What Board Game Are You Currently Playing?

[chas]

A play test of the unreleased expansion for Quartermaster General titled 'Air Marshal' had to be rescheduled due to past winter weather, and is now happening here on Saturday, with designer Ian Brody. As the game is great already, I'm looking forward to trying it out, even with my own primitive mock up game elements.

I've signed a Non Disclosure Agreement, but hopefully it will be out in a reasonable period of time. Check out the boardgamegeek discussion board if you are interested; he's been very forthcoming about what's in it in general.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by chas

A play test of the unreleased expansion for Quartermaster General titled 'Air Marshal' had to be rescheduled due to past winter weather, and is now happening here on Saturday, with designer Ian Brophy. As the game is great already, I'm looking forward to trying it out, even with my own primitive mock up game elements.

I've signed a Non Disclosure Agreement, but hopefully it will be out in a reasonable period of time. Check out the boardgamegeek discussion board if you are interested, he's been very forthcoming about what's in it in general.

My buddy Jeff is also going to be playtesting it, not with the designer of course, as we are here in northwest Indiana. So I'm sure he'll be asking our group to help him out with it. I have only played QG once and enjoyed it. Look forward to playing it again.

Though, Jeff has a lot of other stuff that needs played, as he's running a Galaxy Defenders campaign, an Imperial Assault campaign and has a ton of Heroes of Normandie that he wants to get played.

[quozl]

Originally Posted by Gurei-Ornery

@Johngee - Battleball Advanced rules

Yep, that's them!

[akden]

Things have been pretty busy lately, so other than getting schooled at the Star Realms app by Dad_Scaper and Capsocrates, I haven't been getting much gaming in.

Last night, however, I was able to make to a local game store's monthly board game night and play a few games. We started off with some light stuff: Castellan, Guillotine, and a very light card game called Nuts.

I then introduced Among the Stars, and we played two games with four players. It was a hit, and the games were very close. I came in second place on the first one, losing by only 1 point, and I won the second by 2 points. This is a very fun game, and I have yet to break out any of the expansions, so it should offer lots of play for the future.

We followed with two games of 7 Wonders with six players. I enjoy this a great deal, as well. Overall, it was a nice night, and I was happy to have the opportunity to play some games for a change.

[chas]

The New York City Gang of Four played a 12 hour session of three Superscape games in a row, with about a 45 minute take out dinner break in there somewhere, from about 2 PM--2 AM. All placements and scores will be reported tomorrow on Marvel Maps & Scenarios/Alien Invitational. We also bought Sherman Davies dinner for his recent birthday. There were some very interesting and different games played with totally different armies each game.

[chas]

THE NEW YORK CITY GAMING REPORT

Taeblewalker brought over his new copy of King of New York, which of course I was disposed to like. Its much more of a game than King of Tokyo was--I'd say they've gone from a kid's game I had no interest in for myself to a kid's game I'm happy to play. Its probably even more fun with more than two players. We had three two player games in a couple of hours or so, and all were different.

As members of The New York City Gang of Four, we naturally scrutinized the game board, noting both accuracies and inaccuracies. Kolakoski's famous Secret Island Base is shown, but the angles on the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges are incorrect; they are closer here on the Brooklyn side than as shown on the Manhattan side. Naturally, it takes a very attractive pile of building tokens to get me to start anywhere but Brooklyn; but that's just me, a well known King's County partisan.

The cards are lots of fun, and each illustration well worth looking at for humor stuck in various places on them. Even their names like 'Hailing Taxis' and etc. can be punny. Movie references abound, from the monsters' physical appearances to the special rules ('Defender of Manhattan' references Ghost Busters, with the Statue of Liberty coming alive). I won my first game with Kong, but lost with Captain Fish and the anime dragon guy. All the six playable monsters are identical, until you buy them power up cards from those generally available.

As for local color in the rules, there is a real decision to be made about whether or not to enter Manhattan as opposed to the other boroughs--a decision I'm often making in real life! I trust they're now working on a design titled Duke of Brooklyn? Or how about Lords of Flatbush?

