What Board Game Are You Currently Playing?

[Johngee]

Originally Posted by akden

You could play it solo, which I've done on several occasions.

@tom and @spidysox raved so much about how well LotR: LCG played out EVEN SOLO, that I bought it and several expansions, then sleeved most of the cards, but never actually tried it myself and now it's collecting dust on a shelf after not being touched for over two years.


I'm kind of reluctant to play games "solo" (except to run through a new game while learning the rules) for fear of what my family would think, since they're probably just looking for an excuse to ship me off to a looney asylum. I keep telling myself that will be something I might do when I check in to the "Old Folks Home" which for me ain't really too far in the future. Actually, there's just SO MANY other activities around the house that could and should be doing that I can seldom find enough time to work on my own gaming projects.


Anyway, last week I played:
Stone Age
Sheriff of Nottingham
Blokus x2
Star Wars: X-Wing x3

[chas]

Solo gaming is a glorious tradition! There is a very old Solo Wargaming Association in England (minis), and the funniest thing is that they do have a Newsletter. Which makes sense, but is still a hilarious idea to me...a communal journal about how best to be playing alone!

I actually do solo almost all of my new games to learn the rules and come up with some strategies for playing. Because when I teach one to live players, everyone is all over me anyhow for the first game..."get the host" being a socially acceptable practice.

[davidlhsl]

Originally Posted by Johngee

I'm kind of reluctant to play games "solo" (except to run through a new game while learning the rules) for fear of what my family would think, since they're probably just looking for an excuse to ship me off to a looney asylum. I keep telling myself that will be something I might do when I check in to the "Old Folks Home" which for me ain't really too far in the future. Actually, there's just SO MANY other activities around the house that could and should be doing that I can seldom find enough time to work on my own gaming projects.

@Johngee , listen to chas! Solo gaming is a noble, time honored tradition, and it even keeps you young. It's true! Sure, it leads to hairy palms and blindness. You get used to the ticklish sensation when you pick your nose.

Games don't have to even be designed for solitaire play. You can make decisions for all sides of a game. If a side has a couple of viable options, dice it out. Sadly for me, this doesn't work well with abstracts due to the lack of narrative (I love most abstracts), but thematic games can be incredibly entertaining.

So dry those tears from your eyes, dump your entire Carcassonne collection on the table, and tell your family to only disturb you if you receive an encoded message from the Mother Ship.

Speaking of solo gaming, I've recently been perusing all the rule books I've purchased from Two Hour Wargames over the past few years, as I'm itching to get one of these back to the table. Many of their games are more RPG-ish than wargames. All are designed with built-in solo play. I've decided I'll start a campaign in Larger than Life: the Director's Cut, which is an RPG-type game with a Pulp setting.

[IAmBatman]

I used to play Chess solo all the time as a kid. Solo gaming is so much better these days.

[Jormi_Boced]

Played a lot of Dicemasters yesterday and some Red7 and Coloretto.

Finished painting a lot of Imperial Assault this week. Fitting to paint so much Star Wars with Force Awakens right around the corner.






Also finished the mummies fro The Adventurers.


And finished the cathedral for Pillars of the Earth.


Prepped some Tail Feathers for priming as well.

[Tornado]

Where did you get the cathedral?

Sweet paint jobs. Love the Imperial Guard.

[spidysox]

I've really come to love solo gaming.

I consider myself fortunate if I am able to get 1 game day in a month with friends, so solo gaming is my outlet.

I've taken over our spare bedroom and turned it into my game room. Usually as the night is winding down I find my way up there and get some solo gaming in. I find it to be very relaxing and it allows me to let my brain get away from all of the things that the day throws at it. Ideally, I'd have family members that love gaming as much as I do, or good friends and a game group close by, but I have neither of those things so solo gaming is the way to go.

Having said that...

I was able to get a game day in yesterday with 3 friends, including Tom.

We started out with Pandemic: Legacy. We had gotten a victory in our last game (February) so we set up March. The first game was tight. We really were put to the test to keep the diseases managed and it came right down to the end before we were unable to solve the final puzzle of getting one of our characters the last card we needed to cure the last disease.

So we reset and tried again. This time we really felt like we were doing well and seemed to have things in order. But, as it tends to happen, that was a lie. We got 2 consecutive epidemic cards and that was that...

So now we are going to be moving on to April having lost 2 games in a row. Our funding level is very high, but man we are just having a difficult time. I have read in a few places that people have felt the game is too easy, but we have not had that at all.

I absolutely love the game and can't wait to get back to it.

After that, we set up T.I.M.E. Stories

I had been reading the reviews for this game and paying close attention to it so when Tom mentioned that he was picking it up I was excited to give it a go.

Let me just say that it was one of the best gaming experiences that I have ever had! This game is just absolutely wonderful. The theme, the art, the game play... All of it is just fantastic. We started it at about 2:00 p.m. and finished at 8:40. We played it through to completion in one sitting and I wouldn't have it any other way. We were so engrossed in the story that the time just flew by. In the end, we were able to solve the case, but did so veeeeerrry poorly. Despite our poor showing (score wise) it was just so much fun. It had more loud yells of joy and delight than I had experienced in a long time playing a game.

If you have the chance, I highly recommend getting T.I.M.E. Stories.

[akden]

Originally Posted by Johngee

@tom and @spidysox raved so much about how well LotR: LCG played out EVEN SOLO, that I bought it and several expansions, then sleeved most of the cards, but never actually tried it myself and now it's collecting dust on a shelf after not being touched for over two years.


