What Board Game Are You Currently Playing?

[Hahma]

Last night at game night I played:

Cacao- a nice light tile laying game that plays in 30-40 minutes.

Imperial Setters- a neat empire building game with 4 factions to choose from; Romans, Egyptians, Japanese and Barbarians. Each has their own play style and faction deck, with all players having access to a common deck of cards. I was the Romans and taught the game to 2 others and they chose Barbarians and Egyptians. Egyptian player won and I came in second.

Medieval Academy - one of the guys in the group just got back from an 18 day vacation in Europe. He brought back a couple games from there and this was one of them. It's a cool little card drafting game where you have several scoring tracks you try to play cards to move up on. Some tracks are end game only but others score at various rounds. I liked it and came in 3rd place of 3 players.

[Hahma]

Last night I had an extra game night because we needed to get back into our monthly Galaxy Defenders campaign that we missed in June due to various schedule conflicts.

Galaxy Defenders is a co-op game where 5 of us each play a character (space marine (me), sniper, tank-type guy, robocop type guy, and matrix agent type guy), and out group needs to go on missions to stop invading aliens. There's missions to rescue scientists, or to get into a virtual computer world to stop some program, or like last night, we needed to get into the alien ship and kidnap one of their leaders.

Throughout the game and campaign you will have opportunities to gain new skills and weapons. Sometimes these are only usable during that current mission, but some things carry on to the next mission.

Last mission several of us "died" but the mission was still a success. This time I made sure I wasn't going in and charging into battle without proper support so I could live and keep some of the stuff I gained this mission. Worked out and we succeeded without a loss and now we skip mission 9 (due to our success) and go right to mission 10.



Also, back in April 4 of us went to Milwaukee to demo games at the Midwest Gaming Classic. We had gotten comped for our hotel room and pass to get into the event, but that was it really. But we recently found out that we were being given some games as a thank you and we got to divide them amongst ourselves. The selection wasn't really great, but there were some decent games to choose from.

I ended up getting:

Battle Sheep
Dead Mans Draw
Lost Legacy: Starship
Lost Legacy: Flying Garden

[chas]

Hey, nice!

[chas]

Memoir 44: The Angaur Campaign

Most people post their fan made scenarios on the Days of Wonder site. But going through the M44 Files section for the first time in years, I found this on Page 4. Its a five battle Pacific campaign that I just finished solitairiing! Since my dad served on Angaur, I was particularly interested, and even found through the wikipedia listing Battle of Angaur, a 28 minute film made by the Army Signal Corps during the battle!

The Pacific Theater, although covered in M44, doesn't have nearly the amount of scenarios as other theaters. Also, many of the games feel unbalenced, as historically the Japanese won almost all their land battles at the outbreak of the war, and then later on lost them all.

On the other hand, the Japanese won the first three Angaur scenarios here, and then lost two, for a final campaign score that was so close that the Japanese won by only two points. (You can read my long session report on bgg on the main game discussion board). So its very much worth playing.

Next up, Taeblewalker is dropping by later today for the M44 Overlord Peleliu, from the Pacific expansion. I don't think I ever played it, since back then I didn't have the two sets required. Also, it is quite different from most other Pacific battles, and I was so surprised by the set up that I think I would have remembered it. Usually the US can batter the Japanese into insensibility with artillery, but they don't have any here! Also, the US tanks are out in front, where they are usually trapped behind the infantry at start. And the Japanese have many tanks themselves, as well as lots of varied and different defensive terrain. So this is Hell In The Pacific Week for me.

[chas]

Memoir 44 "Hell In The Pacific Week" continued today with Iwo Jima, a fan made scenario I found in the Files section of the Pacific Expansion discussion board on bgg. In fact, this guy was so into it he did Iwo in three formats: Standard, Breakthrough, and Overlord! So when a pal came over this evening, I chose the Breakthrough version, as he hadn't played either that format or a Pacific scenario yet.

The Pacific games often use different terrain types, from rice paddies to jungles to caves. The most interesting thing though is the national doctrines:

US Marines: Gung Ho: they can add one unit activation to every card they play.