(Edit): Yesterday we got to try a five player game and had a good time!

[Hahma]

Went to my buddy's house last night to do some gaming, it will replace my normal weekly game night with the group this coming Monday. Have to make compromises with the wife

Started out with Robinson Crusoe and the first scenario. I'd only played it solo for about a dozen times, so I was looking forward to not being the only one getting my teeth knock in while playing that game. My buddy had only tried a 4 player game once a couple weeks ago and it was equally brutal, but one of the players (a retired state cop) wasn't digging the game and was bitching a lot of the time, so it wasn't for my buddy.

We spread ourselves out a bit, where we had to roll for success of certain actions and failed a bit. Adding a wound here and there from failure, as well as event cards for that action didn't help. The regular event cards were brutal enough. We never even got any wood in the last two rows of the wood pile that we needed as wood is very difficult to spare because you need it for items you need to build or for your shelter to protect you from the weather (which gets worse halfway through the game). But we had fun anyway.

Then we played Omen: A Reign of War Omega Edition (which they don't have this new kickstarter version listed on BGG yet). Both my buddy and I back it and while I taught it to another friend last Saturday, Brian wanted to give it a go last night.

This is certainly the best game by Small Box Games. It is very well designed, smooth and makes sense. It's a "brutal slaughterfest" as my buddy called it. But it's great because you know that you have access to more units easily enough. We love how each of the types of units (Soldiers, Beasts and Oracles) play differently, as well as each of the different ones of those types has different abilities. We didn't try any of the expansions that have Spirits and Heroes, as well as some other neat things. It's fun coming up with some good combos that can either gain you a Feat, take a war-torn city, or devastate the other player's units either in the cities or in their hand. Great game!


Finally, we played Hemloch: Midnight Edition, another game from Small Box Games that we both backed on Kickstarter.

This is another brutal in your face game, though it adds the element of area control to it that my buddy liked. It looked like it was going to go quick as we were getting many of the items by playing certain minions and also getting some from certain locations (taking all 18 items is one of the endgame triggers), but then it slowed down and we concentrated on the influence aspect of the game in order to gain more points from having markers on locations. Fun game.

The other side of the locations don't offer abilities to gain items, so that aspect would certainly become more restricted and make for more of an area of control game. We didn't play with any of the small expansions yet.

[Jormi_Boced]

Last night my wife and I played Blue Moon City with another couple

[Yodaking]

Was playing Zombiecide last night. I recently picked up some vending machine minis and we decided to bring them into the game as the source of power-ups you could purchase with experience points. We based the idea on the Call of Duty Zombie drinks. It was a ton of fun as you could go any buy yourself some healing, or purchase a skill for a limited time. It also helped keep the group closer together in experience levels during the early part of the game. Once one person got a bit too far ahead they could spend some of their experience and drop back with the rest of the group.

[Hahma]

Posted this in the Kickstarter thread, but figured I'd post it here as well for @chas and any others that may be into the Command and Colors system and/or historical games.

I may be backing it.

[davidlhsl]

Originally Posted by Hahma

Then we played Omen: A Reign of War Omega Edition (which they don't have this new kickstarter version listed on BGG yet). Both my buddy and I back it and while I taught it to another friend last Saturday, Brian wanted to give it a go last night.

This is certainly the best game by Small Box Games. It is very well designed, smooth and makes sense. It's a "brutal slaughterfest" as my buddy called it. But it's great because you know that you have access to more units easily enough. We love how each of the types of units (Soldiers, Beasts and Oracles) play differently, as well as each of the different ones of those types has different abilities. We didn't try any of the expansions that have Spirits and Heroes, as well as some other neat things. It's fun coming up with some good combos that can either gain you a Feat, take a war-torn city, or devastate the other player's units either in the cities or in their hand. Great game!


Finally, we played Hemloch: Midnight Edition, another game from Small Box Games that we both backed on Kickstarter.

