I also played Secrets. This is another social deduction game,one that's more casual and entertaining than tense. There are three roles. You're either US or Russia, in which case you're part of the American or Russian teams (team sizes can be 2-4 players), or you're one of up to two hippies that are out for themselves. The US and Russian teams are each trying to get enough points (collectively between their team members) to have more points than each other, while the hippies are trying to get the least points of any individual. If a hippie has less than any other person, that hippie wins, otherwise the team with the most points win. When you start, you know your id as well as that of the person to your right. Also, one of the ids are placed in the center (that's known to everyone but only at the start - it gets placed face down).

Points are earned for (face up) cards placed in front of you On your turn, you receive two different cards from the deck, that are known to everyone. You then secretly decided one of them to offer to another player (face down, so only you know which of the two you are offering). They can either decide to accept the card (in which case it's placed face up in front of them) or reject it (in which case it's placed face up in front of you). Cards have points associated with them (-2 to 5 points) as well as a power you perform at that point in time.

Some of them may allow you to swap other peoples roles or your own or the one in the center depending on the card. Some may give you - or only others - information of what some person's role is at that point in time. one may allow you to randomly place a face down bullet card in front of someone that will give them 0 to -3 points. and so on. Also, if you get two of the same face up cards in front of you, they both go face down. As soon as someone gets 4 face up or face down cards in front of them, the game ends.

This game can be very entertaining, as people's roles can change frequently, and you may not know what your role is. That makes it very difficult to have a strategy. I did, in one of the games I played, managed to identify and keep track of most of the players roles, but that was largely because of luck (and the actions of others). That said, there are some moves you can do if can keep track of some information and you're lucky, especially towards the end of the game. Like if there's someone you suspect is on the opposing team and another person that you think is a hippie you might be able to swap them, or if you're lucky to swap yourself to a winning team. But I think you have to go in to it realizing there's going to be a lot of randomness in the game, and not to expect a coherent strategy to present itself or to expect to win, and just have a fun experience.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Sat Sep 16, 2017 10:23 pm

Played two games of 878: Vikings – Invasions of England with my Viking-loving friend. He came one point away from the outright win condition on turn 5 when the treaty ended everything, and only came up one point short of keeping me from any victory on turn 6 treaty.

He enjoyed it and was definitely in favor of future plays, so I will consider it money well spent.

tjg_marantz · Post by **tjg_marantz** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 2:44 pm

Played 5 games of Dragonwood at work last night. That was good fun even with two players. Different strategies available. Not sure an eight year old would stand a chance against me though. And if you can get that +2 to all attacks card early on, it's a bit too strong I think.

Quite enjoyable though.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 7:35 pm

The digital port of Through the Ages is out on on iOS and Android. This is one of the most anxiously awaited ports around. A little pricey at 10 bucks, but it's triple A quality through and through.

Ralph-Wiggum · Post by **Ralph-Wiggum** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 9:58 pm

Intriguing! Is the online version asynchronous? I never bought the cardboard version since it is supposed to take 3 - 4 hours; an asynchronous play would remove that issue.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 11:20 pm

Played the Hellas map for Terraforming Mars,

took us a little bit to start working out a strategy for the new awards/milestones and that big old lake right in the middle.
enjoyed the change in "routine"

played a few games of the Super Mario (getting the giggles)
followed by a few games of Fairy Tale (one of chaosfaeries favorites)

ALMOST ended the evening with Talisman but we had leave it set up for tomorrow as it was getting late.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Tue Sep 19, 2017 12:13 am

Finished our game of Talisman after dinner tonight.

Used a Hidden Ending (Turned out to be Day of Judgement), the Harbinger with the Rise of the Dead Prophecy, and the Cataclysm board, which works pretty nicely when players take the time to draw Denizens for it.

The Prophecy only progressed through three Omens, even with our limited Spell and Adventure decks (took all the Harbinger and Cataclysm cards and made them 1/3 of any deck they went into, leaving the others out of the game. For example the 500+ cards of the Adventure deck).

