OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

[Turtle]

I just got in my copy of Eclipse, sadly, didn't get a chance to play it.

[Chaosraven]

An evening of Multiplayer Magic with my son and some friends, played 4 player free for all, a couple games of Emperor, and some 6 player free for all.

[SpaceLord]

An evening of Multiplayer Magic with my son and some friends, played 4 player free for all, a couple games of Emperor, and some 6 player free for all.

I ain't tellin' ya that MtG is now out on the iPad. I also won't mention that it's awesome. Nope, ain't gonna do that.

[Chaosraven]

An evening of Multiplayer Magic with my son and some friends, played 4 player free for all, a couple games of Emperor, and some 6 player free for all.

I ain't tellin' ya that MtG is now out on the iPad. I also won't mention that it's awesome. Nope, ain't gonna do that.

Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013?

ahem.

We traded cards this afternoon at FLGS and picked up a few cards, and ZOMBIE DICE.

Now we need to go back and get the expansion, because it was terribly goofy and fun.

[hepcat]

Hmmm....Smash Up from AEG has the potential to be silly fun.

Also, in other news, my local FLGS informed me recently that the Star Trek: TOS Deck Building Game is still on target for an August launch.

[MythicalMino]

Survive: Escape From Atlantis arrived today. Played 2 games (one w/ my two boys, another one with my two boys & wife). Fun game....ranks there with Castle Panic for easy to learn fun.

Chris

oh, I lost both games, by the way

[Chaosraven]

Picked up the expansion, has the Hunk, the Hottie, and Santa.

Hee hee hee

[Daveman]

Had a little mini-gaming session last night with two new additions...

Ticket to Ride: India - This is a map/ticket pack sold along with TtR: Switzerland. Switzerland is a 2-3 player only board, India is for 2-4. We played India as a 3 player game and really liked it. There's lots of ways to get around, plenty of small routes and long ones, plus a new bonus scoring mechanic that encourages players to build a circular route while connecting their tickets. No one managed to get a circle going although I was close. All in all, it felt like a very tight board with lots of competition for certain key areas. The only "advanced" rule it uses is Ferry routes so I'd say this might be our go-to choice for TtR with 4 or less players. I think I still prefer TtR: Europe as the "best" version of the game but India looks like it'll be a strong choice for 3-4 players.

King of Tokyo - This game sold out pretty quickly and it looks like this recently released 2nd printing is disappearing pretty quickly too. It's a seemingly simple Yahtzee-meets-King of the Hill kind of play where each player is a monster trying to either earn the most destruction points or be the last monster standing. During the game you're either "in" Tokyo or out. Being in is a reliable source of points and a good way to beat down the other players, but you can't heal and all the other players are basically focused on you. Being out of Tokyo lets you heal but there's less points to be had and you can only beat on whoever is "in" Tokyo. Only 1 player can be "in" at a time (2 can be "in" in a 5-6 player game) so a lot of the game seems to be figuring out when it's best to go in, when you should hunker down and stay in, and when it's time to yield to another player. Add in a deck of cards for purchase that give monsters various abilities and powers and there can be a lot going on for what looks like a simple game. Our 3 player games topped out at 20-30 minutes, but we had a 2 player game end in a few minutes.

[hentzau]

I just spent a week at camp with a group of 10 Webelos (kids aged 9 and 10 years old). On the second day, I brought out my "travelling" crokinole board, and taught 4 cubs to play. Thereafter, any time there was downtime there was a crowd of kids around the board, playing and kibbitzing and trash talking. It was awesome.

[RMC]

Getting ready to go over to my friends house...

Taking Lords of Waterdeep, Smallworld, Game of Thrones, and BattleStar Galactica.

So we shall see what havoc is wrecked today..

[hentzau]

With all of the Lords of Waterdeep talk, now I have to see it. Maybe I'll pick it up along with Quarmaggeddon. Or maybe I'll stop visiting this thread.

I absolutely love Lords of Waterdeep. It's rapildy creeping up my list of favorite, I'll play it any time anyone every asks me to play it.

If you have Stone Age, though, I've heard a lot of comparisons between the two games (can't say myself, having never played SA).

(And I just bought a set of these for my copy of LoW.)

Guys, I got my set of DnDeeples this weekend, and they are great. I highly recommend them for the game, and if you are thinking about getting a painted set, you might want to order quick, because it sounds like the creator is having a bit of "sellers remose" because of how work intensive the painting part is.

[Chaosraven]

Played Zombie Dice at the lake house yesterday, with my little sister (visiting for her birthday).

