What Board Game Are You Currently Playing?

[chas]

Just played my first game of *RISING SUN* yesterday. My neighbor's copy showed up, he brought the whole carton over, unboxed it in front of our eyes, and we did a 4 Player (including Kolakoski and Sherman Davies) as the end to a Wednesday New York City Gang of Four Scape game day (Taeblewalker was sidelined by the weather upstate)! I played Lotus Clan; he played Koi and won. We used the standard recommended Kami and Season Cards for newbies. I have two more games scheduled this weekend already! And my copy isn't even here yet.

I'll be setting up four more RS game dates for the latter half of February...with both old pals and 'new' KS Backers from Boardgamegeek from my new Organized Play thread. We're all rabid to play, after waiting almost a year, as the Kickstarted game is just appearing now in the USA. Here in NYC my neighbor was only the second to get his; I'm playing Friday in a 5 Player with the first recipient!

Its amazing, with a few similarities to its series predecessor Blood Rage, but very much a different game, with a large diplomacy/alliance component. The first alliances held for two seasons, and then reformed for the third. There was lots of wild and varied action, minimal rules questions, and much jockying for position on the main board and in the kami shrines. The political mandates played out in a very absorbing way, and there were finally lots of fun battles too, with daimyos, shinto, bushi, hidden ronin, and monsters--lots of monsters.

As a teaching game where none of us were rules experts yet, the game went long, but we actually like it that way in general. I'd say about four hours, which should reduce quite a bit once we know the rules, I'd guess to about three hours for us. Officially its 90-120 minutes.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by chas

Just played my first game of *RISING SUN* yesterday. My neighbor's copy showed up, he brought the whole carton over, unboxed it in front of our eyes, and we did a 4 Player (including Kolakoski and Sherman Davies) as the end to a Wednesday New York City Gang of Four Scape game day (Taeblewalker was sidelined by the weather upstate)! I played Lotus Clan; he played Koi and won. We used the standard recommended Kami and Season Cards for newbies. I have two more games scheduled this weekend already! And my copy isn't even here yet.

I'll be setting up four more RS game dates for the latter half of February...with both old pals and 'new' KS Backers from Boardgamegeek from my new Organized Play thread. We're all rabid to play, after waiting almost a year, as the Kickstarted game is just appearing now in the USA. Here in NYC my neighbor was only the second to get his; I'm playing Friday in a 5 Player with the first recipient!

Its amazing, with a few similarities to its series predecessor Blood Rage, but very much a different game, with a large diplomacy/alliance component. The first alliances held for two seasons, and then reformed for the third. There was lots of wild and varied action, minimal rules questions, and much jockying for position on the main board and in the kami shrines. The political mandates played out in a very absorbing way, and there were finally lots of fun battles too, with daimyos, shinto, bushi, hidden ronin, and monsters--lots of monsters.

As a teaching game where none of us were rules experts yet, the game went long, but we actually like it that way in general. I'd say about four hours, which should reduce quite a bit once we know the rules, I'd guess to about three hours for us. Officially its 90-120 minutes.

Glad to hear you liked it Chas. You are fortunate to be able to get several more plays in soon, as I'm at the mercy of when the game owner shows up to or Monday night get together at the indoor soccer facility we gather at. That, and he buys so many games that there's always something new he wants to try. While my large game groupis awesome for me getting to try a ton of different games, the downside is that other than the occasional campaign game I've been part of, I don't get to play the same game severaltimes over a short period of time.

Our 4 player game went 2 1/2 hours, and I think we can cut that by a half hour next time. Our alliances also changed more often. We had our alliancesfor the first season, then changed them in the second season, in which I played the betrayal action just for the heck of it (bad move) and the third season 2 of us were left unaligned.

Fun game.

[chas]

In my first Rising Sun game I played Lotus Clan and came in 3rd of 4. In my second tonight I played Dragonfly and came in 2nd of 4. So I'm inching up the victory pole! This is an amazing game both in the rules system and the graphic execution. It doesn't get much better than this!

[keglo]

Originally Posted by chas

In my first Rising Sun game I played Lotus Clan and came in 3rd of 4. In my second tonight I played Dragonfly and came in 2nd of 4. So I'm inching up the victory pole! This is an amazing game both in the rules system and the graphic execution. It doesn't get much better than this!

I am glad to see that you are enjoying the game so much and that it has lived up to your expectations. It sounds like a lot of fun.