Imperial Japanese Army:

Yamato Damashi Spirit:
*Infantry must always ignore 1 flag
*When in terrain that ignores a flag, must ignore two flags
*When in caves, must ignore all flags

Seishen Kyoiku doctrine:
*Infantry at full strength in Close Assault batgtles at +1 die

Banzai War Cry
*Infantry may move 2 hexe to combat into Close Assault

The scenario looked pretty bad the the Marines, so I took them and lost the first game. But then I tried them again and won!

[Johngee]

Tuesday nights are when one of my gaming groups always meets. I joined the preliminary organizational discussions on BGG early this year because I used to live in that area of Monmouth County, New Jersey and I wanted to be supportive. But I only try to visit them about once a month. When a guy named Jay said that he wanted to join the club an would bring "Fortune and Glory: the Cliffhanger game" to his first meeting, I immediately made plans to drive the 100 miles to be there this week. It turned out to be a four hour session from 6 - 10 pm (including set up and clean up) since two guys had never played it and Jay. his friend Taff, and myself had only played it a few times. There were some exciting moments and a lot of laughs as Josh and Taff quickly got close to winning, but then got stuck at 12 Gold and couldn't complete another mission. Dan and Jay realized that they were way behind and kept pushing their luck in an effort to catch up, but were repeatedly defeated by the evil Nazi villains. I was proceeding fairly cautiously and then about 3/4 into the game the dice gods seemed to favor my rolls, so when I successfully explored a temple in Africa for four gold I only needed to bring it back to Hong Kong for the win. However, there we discovered that my artifact was a fraud (thanks Taff!), but a City Card in my hand gave three more gold if I visited Shanghai which only required a two movement. On my next turn I confirmed the victory while the others were still in panicky turmoil. A very FUN evening and well worth the trip to be with new friends.

On Wed evening I played ANOTHER 2 & 1/2 hour session of "Carcassonne" with my wife, stepson and daughter-in-law. Apparently if you prefer to run with scissors and don't 'play nice' with the other children in the sandbox, the meta-game can quickly get out of control as someone will usually complain loudly about a recent stratagem that someone else had just made, and then hold a grudge for the rest of the night. My wife had every intention of connecting her lonely farmer to the ten towns that she had meticulously built, when I picked a tile that sooo easily allowed me to steal them from her that I couldn't resist. They were un-farmed and imho vulnerable. Well that Really, REALLY pissed her off and I had to hear about it for the rest of the night and then all the rest of her efforts were attempts to screw up my score. Anyway, I came in second by almost (-just 2 point short-) catching up to her son who had racked up a lot of points early in the game and is usually in collusion with his mom. I thoroughly enjoy Carcassonne as a game system with any or all of it's 20+ expansions, but the contentious nature of our family sessions is becoming redundant. How can I get them to try something different?

[Hahma]

Last night I played:

Imperial Settlers - I was the Egyptians and came in 2nd with 43 points, with the Japanese winning at 61 points and the Romans finishing with 39 points.

The Ancient World - Beautiful art with this worker placement game that has some neat mechanics. I won with 21 points with the others coming in at 19 and 16 points.

Quebec - I had wanted to leave at around 9:30 last night, but a couple guys were looking for a 3rd player to join them for this game. I made them pay for keeping me there until 11:15, by spanking them with a score of 236 to 182 and 173.


On Sunday I had played a few games with my 12 year-old twin girls. We played: Battle Sheep, Dead Man's Draw and Uno

[1Mmirg]

I need to do a longer post on the great games at Dice Tower Con, but for now a quick post on MagicScape (i.e. Arena of the Planeswalkers). Definitely like the card play and summoning aspects. Very glad I picked this up and I'm sure to start playing with Scape terrain.

Feels like Scape, but different enough that I'll enjoy it in its own right.

[1Mmirg]

A few other highlights from the Dice Tower Con:

Medieval Academy - Really liked this one. It's like a more elegant and interactive 7 Wonders. It has a simplicity to it that belies how hard it is--just very smart game design, imo.

Code Names - Wow. This is a something different and cool. A game of word guessing wrapped up in a great spy theme. You're trying to guess words using your partner's word clues, in order to find your secret bases (and not accidentally help the opposing team).

Spyfall - Another winner, if you're more into the game as activity and not the scoring perhaps as much. A group game of asking just the right questions about a location, with one person (the spy) trying to figure out where the group is at.

