What Board Game Are You Currently Playing?

[B:T:L Matt]

I was swamped with projects for college this weekend and only managed to squeeze in two games.

1x Yggdrasil
My mom was actually the one that called me up asking if we could play this because she had so much fun with it last time. My mom chose Thor, my girlfriend chose Tyr, and I chose Frey. We won this game by a hair. We had numerous occasions in which five demons made it over the gate with the active player able to push one back before the turn's end. Very close game and tons of fun with that degree of tension.

1x Thunderstone
We had a really good combination of cards in which everything fed off each other well. This was a very smooth game, and I must say the Phalanx hero is insane, but I really enjoyed using the Terakian hero for the ability to discard disease cards to draw cards and eventually gain an attack bonus. I was victorious against my girlfriend with the scores as 33 to 27.

[Eclipse]

Picked up Battleship Galaxies over the weekend. Got in a few games. Really liking it, but I want more out of it as well. Shields feel a little under utilized as a mechanic at this point and I really need to give more of the scenarios a try. The base scenario doesn't provide much incentive to be the aggressor. I also really want the game to have facing/turning rules, if only to add more motion to the board. I'm a hair worried

I love the ship designs for the most part. The shielded blue fighters and unshielded reds rank as some of my favorites ever. I do really like the core mechanics as well. The energy system is really slick and makes for quite a few interesting choices. I LOVE the lauching system, particularly with the carried ships. The game just needs more options to make the most of it.

Really, that's just what I feel about the game. I just want more of it. More ship options, more scenarios, more of everything. It's a solid start, but it needs a bit more to keep from falling out of play with stuff like MonPoc, Heroscape, and Summoner Wars in my collection.

[SuperflyTNT]

Yeah, sheilds really end up as more of "more damage markers" than a really "different" thing. I wish the boarding cards couldn't be played upon shielded ships.

The Rescue of the Barrage is more fun than the dead-zone. Personally, I think home-brew scenarios will make the game emminently more playable.

[Eclipse]

Originally Posted by SuperflyTNT

Yeah, sheilds really end up as more of "more damage markers" than a really "different" thing. I wish the boarding cards couldn't be played upon shielded ships.

They protect from instant kills, but at 1/80 probability, those aren't exactly something you expect in any game. I sort of expected ships to be unable to take hull damage until the shields were down, rather than the excess damage over the shields translating directly into hull damage. The Wretch siphon and disruption mechanics hint at what could be done with the system, but again its where the game needs more to shine.

To finish the thought of my sentence fragment: I'm a hair worried about the various forms for each ship in terms of min-maxing. Since Launch costs are something of a double wammy and the base stats don't change, I can see a temptation to run with minimal special abilities. I'm just a touch worried when there's more to pick from, the best option is going to be a bunch of really bland Standards.

[Dad_Scaper]

I'm still waiting on mine (curse you, Chinese printers holding up SW Master Set!), but from everything I've read it looks like the potential is there for SW-like expansion. So many little variables that can be tweaked by new factions/ships/cards; hopefully Hasbro will ride this one for a bit.

It was encouraging to see it had sold out at CSI (back in stock now, I suspect, but it was briefly sold out), and my local FLGS tells me they haven't been able to keep it on the shelf.

Hopefully Hasbro is seeing what it needs to see to crank out a couple waves.

[Aldin]

Originally Posted by Eclipse

They protect from instant kills, but at 1/80 probability, those aren't exactly something you expect in any game. I sort of expected ships to be unable to take hull damage until the shields were down, rather than the excess damage over the shields translating directly into hull damage. The Wretch siphon and disruption mechanics hint at what could be done with the system, but again its where the game needs more to shine.

To finish the thought of my sentence fragment: I'm a hair worried about the various forms for each ship in terms of min-maxing. Since Launch costs are something of a double wammy and the base stats don't change, I can see a temptation to run with minimal special abilities. I'm just a touch worried when there's more to pick from, the best option is going to be a bunch of really bland Standards.

Truth is, Eclipse, that even at 1/80 you're probably going to have 30-40 hits on unshielded ships in any given game which gives you a good chance of critting one. And it's only 1/40 for one of the ISN fighters with a lousy cockpit design.