Won twice, greed got the better of my daughter and son. So my joke of "Slow and steady wins the race said the Tortoise... (to the hares ass off in the distance)" was prophetical. They both hit 10 brains and refused to take the 1 or 2, trying for the win. My sister and her niece made a respectable showing.

If you enjoy those press your luck dice games, zombie dice is a fun one.

[hentzau]

Played Zombie Dice at the lake house yesterday, with my little sister (visiting for her birthday).

Won twice, greed got the better of my daughter and son. So my joke of "Slow and steady wins the race said the Tortoise... (to the hares ass off in the distance)" was prophetical. They both hit 10 brains and refused to take the 1 or 2, trying for the win. My sister and her niece made a respectable showing.

If you enjoy those press your luck dice games, zombie dice is a fun one.

I also broke out Zombie Dice at camp last week, and for those boys that couldn't get to the crokinole table, it was a great backup game. I wasn't so sure about bringing a game where the main goal is to avoid getting shotgunned, but I chalked it up to firearms safety.

[SpaceLord]

This past week i picked up Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space



German version pictured.

EftAiOS is a paranoia-driven game where half of the players are aliens, and half are humans, attempting to escape a large spaceship.

Each player secretly draws a character card, and is assigned a role. See the map below:



Each human starts at the lower-center black hex, and the aliens start at the higher one.

During each turn, each human moves 1 Hex, and each Alien moves 1 or 2 hexes. If a player ends on a white hex, it’s safe, and their turn is over. If, however, they are standing on a gray hex, they draw from a deck of cards.

If they draw a red card, they *must* announce that there is a noise their current position. There are 10 red cards in the deck. If they draw a blank card, they say “Silence in All Sectors.” However, if they draw a green card, they can announce a noise in *any* hex. There's also 10 of the green cards, and 5 blanks. Of course, which card you drew is never revealed.



From left to right: A human character card, an item card(from the advanced game), a noise card, an alien character card, and a broken terminal from the advanced game.

During their turn, an alien may announce they’re an alien, move, and then attack a specific hex. If there’s someone else there, that other player is killed. Yes, even other aliens.

If a human reaches an exit(marked 1,2,3, or 4), then that player wins.

That’s it.

In short, it’s fantastic. There’s deduction, lying, and tension, and it plays in 20 minutes. And it’s cheap! The art is also very minimalist and cool. What more could you want?

[KiloOhm]

I'm missing something - are all moves hidden?

[SpaceLord]

I'm missing something - are all moves hidden?

Yes, you write down where you move, and then either draw a card, or not.

[coopasonic]

I'm missing something - are all moves hidden?

It sounds like there is no shared board, you each track the board privately, using clues from the other players true and false announcements.

Wishlisted, btw. That sounds pretty cool.

[SpaceLord]

I'm missing something - are all moves hidden?

It sounds like there is no shared board, you each track the board privately, using clues from the other players true and false announcements.

Wishlisted, btw. That sounds pretty cool.

Ugh, sorry, yes. Each player gets a copy of the map, and folds the top section up to hide their movements.

There's also around 20 different maps to play on, and several variants.

[Chaosraven]

Played Zombie Dice at the lake house yesterday, with my little sister (visiting for her birthday).

Won twice, greed got the better of my daughter and son. So my joke of "Slow and steady wins the race said the Tortoise... (to the hares ass off in the distance)" was prophetical. They both hit 10 brains and refused to take the 1 or 2, trying for the win. My sister and her niece made a respectable showing.

If you enjoy those press your luck dice games, zombie dice is a fun one.

I also broke out Zombie Dice at camp last week, and for those boys that couldn't get to the crokinole table, it was a great backup game. I wasn't so sure about bringing a game where the main goal is to avoid getting shotgunned, but I chalked it up to firearms safety.

did you get the expansion?

[hentzau]

Not yet. Maybe tonight.

[hentzau]

Not yet. Maybe tonight.

[hepcat]

You're going to be too busy crying for your mama tonight after I crush you in Kings of Tokyo to worry about buying any damn expansion.

[Chaosraven]

It comes with Hunk (shot, shot, DOUBLE SHOT, run, run, DOUBLE BRAIN) and Hottie (run, run, run, shot, shot, brain) where if either rolls Shot and the other Brain, the brain is rescued (back to the cup). For the Summer Action. Followed by Santa Xmas Special, with a Santa die (brain, DOUBLE brain, Helmet - four shots to end turn, Energy Drink - turn all green run into Green Brain, run, shot). For the DirectToVideo Sequel use all three and rescue Santa! When used, the Hunk and Hottie replace 2 yellow dice, and Santa replaces a Green Die. Only costs 7 bux.