[TREX]

Originally Posted by keglo

I am glad to see that you are enjoying the game so much and that it has lived up to your expectations. It sounds like a lot of fun.

I wasnt as crazy about getting my copy. To be honest id forgotten about it really. But after seeing all the unboxings, reviews, and all you guys comments are making me anxious to get it. Any day now.

[kolakoski]

Well met!

Originally Posted by TREX

I wasnt as crazy about getting my copy. To be honest id forgotten about it really. But after seeing all the unboxings, reviews, and all you guys comments are making me anxious to get it. Any day now.

Came in second in chas' first game playing Turtle. Looking forward to my second on Sunday, also with chas.

[NecroBlade]

Originally Posted by itsbuzzi

Along with having Heroscape currently on the table I ordered this new board game from Kickstarter and it seems very good! It is made from the older show The Legend of Korra (if any of you heard about it). I'm excited not only for this game but it looks like I can learn to paint these figures as they come unpainted and I can also incorporate them into Heroscape for my own customs! Here is the link to the game: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...=pro%20bending

Been looking at that one. Looks like it's both fun and thematic.

Got to teach a friend her new copy of Hogwarts Battles for her birthday yesterday. We only got to play the first couple games, but it's a solid and fun little co-op deckbuilder. I'm sure it'll get more interesting and challenging as you get through the remainder of the 7 games.

[itsbuzzi]

Originally Posted by NecroBlade

Been looking at that one. Looks like it's both fun and thematic.

Got to teach a friend her new copy of Hogwarts Battles for her birthday yesterday. We only got to play the first couple games, but it's a solid and fun little co-op deckbuilder. I'm sure it'll get more interesting and challenging as you get through the remainder of the 7 games.

I'll let you know how it plays should be getting it soon. Seems to play out similar to the show.

[chas]

Played a third 4 Player of Rising Sun within the last five days! I was tied for the win playing Koi Clan with more Honor to break that tie, when the last person scoring shot past us both to land only two VP ahead for the win. Sooo close to a first win! So far I've played Lotus, Dragonfly, and Koi clans. We're still playing with the newbie settings for Kami, and Season cards, and the original 8 monsters.

I'm already organizing four more play dates with new contacts from Boardgamegeek and old pals this month! I had the only Organized Play thread there (for NYC). A second one just appeared for out on the Pacific Coast.

Blood Rage has 13 different monsters. Rising Sun has 22, plus 7 Lucky Gods and 7 Kami, for a total of 36 (they don't all show up in any one game). But besides having 8 different clans to play in an up to 6 Player game, other variants include the random selection and positioning of Kami, four more sets of Season Cards to swop in, a random addition of monsters, and the usual game variety including different possible player counts from 3 to 6, and where and in what order battles take place in each of the three Seasons. So replay value is particularly high.

Ironically, the last two of my games were won by the person who was a complete newbie, and didn't own a copy or know the rules when we started out! During the second game we drank sake, and at the third I played Japanese music (two of us had sake with dinner afterwards).

This is a superior game design if its your kind of thing. Its easy to learn but hard to master. And so far everyone who has played it wants to do it again! If you are cruising Bgg, I recommend the 36 min review and teaching video by Man vs Meeples.

Also just took delivery of Pendragon, which looks terrific, and made a first game date for early March.

[Hahma]

That's cool that you get to play Rising Sun so much Chas. Of course it figures that when I post on my group's Facebook page, asking for people interested in playing Concordia with the Salsa expansion and get a few takers, a couple hours later, Zack posts looking for Rising Sun players.

[Gurei-Ornery]

Not actually playing yet, but to prepare for World Cup I began re-researching soccer games on the market to be able to simulate some of the games. Modified Soccero has been our go to for a few years now, but I finally procured a copy of Soccer City which I feel will dethrone it. FUBA looks to be an interesting take that speeds up the game by abstracting it a little. The most shocking find for me is Striker!, a miniatures ruleset for a full blown tabletop soccer match. Hopefully @Stephen Universe and I will be able to have our own World Cup soon to have a head to head comparison between all of these and possibly throw in Soccer World Tactics for old times sake, especially since that is the only game with an actual gold cup.

[Yodaking]

Forgot to mention that my Rising Sun copy showed up on Tuesday (right after I checked my e-mail again and didn't find a shipping update so either they never sent one or I missed it somehow). Looking like we may be giving it a spin on Saturday.