What Board Game Are You Currently Playing?

[Gurei-Ornery]

Originally Posted by akden

I'm a little behind in posting, but I recently discovered a renewed interest in the Lord of the Rings LCG, which I had stopped purchasing after the Dwarrowdelf series. I had really only played through some one-handed solo games through the first adventure pack or two of the Mirkwood cycle, but last week during our blizzard, I tried a two-handed solo game from the Core set and really enjoyed it. I've since played about ten times and worked my way through the first set of adventure packs. I'm now about to start Kazzad-Dum, and I'm appreciating the fact that I have about two years of content to catch up on.

I also got in two games of Dead of Winter at our game night on Tuesday. The other three players had never played, and it was a big hit. We lost the first game even though we completed our objective. We were essentially overrun by zombies, and morale hit zero before we reached the the step of "checking for victory." The group immediately wanted to play again, and we lost that one as well, this time to a vile traitor. I hadn't played this in close to a year, so it was nice to get it back to the table.

Nice tune up for the Dead of Winter expansion. Too bad we couldn't set-up a playtest of it. I too have started thinking about playing LotR LCG lately, mainly from reading some of the Warhammer Quest threads in which tons of people still list LotR as their favorite of the genre. Stephen Universe and I played through K-Doom as we called it, then moved on to Pathfinder and then tired of it. Anyway, it is fun solo, but the most fun we ever had with it was 4 player one time. After that we always played 2-player 2 handed.

[Johngee]

Originally Posted by Gurei-Ornery

Nice tune up for the Dead of Winter expansion. Too bad we couldn't set-up a playtest of it. I too have started thinking about playing LotR LCG lately, mainly from reading some of the Warhammer Quest threads in which tons of people still list LotR as their favorite of the genre. Stephen Universe and I played through K-Doom as we called it, then moved on to Pathfinder and then tired of it. Anyway, it is fun solo, but the most fun we ever had with it was 4 player one time. After that we always played 2-player 2 handed.

I'm not looking forward to any blizzards, but wish that I could find the time to delve back into the LotR LCG (and/or the "War Of The Ring" board game) - even if I have to play some solo sessions. They've both been collecting dust on my shelves for way too long. And I'm one of those who would list ME as my favorite genre. I only played LotR:LCG once with @tom , @spidysox , and @peteparkerh and enjoyed it enough to invest in the Starter set and several expansions. Now my new local group is totally into Star Wars: X-Wings (and Zombiecide), both of which I also enjoy, but my wallet can't handle another Black Hole when I haven't yet gotten a reasonable return on some of my previous purchases.

[Matthias Maccabeus]

Already up to 26 games of LotR: LCG for the year myself. By far my go to solo game (or 2 handed when playing with my 4 year old son).

[Tornado]

Are you going to play it at Gen Con Matthias?

[chas]

"Neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night
Shall stop our players from their appointed game buys"


***Now Appearing At The Chas Game Palace:***

THE GREAT WAR: Commands & Colors WWI By Richard Borg

[Hahma]

Nice Chas. I am going to demo The Great War at ArctiCon in Valparaiso, IN on March 5th. Hopefully my Tanks expansion will come in shortly after that.

[The Silver King]

I just bought the Super Dungeon Explore: The Forgotten King core set, as well as one of its expansions, the Emerald Valley Warband. I love the minis, art, and almost everything about this game.......except the gameplay itself, at least one of its two game modes, Arcade Mode. Which is a major bummer, since I was so excited to get this game

For those of you that aren't familiar with the game, there are two ways to play it. The first is Classic Mode, where one player plays as the monsters and other bad guys in the dungeon while the other players play as the Heroes. The other way to play the game is Arcade Mode, where a deck of cards with pre-selected actions "controls" the monsters and all the players get to be on the same team, as the Heroes.

While Classic Mode still sounds very interesting, and that it would be a lot of fun, I have found Arcade Mode both boring and way too easy. It is very easy to outsmart the A.I. Deck, and even when you don't, the monsters side rarely does enough damage to worry the players. There is also a lot of repetitive dice-rolling, and not too many actions to decide on. It feels like Heroscape with almost all the strategy and tactics of the game taken out, which is not at all what I was expecting the game to be.

I am going to try out the Classic Mode next, when my gaming group meets next. Hopefully this other game mode proves to be a lot of fun, otherwise I am going to be very bummed. I played $100 for the game so far, and I had planned to invest another $200-300 minimum, but so far I don't even feel like the initial $100 I spent was worth it.

[chas]

Hahma,

Have fun! I just got an email from Michigan Toy Soldier Company, one of the major vendors of miniature figures, that they are holding an entire gaming event at their company using The Great War! Guess they have plenty of copies.

Now to The Cutting of the Sprues, and the washing and 'trim painting' of the figures (probably just the bases of the grenade throwers and the crew served weapons for now). I already have someone coming over on Thursday to play the game, and now he will not be disappointed.

"In Flanders Fields
The poppies grow
Upon the crosses
Row on row."

I've only ever met one other person with my English family name during my long life here in the USA, outside of my own immediate family and grandparents. But on The Menin Gate, the British major WWI memorial at Ypres in Belgium, I've seen entire columns of men with the name listed with the Northumbrian Regiments, carved in stone.

Over the Top! Like my love for games is...