[hentzau]

You're going to be too busy crying for your mama tonight after I crush you in Kings of Tokyo to worry about buying any damn expansion.

Put your monster where your mouth is, buddy!

Um...wait...

[MythicalMino]

Ordered the new game Sky Traders this afternoon. My normal place I order from (boards & bits) didn't have it in yet, but coolstuffinc did. It should arrive by Friday. The game looks really cool...

[SpaceLord]

I'll be vacationing with my family in the Rockies this next week, and I plan to bring a selection of family-friendly games:

Blokus
Settlers of Catan
Tsuro
Hanabi and Ikebana

[KiloOhm]

I'm missing something - are all moves hidden?

It sounds like there is no shared board, you each track the board privately, using clues from the other players true and false announcements.

Wishlisted, btw. That sounds pretty cool.

Ugh, sorry, yes. Each player gets a copy of the map, and folds the top section up to hide their movements.

There's also around 20 different maps to play on, and several variants.

Hey not your job to explain the game to me. Appreciate the feedback. Does sound like a neat game.

[KiloOhm]

I have the Zombie Dice Expansion. I like the santa die but I'm a little bummed on how rare the hunk / hottie combo actually seems to come up. I've played a dozen or so games with them and have never seen one rescue the other.

Doh I just read Chaos' post. I have no idea I was supposed to replace existing dice with them. I guess I should RTFM.

[hepcat]

King of Tokyo - This game sold out pretty quickly and it looks like this recently released 2nd printing is disappearing pretty quickly too.

We played three games in about 60 minutes on Monday night. I like it quite a bit and I'm glad I ordered a copy. It's fast, fun and furious. It's up there with Quarriors for great light filler games, imho.

[Chaosraven]

In preparation for next weeks Pauper Tournament, my kids and a couple friends have been playtesting Pauper decks. That's magic the gathering 60 card COMMON ONLY. Only two banned cards (frantic search and cranial plating). It makes for lots of fun to build devks, as you get an idea and then discover one of your important combo cards is Uncommon, back to the drawing board. We have eight decks built to test against each other, and we have been having a blast trying them out. As commons cost between ten cents and a dollar, Pauper decks are cheap to make.

[Smoove_B]

Just got back from a two-day trip to a gaming convention and my brain is on overload. Too many bronies...I'll have to look at my list to see what games we hit. It was worth it, but I severely underestimated the level of brain drain. I cannot imagine something like GenCon.

[Zarathud]

It's like a marathon. You need to train up from game days to 2 day events like Octocon. And then you can stretch to 3-4 days as long as you build in some down time and sleep. A full day of brain burners should be followed by a day with more familiar/light games.

[Boudreaux]

Just got back from a two-day trip to a gaming convention and my brain is on overload. Too many bronies...I'll have to look at my list to see what games we hit. It was worth it, but I severely underestimated the level of brain drain. I cannot imagine something like GenCon.

Geekway to the West was four full days, and I'm always surprised when I get to Sunday and I start to realize I'm pretty much done with games for awhile. I'm also always surprised at how few games I end up playing. I always think going into a full day "tons of games will be played, easily 10+" and then at the end of the day I look back and I've only played 3 or 4.

Had a nice get-together with friends yesterday - played Railroad Tycoon, Dicetown, and D-Day Dice. Wanted to get to Merchants and Marauders but Railroad Tycoon sucked up the afternoon. Have also played 3-4 solo D-Day Dice games since then. Have yet to win.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, that was definitely my impression before attending -- that we'd be able to play 15 or so games over two days. In practice? Not so much.

We started with Ca$h and Gun$, which plays extremely fast -- like 15 minutes tops for a round. It's very casual but rather easy to gang up on someone repeatedly. Playing with strangers made it extra interesting as no one was really able to work an "angle" or predict outcomes prior to the big shootout. Seems like a great filler game, but even among strangers things were starting to get a bit heated when certain players were repeatedly targeted.