One player made it through the Woodlands twice for Destiny cards. One player went the entire game without dying. One player lost all three characters before the end of the game and went to take a nap.

The CURSED Objects are a pain in the ass when the Alchemist hasn't shown up from the Denizen deck!

I like the Harbinger, but man are the cards nasty in that deck. If I haven't explained the Harbinger yet, when a player encounters an Event, the Harbinger moves to their space. When drawing Adventure cards, if the Harbinger is in your Region, you draw from the Harbinger deck instead.
If you land on the Harbinger, you may move him to any space not in the Inner region (which btw is much harder on the Cataclysm board than the Original) and roll on his chart (which affects the Omen deck).

The Remnants from the Cataclysm board are pretty powerful, giving the players who pick them up and early bonus (as they fill the space, so you don't chance drawing an Enemy to defend them)

Enjoyed the hell out of the two day experience, and made us discuss pulling out my Divine Right Anniversary edition to set up for a multiple day Campaign. (Grabbed it and the rules out of storage to reread)

Great weekend.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Tue Sep 19, 2017 8:29 am

Chaosraven wrote:Played the Hellas map for Terraforming Mars,

took us a little bit to start working out a strategy for the new awards/milestones and that big old lake right in the middle.
enjoyed the change in "routine"

played a few games of the Super Mario (getting the giggles)
followed by a few games of Fairy Tale (one of chaosfaeries favorites)

ALMOST ended the evening with Talisman but we had leave it set up for tomorrow as it was getting late.

Sorry we didn't cross paths this weekend. Redrun called and we were talking about playing this weekend coming up, though he's not sure he wants to host, as he's still unhappy with Sumac affecting his place. Maybe my place if we absolutely promise to stay confined to basement.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Tue Sep 19, 2017 2:59 pm

I believe we're playing Divine Right this weekend at kenetickids.

But if you end up wanting TM for this weekend let me know

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Wed Sep 20, 2017 11:10 am

Pulled out an old classic last night - Warhammer Quest. The evening went like this:

Game #1 - Dwarf Warrior, Elf Fighter and Wizard. First room, event filled the room with shaven and giant rats. Wizard couldn't roll power to save his soul, so no spells from the wizard, and within 3 rounds we're all down. Lapsed time: 10 minutes.

Game #2 - Faring a bit better, we make it past 3 corridor sessions to a room where we we had a bunch of spiders and goblins. Two of the party members got webbed, so were completely out of the running, and then the wizard rolled a 1 on the power phase triggering a new event: Cave In. Have to make it to the next room by the next turn or die. Even if the two webbed party members could have broken the webbing, because we were at the far end of the corridor, we couldn't have made it to the next room in time. All die. Lapsed time: 20 minutes

Game #3 - I get serious. I go down into my collection of WHQ stuff and pull out my Elf Ranger. He adds the needed firepower for the party to survive. We slowly advance clearing out room after room, choose the wrong branch of the path that leads to a dead end, and have to back track, never really in much danger. Then we found the final room. Tons of rats and shaven and minotaurs. My shock wave takes out a ton of the rats and skaven, the wizard lighting bolts the minotaur a couple of times, all is looking good. Then the stupid wizard rolls another 1 and we get another event: Another freaking cave in. This time we are able to escape, but we are not afforded the treasure/reward from clearing the dungeon.

Game was as fun as I had remembered it. Very simple once you get into it, simpler than I remembered. You can really see where a lot of modern "dungeon crawls" get their base ideas from. I was given lots of Shadows of Brimstone flashbacks. It was fun for a trip down memory lane, but I can't see getting back into it for any length of time when you have way more detailed games like SoB and Gloomhaven already in hand. If anything it got me champing to get SoB back on the table.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Wed Sep 20, 2017 11:50 am

Ugh. Thanks for the reminder... I still have a pile of SoB figures that need to be put together...