Elysium - This was good. A much deeper game than the others here, but well worth it. Some are calling it an advanced Splendor and that's fairly accurate, but it is definitely a different game. (And it lacks the elegance of Splendor, though it's definitely well designed.) I enjoyed it and would love to play it again.

Scoville - This is a good game as well, though I'll admit it felt too long for what it was. Or at least our group got tired of the game before it wrapped up. A fun game of planting peppers. Perhaps we just went into it thinking it would move along faster than it did.

Castles of Mad King Ludwig - Another good game that felt like it had just one or two things off about it. Loved the theme (building castles) and pieces and most of the game, but the risk of the new start player having an AP moment as they try to figure out the worth of each castle piece to each other player was too big for the group I played with. (I can tell, as I get to be an older grumpy gamer , that I like streamlined play more and more--I appreciate the elegance of a game's design more and more.)

Operation FAUST: A Coup-like game, but with more "game" and less need to bluff. I'm still not positive of my feeling for it, but I definitely liked it and I'm curious to try it again. I'm also looking forward to adding the role powers (the Dice Tower promos) and seeing how that changes the game.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by 1Mmirg

A few other highlights from the Dice Tower Con:

Medieval Academy - Really liked this one. It's like a more elegant and interactive 7 Wonders. It has a simplicity to it that belies how hard it is--just very smart game design, imo.

Code Names - Wow. This is a something different and cool. A game of word guessing wrapped up in a great spy theme. You're trying to guess words using your partner's word clues, in order to find your secret bases (and not accidentally help the opposing team).

Spyfall - Another winner, if you're more into the game as activity and not the scoring perhaps as much. A group game of asking just the right questions about a location, with one person (the spy) trying to figure out where the group is at.

Elysium - This was good. A much deeper game than the others here, but well worth it. Some are calling it an advanced Splendor and that's fairly accurate, but it is definitely a different game. (And it lacks the elegance of Splendor, though it's definitely well designed.) I enjoyed it and would love to play it again.

Scoville - This is a good game as well, though I'll admit it felt too long for what it was. Or at least our group got tired of the game before it wrapped up. A fun game of planting peppers. Perhaps we just went into it thinking it would move along faster than it did.

Castles of Mad King Ludwig - Another good game that felt like it had just one or two things off about it. Loved the theme (building castles) and pieces and most of the game, but the risk of the new start player having an AP moment as they try to figure out the worth of each castle piece to each other player was too big for the group I played with. (I can tell, as I get to be an older grumpy gamer , that I like streamlined play more and more--I appreciate the elegance of a game's design more and more.)

Operation FAUST: A Coup-like game, but with more "game" and less need to bluff. I'm still not positive of my feeling for it, but I definitely liked it and I'm curious to try it again. I'm also looking forward to adding the role powers (the Dice Tower promos) and seeing how that changes the game.

Good looking list of games there V. Of those, I've only tried Medieval Academy (last week in fact), and I liked that one quite a bit. I remember the KS for it and wish I would have gotten in on that one.


I've seen people at game night playing Castles of Mad King Ludwig and it looks pretty neat. I have Suburbia and enjoy that, though I know Castles is somewhat different.


I've been wanting to try Spyfall for awhile now. Others in the group always seem to play it when I'm already engaged in other games, and all I hear is lots of laughing and good times from over there. I know it's been played at least 6 times there and it has always sounded like one I just have to get into and try sometime.


Elysium looks like a neat one too that I would really like to try.

[chas]

The Memoir 44: Days of Wonder site yields many "unofficial" scenarios. There are almost 500 just on the Pacific Theater alone (although a few are in other languages such as French and Spanish)! I've just started to look at them for the first time. There are many unusual subjects not covered by official scenarios, such as:

Khalkin Gol
Operation Olympic
China (15+)

To find them, just go to:

www.daysofwonder.com
Games
Memoir 44
Military Archives
Scenarios From The Front

And if you want to print some out correctly, be sure to bring up the Print View first, and print from that!

[Dad_Scaper]

All this Elysium chatter tempted me into looking at it, and my research tells me two things:

(1) Looks perfect for my taste.
(2) Except nobody would play it with me.