AEG had a demo area set up and we were able to play a round of Smash Up and it was tremendous fun. My buddy is slow to learn new games, particularly ones that require a lot of card reading and rule exceptions, so of course he picked one of the worst factions for the game (Zombies) as their powers involve digging through your discard deck, playing extra cards, etc... His other faction (Pirates) were good at moving cards around the table, both in play and after they scored. I picked Ninja and Alien factions for my deck with enabled me to kill enemy agent as well as beam them back to the owners hand or discard pile. Probably the best move for me was waiting until an opponent was about to score on a base but then hitting it with an alien ray that completely removed the scoring conditions, making that base entirely useless for scoring. The AEG rep played as Dinosaur Wizards which also seemed rather complex. I think he said the most complex factions are Zombie, Wizards and Robot, so if you get to play a demo somewhere, I'd avoid them if you're prone to mental lock. The artwork is great and it plays rather fast (or at least it should in theory) -- seems like a winner. It also seems like it's absolutely geared for expansion factions that could be added with little difficulty.

We also managed to play a round of THUNDERSTONE Advance, which actually left me pleasantly surprised in how much was tweaked. Not only are the cards easier to read, but the actual game play has been tweaked a bit in minor ways that seemed to speed things up a bit. I wasn't really interested in purchasing it before (since I own the base set and Dragonspire expansion for the original) but I'm actually considering it now. The game board it comes with is a nice touch and apparently we were playing the basic rules (which seemed to me to be closest to what we were doing with the original THUNDERSTONE).

Last night we finally fit in a game of Nightfall and it was a pretty big disappointment. I really had no idea what the game was going to be like, but I thought it was going to be more like THUNDERSTONE. Apparently it's much closer to Magic: The Gathering in design (don't know; never played) and it's very complex with respect to how turns flow. I could probably get into it if we had someone local that could teach us, but it was really just way too complex to comprehend. It was also the last game we played at the conference after a full day of gaming, so we were pretty fried at that point.

We were in a Monsterpoclypse tournament, though it was using custom rules and custom figures. One of the big attractions (apparently) for this convention is the giant "Arena" they create for wargamers to use for various scaled-up events. I think the total playable area is 20' wide by 50' long but I think we were only using about 20x30 feet for the MonPoc city. Anyway, it was fun but we were hoping the tournament was an actual game...and I don't think the old grizzled war gamers were impressed with us moving around toy Godzillas while they were measuring airplanes and musketeers with rulers and string. Anyway, I've never seen so many war games set up and it was insane to view how much work people put into these sets. On our way out last night we saw an actual game of O.G.R.E. being played with metal tanks. All of the guys were excited about the Kickstarter project as well, which rather surprised me.

Fit in a round of Settlers of Catan with some very patient and helpful veterans. We'd never played before and once again during the late game, my buddy was just overwhelmed with options, strategy, etc... It was rather fun but the one woman we were playing with told us they actually had to stop playing in her house because of fighting between family members. Apparently they're all rather competitive.

Being a local presence, WizKids had a HUGE area set up for HeroClix tournaments and games. We spent some time getting demos of Star Trek Fleet Captains and Lord of the Rings Nazgul. I'm not really into Star Trek, but the Fleet Captains game actually looked pretty interesting as it's not really about ship-to-ship combat. The Nazgul game looked...interesting, but it seemed like a mix of Quarriors and resource building. I'm sure that's a terrible analogy, but it looked rather complex and I'm not really a huge fan of LotR anyway, so it was all lost on me. I guess if you like the idea of playing as Nazgul and trying to beat Frodo and the Fellowship before they defeat Sauron, I guess this could be a great "What If" type game.

He had a demo of Mage Knight set up and I asked if he had any tips for learning to play (as I still haven't done anything with the copy I picked up back in May). He laughed and said there are very few people at WizKids HQ that even understand how to play, much less being able to offer tips. The all know the game as a stellar reputation among certain gamers but apparently it's too hardcore for the publisher.

We also learned a bit about HeroClix as to us it looked a lot like Heroscape. We might give it a try, but since all the figures are comic book characters, the interest level only extends as far as the ones I'm really familiar with.

Spoke with the creator of Pittsburgh 68 which sounded like a fun game for 3-13 people (which was unusual to hear). Essentially in smaller games the people are playing multiple characters, so that's how it scales. But because it involves cards, hand management AND dice, it grabbed our attention. It's also set up to play like you're watching a horror movie and apparently very few games have happy endings...

Anyway, it was a mental blitz but worth the trip. I think we realized that it's really 4 or 5 conventions "glued" together (Board gaming, LARP, RPG, War gamers, etc...) and we seemed to be weird because we tried jumping around to the different sub-groups and wanted to play just about anything. But most of the people there seemed to stick to just one type of game or even a single game and that's all they did.

[hepcat]

Glad you enjoyed your first con experience. I actually feel like I never play ENOUGH games when I go to those things. I scheduled pretty heavily for Gencon but I think I'll try to add a few through generic tokens after I get there.