I'm kind of reluctant to play games "solo" (except to run through a new game while learning the rules) for fear of what my family would think, since they're probably just looking for an excuse to ship me off to a looney asylum. I keep telling myself that will be something I might do when I check in to the "Old Folks Home" which for me ain't really too far in the future. Actually, there's just SO MANY other activities around the house that could and should be doing that I can seldom find enough time to work on my own gaming projects.


Anyway, last week I played:
Stone Age
Sheriff of Nottingham
Blokus x2
Star Wars: X-Wing x3

I'll join in on the solo bandwagon. For those of us that don't have a regular game group or frequent gaming opportunities, playing solo can be very entertaining. Most co-ops can be played solo, and there are some excellent games that are designed purely for solo gaming (my favorite solo-able game of all time is currently Gears of War, which is a co-op, but I have several, like Friday and Hidden Intruder, which were made for solo play). Boardgame geek even has a One Player Guild for solo gamers that currently has over 3500 members. They have plenty of discussion threads in their forum, and I'd recommend checking it out.

[chas]

Single Holes In New Designs!

When I did game reviews I sometimes included a Nitpick Section to balance the reviews out, since I tend to review games I like (some are now up on boardgamegeek). In the case of the three games I'm expecting any day now, each has/had one particular "weakness" which may be/has been changed officially in the future/recent past. In the meantime, to sum up many threads, here they are with the "fixes" recommended by the fan community so far:

1. The Great War: The British tend to lose their bayonets when you have to cut them off of the plastics sprues, a mistake a minis company should not have made. Its been reported that this is easily fixed by using a sprue cutter rather than an exacto or other knife. Unfortunately, some board gamers didn't get advice from their mini oriented friends on this. Since I have the right tool, I'm expecting no trouble.

2. Blood Rage: Although most people haven't even played with the expansions/exculsives yet, many posters have suggested a greater variety in the game cards. Dozens are now being proposed and debated on bgg.

3. Kemet Ta-Seti: There really is none in the expansion itself, although different folks have different plans on which modules to add--I usually use them all. Oddly enough Tom Vassel in his positive review has shown no interest in the new Dawn Phase rule. However, this was a specific fix for the original "hole" in the basic game. This is that the person who has the lowest number of VPs determines the sequence of play in what turns out to be the last turn, and therefore can play kingmaker as a tie breaker, even if he can't win himself. I commented on his review that you can't blame the designers for responding to the community input, and should even praise them for it, even if you yourself never cared about this issue!

[Johngee]

Originally Posted by davidlhsl

@Johngee, listen to chas! Solo gaming is a noble, time honored tradition, and it even keeps you young. It's true! Sure, it leads to hairy palms and blindness. You get used to the ticklish sensation when you pick your nose.
<~snip/snip~>
So dry those tears from your eyes, dump your entire Carcassonne collection on the table, and tell your family to only disturb you if you receive an encoded message from the Mother Ship.
<~snip~>

I.L.M.A.O. - Thanks guys for all the encouragement to jump on this band wagon and get with the program.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by spidysox

After that, we set up T.I.M.E. Stories

I had been reading the reviews for this game and paying close attention to it so when Tom mentioned that he was picking it up I was excited to give it a go.

Let me just say that it was one of the best gaming experiences that I have ever had! This game is just absolutely wonderful. The theme, the art, the game play... All of it is just fantastic. We started it at about 2:00 p.m. and finished at 8:40. We played it through to completion in one sitting and I wouldn't have it any other way. We were so engrossed in the story that the time just flew by. In the end, we were able to solve the case, but did so veeeeerrry poorly. Despite our poor showing (score wise) it was just so much fun. It had more loud yells of joy and delight than I had experienced in a long time playing a game.

If you have the chance, I highly recommend getting T.I.M.E. Stories.

I only got to try one session of T.I.M.E. Stories. Unfortunately, because it was a situation where there were other things people wanted to try that day (like Kingdom Death Monster), that I only got to go through T.I.M.E. Stories once. We got to a certain point before running out of time and likely would have needed a couple more tries to get all the way through. But I agree Spideysox, it was a great experience. Unfortunately the guy who owns it, also is running a Pandemic Legacy campaign (that I couldn't get into because the spots were spoken for), so haven't gotten to try T.I.M.E. again.

This weekend, I played a couple games of Tsuro with my daughters. It's a quick tile laying game where you have to follow the path of the tile you put out and hope to stay on the board the longest, as the more tiles that get put out, the more connections they make that lead you off the board or into another player's piece, which also knocks you out of the game.

I also played a solo 2p game of Bora Bora, to learn the rules. This is a very meaty game by Stefan Feld, a great euro game designer. Too hard to explain this one here, just have to check it out on BGG if interested.

Last night I played Defenders of the Realm at game night. I have just the base game, but my buddy John that brought it last night has all the expansions, as well as really cool minis for each enemy general and minion, as opposed to the basic ones that come with the base game. We also played with the alternate generals, which were tougher, as well as with some extra minion types that make it even tougher. We did well for awhile, but got our butts kicked pretty much fighting the undead general. We took so many wounds each and one guy's figure died and had to start with a fresh one, so that slowed us down in what we could do for awhile as it took time to heal our wounds/actions back. Then it snowballed and we lost. If people are familiar with Pandemic, this is a fantasy game version of it and better.

As to solo gaming, even though I have a regular game group and go game every Monday night, as well as one all day Saturday a month, I still solo game on most weekend mornings. I either do so to learn new games to be able to teach or play them better with others, or just to have fun with games I haven't played in a while. I also have several co-ops that work great for solo gaming.

[Hahma]

Target has Codenames for $19.99 with free shipping. Online only.

CSI has it for $15 something, but you still have to pay shipping unless your total order is $100+.

I ordered it from Target. $21.36 shipped works for me. I've played it several times with from 6 to 10 people, great little game.