Up Front
Decided to dust this classic and introduce it to my Dad. I had to start back at square one in familiarizing myself with the rules needed to play the first scenario. I discovered a good set of beginner rules that helped. Our play was mostly a tutorial session to introduce him to the concepts he'll need to play.
I'm currently working on putting together the redesigned version that looks pretty nice. It'll take me a while to complete the counters, but I've got the Action Deck printed and the Personality Cards needed for the first scenario printed. I purchased a used copy of Up Front with Banzai, but the copy is pretty worn.
All this, of course, because the notorious Kickstarter reprint is currently waiting for frigid temperatures in the Nether World.
Makes me want to grab a chainsaw.
Which is exactly what I did!
Frag: Gold Edition
First person shooter in a board game version, published by Steve Jackson Games. This game is wicked fun! I played against my brother and dad. We each fielded two characters apiece that acted as team mates (so 3 teams of 2) to field a full 6 characters on the map.
You assign 7 points among three stats: Health, Speed, Accuracy. You can't stuff more than 4 points in a single stat, and you must assign at least 1 point to each.
Health = Number of dice (all 6-sided) you roll in defense, number of hit points you have, plus indicates maximum number of weapons you can equip at once. As you take damage, you'll reduce the number of dice you roll in defense.
Speed = Number of dice you roll to determine how many movement points you get during a turn. Also determines how far you can jump.
Accuracy = When you fire a weapon, you need to roll dice to determine if you hit. Accuracy indicates the number of dice you roll. If the roll is less than the range to the target, you miss. If Accuracy is 3 or 4, you get two attacks during the turn.
There are spots on the board where you can attempt to pick up a weapon or gadget (50% odds), just like in first person shooters. If you're killed (i.e., fragged), that scores a point to the character/team that fragged you. You drop your weapons and a blood counter in that spot, and you'll respawn during your next turn. Blood counters picked up by a character allow you to reduce damage by one or heal one point of damage.
We played until one team scored a total of 6 frags. I really racked frags early and gained a pretty big lead. I got up to five, needing only one more to win. However, both of my characters got fragged and spawned clear across to the other side of the board. My dad and my brother went after one another, and my dad caught up and scored the final sixth frag for the win.
This game is insanely fun. Determining damage requires some brain work, because you roll attack dice and add the values. You then add the defense dice. Then you divide the defense total into the attack total. Wounds = Attack / Defense, rounded down. Math Attack!!!
I played
For the Crown (Chess/Dominion hybrid) against my brother, then my dad joined back in with us to play
Baldrick's Tomb (very light, family-friendly dungeon crawl) and one round of
Mexican Train (domino game).