Smash Up is definitely on my radar (I mentioned it on this page a while back), and Star Trek: Fleet Captains is currently gathering dust in my rather large gaming closet right now, but I suspect it will reemerge with the release of the Romulan expansion. It has the potential for greatness, but was hobbled right out of the gate with a few fundamental flaws...one of which is that the Federation player could just avoid conflict and interaction with the other player all together, huddle up in his corner of the universe and win rather quickly. I'm hoping that the Romulans change that up. The game itself is fantastic when you get two players who want to just mix it up and have fun.

Saturday a few of us got together and played. We started off with a couple of games of King of Tokyo, then went straight to a 4 player game of Stone Age. The fourth player was a guy who was just hanging out at the game store, watching us play. I invited him to play as I usually have good experiences with pick up players at that store and because I wanted to try a full game of Stone Age. Unfortunately, this guy wouldn't stop with the tv show and movie quotes. You had to just tune him out as he would...not...shut...up. After the game, Seppe and I left to get a beer in hopes we could ditch him. Thankfully, when we got back, he was gone. But we also lost our third player as he is more of a hardcore gamer and I have a feeling the games we wanted to play weren't up his alley.

Then we played two games of Flash Point. I really dig this one. The first game we played the easy/family rules to get our minds wrapped around the mechanics. After that, we jumped to the advanced rules with everything. Both games we lost. It's definitely a contender for Ghost Stories' crown as hardest game.

Finally, we ended the evening with some Puzzle Strike. I'm surprised at how I always come back to that one at the end of the night lately. I'd buy it but a third edition is coming out this fall. I'll probably pick that up when it releases though.

[LordMortis]

He had a demo of Mage Knight set up and I asked if he had any tips for learning to play (as I still haven't done anything with the copy I picked up back in May). He laughed and said there are very few people at WizKids HQ that even understand how to play, much less being able to offer tips. The all know the game as a stellar reputation among certain gamers but apparently it's too hardcore for the publisher.

Set aside about three to five hours and play through the walk through. You're still playing the game but you're learning most of the game as you go. Keep the rules out and refer to them often for the next five games or so. Eventually the games will come down to about two hours a pop if you are playing with people who are fairly on the ball.

If you want to learn it by yourself before introducing it to others then pretend to be two different players and go through the walk through and then play the solo variant.... And still keep the rule by your side. It just takes a number of games to feel comfortable with the rules enough to not have to reference them again and again.

Also, don't start with GenCon for a national Convention. Start with Origins. You could probably even drive to Columbus for New Jersey. What is that? Maybe 8 or 10 hours?

[coopasonic]

Then we played two games of Flash Point. I really dig this one. The first game we played the easy/family rules to get our minds wrapped around the mechanics. After that, we jumped to the advanced rules with everything. Both games we lost. It's definitely a contender for Ghost Stories' crown as hardest game.

What difficulty did you play the advanced game on and which side of the board? The family game side makes for an easier game. It really depends on the fire rolls how hard the game is. It can go from controlled to insane so quickly with a couple bad fire rolls. Once you get a few flareups out there it can go from bad to worse quickly.

[hepcat]

We played on the suggested game board side for family rules and just used that again for our recruit level, advanced game. We only had two players and stuck with one role/FF each. We lost both games due to structural damage (we used up the damage cubes). And we didn't add damage cubes to doors that were destroyed, per the revised rules in the latest edition.

The advanced game was hell of a fun time as I ran around outside the building with the deck gun, trying to extinguish quadrants while Seppe used his imaging technician to figure out where to go.

I really like this one. It gave me the same feeling of camaraderie while gaming that Pandemic did when I first played it.

[Boudreaux]

Then we played two games of Flash Point. I really dig this one. The first game we played the easy/family rules to get our minds wrapped around the mechanics. After that, we jumped to the advanced rules with everything. Both games we lost. It's definitely a contender for Ghost Stories' crown as hardest game.

What difficulty did you play the advanced game on and which side of the board? The family game side makes for an easier game. It really depends on the fire rolls how hard the game is. It can go from controlled to insane so quickly with a couple bad fire rolls. Once you get a few flareups out there it can go from bad to worse quickly.

Yeah, Flash Point is great but - in my experience - nowhere near as hard as Ghost Stories. There are a few really nice combos (Fire Captain, Imaging Tech, Fire Engine Driver) that make things much easier when used well.

Also, if you're a fan of Flash Point there's a follow-up Kickstarter for some expansions and meeple replacements.

[hepcat]

already signed up for the 25 dollar level.