This is another brutal in your face game, though it adds the element of area control to it that my buddy liked. It looked like it was going to go quick as we were getting many of the items by playing certain minions and also getting some from certain locations (taking all 18 items is one of the endgame triggers), but then it slowed down and we concentrated on the influence aspect of the game in order to gain more points from having markers on locations. Fun game.

The other side of the locations don't offer abilities to gain items, so that aspect would certainly become more restricted and make for more of an area of control game. We didn't play with any of the small expansions yet.

I was able to purchase both of these through the BGG Marketplace and will attempt Omen first before digging into Hemloch. Omen was pretty simple to learn and looks very interesting, so I'm eager to give that a spin. In my solo trial, I had some trouble remembering whether 5 cards were drawn or 3 cards discarded (two of the Feats you attempt to achieve for scoring purposes), so I may track those with markers until I feel comfortable enough to take off those "training wheels."

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by davidlhsl

I was able to purchase both of these through the BGG Marketplace and will attempt Omen first before digging into Hemloch. Omen was pretty simple to learn and looks very interesting, so I'm eager to give that a spin. In my solo trial, I had some trouble remembering whether 5 cards were drawn or 3 cards discarded (two of the Feats you attempt to achieve for scoring purposes), so I may track those with markers until I feel comfortable enough to take off those "training wheels."

Cool that you got them David.

Omen is pretty straight forward and I love it. It flows well and makes sense mechanically. One thing to know in case you weren't sure, is that you can Enrage opponent's units (though still not beasts) and not just yours if you play a unit with the Enrage ability. My buddy asked me about that last night and I had originally assumed it was just your units, but upon looking closer at the rules, it doesn't specify only your units. I searched at BGG and found the thread where John answered that question and you can indeed Enrage an opponent's unit, which turns them into a beast and they lose their abilities until the the controlling player's offering step.

Yeah, I can see the issue with remembering number of cards drawn and the number of ones you force your opponent to discard. The drawing 5 one was easier because it is something you can plan for during the Wealth step. You can draw 4 cards then, and then have an Oracle in play that will allow you to draw a card during the Portent step. Since the Feat step is right afterward, it was easy to remember because it was part of the plan to do from the onset. But a token as a reminder wouldn't hurt for sure. As for as the one where you force an opponent to discard 3+ cards during your Surge and Portent steps, that can be trickier to remember, but then again, once you have those things planned out to do at the beginning of your turn or after you draw certain cards during your Wealth step, then it makes it easier to remember. Last night, I had gotten a lot of cards in my hand as I had drawn 4 in Wealth step and 2 of my Oracles allowed me to draw cards (2 and 1). I actually had a full hand of 7 cards. During my buddy's Wealth step, as he drew cards, I heard an evil chuckle come from him and then I knew I was in trouble. He played cards in his Surge step that made me first get rid of all my beasts from my hand, and then get rid of all my soldiers from my hand. So after all that, I only had 1 Oracle remaining. Ugh! He for sure forced me to discard 3+ (6) cards that turn to get his Feat.

Hemloch had different layers as you get points from both item cards as well as influence markers on location cards. In the basic game on the lighter side of the locations and regular Day/Night cards, you may find that it's easy to gain Potion, Trinket and Scepter cards. Emptying the item decks might be an endgame condition you will have. But with more play as well as using the other side of the location cards and the expansions, you will likely find that there will be more of an area control aspect. Also, in case you aren't sure from the rules, if something says to "place" a minion, it's the same as "playing" a minion, in that you get to use that minion's ability when placed/played as well as the location's ability when normally applicable. When you use the 2 Trinkets to "move" an opponent's minion to your side of that location, you don't get to use that minion's ability or the location's ability because the minion had already been played/placed by the opponent and that's the only time that abilities can be triggered. Also when using an ability of a minion or the Scepter item card where it says to place a minion at any location on your side, you can break the normal rule of not being able to place more than one minion at a single location on your turn, as well as being able to place that minion at a location with the Festival Marker. The "any" means it can break those normal placement rules and it's neat to take advantage of that.

Did you get these Kickstarter versions David?