[Hahma]

“House 12 exists right under our noses. What else have we missed?”

Mission - This Changes Everything
Faction – Kemvar - Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro

Objective 1 – Locate and Kill the Technician
Objective 2 – After killing the Technician, make it to the extraction point at the entrance.

The Mercs entered from the Entrance and swept the nearby section of the building. There were a couple workers in the hall and to the right of the entrance, but the Assassin quickly managed to capture one of them, while the other cowered until she could be captured later. The Heavy and Shock also joined the Assassin in that direction, while the Leader and Engineer headed left down the hall outside of the entrance. They ran into a Secfor 1 and took him out. The blips showed 4 possible locations of the Technician, and while a couple were staying in rooms, a couple were wandering about the halls. One was dangerously close to the far stairway, so we didn’t dare let them see us from the opposite end of the hallway, where they would be able to escape down the stairs before we could get to them. So keeping out of line of sight down the two long hallways leading toward the far stairs was critical, until we could know for sure who that was.

Heavy, Assassin and Shock secured the areas near the closer stairs, where the hall was wider and more places to shoot from. They also kept outside the Data Center, where one suspect was holed up. Meanwhile, the Leader and Engineer ventured down the far hall a little bit to take out some Secfor and reveal some more employees, including the Scientist.

Heavy, Assassin and Shock had to deal with some Secfor 2’s coming up the near stairs, and Assassin surprised a Secfor coming around the corner, but it wasn’t a problem. The Heavy actually liked the destruction, as it gave him better defensive positions At one point, Shock strayed down the center hall and made eye contact with the Technician at the end of the hall, and he made for the stairs near him. There was already an unidentified suspect in the stairs, but now we knew it wasn’t the Technician, so we had a little more time but not much. Pretty quiet the hall with the Leader and Engineer, but now they needed to act. Leader took out a Secfor and got just around the corner from the stairs the Technician was headed for.
Heavy helped clear out some Secfor down the middle hall, and Shock used every bit of her energy to move down the hall, through some Secfor 2’s and into the area with 2 workers and the Technician (thank goodness she’s a contortionist). She didn’t have enough in the tank for much of an attack, but managed to put 1 wound on the Technician. We only had one chance left, as the Engineer also had to use up all he had to get to the corner area near the stairs to be able to put the final wound on the Technician.

Now it was time to get back to the entrance, and none too soon, as some angry Secfor 4’s were coming up the stairs next to the Shock. There was nothing the others could do for her, so they raced down the two halls toward the entrance, with a lot of angry Secfor on their heels.

Shock ended up getting killed, but she had done her job and took one for the team. The others barely made it back to the entrance, and nobody went unscathed.













Can't wait until it's warm enough outside for me to spray prime the minis and start painting them. Will look a lot better and more distinguishable once painted.

The Security Forces (SecFor) have 4 levels, 1-4 and go from basic security guys to light swat types with shotguns, to full boat swat guys with helmets and assault rifles, and finally, the SecFor 4's are like the Mercs level and tough.

This is what the Kemvar faction looks like, though I won't be able to paint them this good of course.



CCC faction





Some of the many factions

[IAmBatman]

Had our monthly Montgomery game meet up today (always a blast). I played San Juan in a two player game with me teaching a new guy (I was merciless, lol), won a three player Seven Wonders, was the first to die in a Betrayal at the House on a Hill but I'm told we were given the win against the Demon Lord, played one round of Time Stories before we decided the learning curve was a bit too much for that loud of a setting (but we all agreed we'd love to try it out again some time), we did a four player game of Sentinels of the Multiverse against the Grand Warlord Voss and won pretty easily (though Legacy, Visionary, Tempest, and Fanatic is like playing on easy mode), and then ended with Above and Below, which, like Time Stories, I'd never played before. This one I played with the guy whose game it was, so he coached us all the way through. I ended up tying for first. Fun Euro game with a little theme and chance sprinkled in that scratches similar itches to Stone Age, Agricula, and so forth.

Another great day of gaming. The folks who put on these events do them well.

[chas]

My first solitaire learning play of The Great War (Scenario #3) just ended in a close German defensive victory 6-5. The matrix of new combat rules, units, two decks of cards, terrain and scenarios presents a wonderful new challenge that feels right for the period of World War I. You can't play it like any other C&C game, even Memoir 44! Its its own thing, and those who don't learn their lessons quickly are doomed. The game swung nicely back and forth with both triumph and tragedy in the ebb and flow of experiments on both sides. Just when the British were feeling confident after taking a hex on the second defensive trench line, the Germans put down the final Recon card for a Victory Point and took the match.

The retail copy was expensive, but I'm glad I got it. Skipping the two learning scenarios, there are 14 to play. My first face to face game should be on Thursday. I'm expecting the retail Tank Expansion to be available in March. With different nationalities, years, and fronts, I can see a lot of variety being set out for us in other expansions to come.

[Hahma]

Yeah, it's a cool game Chas. It wasn’t cheap via kickstarter either, as I paid $65 for it, though that was less than some as I went in on the 6 pack order my friend Brian placed. Actually, he placed three 6 pack orders of it. Also probably got a good deal on the Tanks expansion, as that was a 6 pack order as well, and we were able to use the voucher from original KS to get extra tanks. Hopefully we get that in March.