Having played a decent amount with Standard and Vet ships I see what you're saying. I think though, that what I'm finding is that most of the Seasoned and Veteran specials are significant upgrades over the Standard ships. The largest exception is the Everest. The Everest's powers are a total trade-off. Fewer points to spend on ships, but a net power savings on launch versus Standard due to attached cards. Having shot at a Vapor's Fate both with and without superior shields I can assure you that I'll happily pay the extra for that upgrade any time I have the Wretch.

~Aldin, still amused at how much a fleet can change simply by spending two points differently

[Eclipse]

Originally Posted by Aldin

Truth is, Eclipse, that even at 1/80 you're probably going to have 30-40 hits on unshielded ships in any given game which gives you a good chance of critting one. And it's only 1/40 for one of the ISN fighters with a lousy cockpit design.

Having played a decent amount with Standard and Vet ships I see what you're saying. I think though, that what I'm finding is that most of the Seasoned and Veteran specials are significant upgrades over the Standard ships. The largest exception is the Everest. The Everest's powers are a total trade-off. Fewer points to spend on ships, but a net power savings on launch versus Standard due to attached cards. Having shot at a Vapor's Fate both with and without superior shields I can assure you that I'll happily pay the extra for that upgrade any time I have the Wretch.

~Aldin, still amused at how much a fleet can change simply by spending two points differently

It really does depend on the ship and power in question. The little unshielded Wretch fighters (Togu?) change pretty dramatically, with the Standard being cheap, early damage sponges, Seasoned being annoying mid-game pests and Veteran being a significant late game threat. I probably need to get some more flight time in with a lot of them though. Activation costs make a pretty considerable difference in the value gained by any of the upgrades. I think though I worry most about the Medium ships, particularly when you're looking at crossing the Launch 10 boundary. That makes a considerable difference in their usability.

[nyys]

Nexus Ops just went into the queue after reading the rulebook today. No games tonight... school.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by Eclipse

It really does depend on the ship and power in question. The little unshielded Wretch fighters (Togu?) change pretty dramatically, with the Standard being cheap, early damage sponges, Seasoned being annoying mid-game pests and Veteran being a significant late game threat. I probably need to get some more flight time in with a lot of them though. Activation costs make a pretty considerable difference in the value gained by any of the upgrades. I think though I worry most about the Medium ships, particularly when you're looking at crossing the Launch 10 boundary. That makes a considerable difference in their usability.

I imagine it can be somewhat like Heroscape where some units, or in BG's case some versions of units, will see more playing time than others. Some cheaper ones might need to be added to a fleet as fillers, or there may be some scenario specific rules that might require the more expensive ones. Hopefully as the game evolves, there will be a nice variety of uses for the different levels of ships and not just using the low cost ones as a strategy for success. You do have those energy tiles that can help regain energy for the more expensive ships and also there's a cap on how much energy you can have, so if you go all cheap at some point after you lose a bit of your fleet, you will keep gaining your energy but might end up stuck with more energy than you can use and wish you had more to do with it.

[DrRansom]

Just got my handfuls of replication Doubloons from Amazon today. Used it in Puerto Rico. Looks great.

[Johngee]

Originally Posted by nyys

Nexus Ops just went into the queue after reading the rulebook today. No games tonight... school.

Hey nyys ~ I just realized that we both live on the "South Shore" ... I'm just 300 miles south-er (further south) in NJ. Anyway, I've got two copies of Nexus Ops in my storage shed that I got when my local T-R-U marked them down by 50% to a cleanance price. I haven't even taken the shrink wrap off them yet. Sold a my house and bought another one, moved twice and haven't had any time to try something new for the past two years. Let me know how you like it, your opinion will help me determine if I sell it ...OR... keep it, open it, eventually read the rules myself, and hopefully someday play it.

[tom]

Originally Posted by Johngee

Hey nyys ~ I just realized that we both live on the "South Shore" ... I'm just 300 miles south-er (further south) in NJ. Anyway, I've got two copies of Nexus Ops in my storage shed that I got when my local T-R-U marked them down by 50% to a cleanance price. I haven't even taken the shrink wrap off them yet. Sold a my house and bought another one, moved twice and haven't had any time to try something new for the past two years. Let me know how you like it, your opinion will help me determine if I sell it ...OR... keep it, open it, eventually read the rules myself, and hopefully someday play it.

Keep at least one copy of Nexus Ops for yourself Johngee! It is a great lite wargame that forces players to attack. It is fast paced, fun and has a wide variety of units to build and fight with. It also works well with 2, 3 or 4 players.