What Board Game Are You Currently Playing?

[Taeblewalker]

Originally Posted by quozl

My wife surprised me with the Wiz-War expansion. We'll be playing Wiz-War tonight!

I won my first and only game of Wiz-War that I played (I finished off a wizard that another player brought down to one life, scoring a crucial point). I'm curious what the expansion brings.

[quozl]

Only 1 game of one of the best games ever made?

TW, play more Wiz-War!

The expansion adds more ways for the wizards to kill each other and another player.

[Jim]

Originally Posted by quozl

The expansion adds more ways for the wizards to kill each other and another player.

I don't think I want to play a game where the wizards in the game can kill a player.

[quozl]

Wimp!

[IAmBatman]

Sounds like Jumanji!

[akden]

I just finished my first game of Betrayal at House on the Hill. I realize there is perhaps a renewed interest in this game after it appeared on Tabletop (and evidenced by the fact that it completely sold out, and most of the new reprint is selling like crazy), so in an effort not to reveal any of the Haunt details to those that care about that, I'll put my discussion in a spoiler.

Spoiler Alert!

So I had never played this game before, but I have to say it was a blast. I can definitely see potential issues after multiple plays (once you see a lot of the Haunts), but I had a ton of fun. It definitely made me think of Last Night on Earth, with it's great ability to capture the feel and laughs of a B-horror film.

In this particular game, the priest, the football player, and a lady/teen girl were lured into the house and set out exploring. In the very first round, the girl fell down a coal chute and was trapped in the basement, so the brave teen slid down to help her. They stumbled around in the basement for most of the game. Meanwhile, the priest continued to find items and omens that buffed his abilities significantly. The teens had little luck, while the priest became a holy powerhouse.

Of course, the priest finally triggered the Haunt when he stumbled upon a lost girl, who turned out to be a vampire. As it happened, this old, abandoned house held the Tomb of Dracula, and now he was awakened! My priest became a vampire and set about hunting down the other two, while the clock ticked away towards sunrise. Luckily, the boy had a holy symbol that kept the vampires at bay, while he and the girl ran through the house, desparately searching for a spear to assist in staking the vampires. As luck would have it (and just like in the movies), they ran into a dead end, with my priest/vampire and the bride close behind. The priest succeeded in turning the girl into a vampire, and, although he held out a little longer, the football player ultimately succumbed to the blood-sucking monsters.

I can see why this game is a hit, and I look forward to playing it again. Unfortunately, given the grisly nature of some of the Haunts, I'm thinking it may not see much play time at my house. The box says "12 and up," but some of the Haunts seem a little intense. I'm hoping to have the opportunity to play this again in adult company.

[davidlhsl]

Memoir 44

Got this back to the table playing a scenario from the Air Pack. My dad was able to launch airplanes during both battles (one as French and one as Germans when we switched sides), and he delivered some potent strafing runs (fly over units and roll a die to attack). He also did some ground interdiction. Using this type of air mission, you position your plane adjacent to opponent's units, and those units can't move during their turn.

Anyway, the Germans won both scenarios 4-1 and 4-0. Since I scored the 1 point playing the Allies, I won the Match 5-4.

Then I checked out Memoir44.com, and I see they're releasing a set of 6 pre-printed battle maps as Memoir 44: D-Day Landings to commemorate D-Day. You can even combine maps together for a massive battle! I don't have the table space or the number of breakthrough decks/sets necessary to play, but I can drool and I can covet. The maps are printed on paper, which is how they printed their overlord maps. They are also as wide as breakthrough, but deeper than breakthrough by 6 hexes.

It was great fun getting this game back on the table.

[Dad_Scaper]

Speaking of games getting back on the table, I realized that I could use the same platforms around the house that I use for transporting 'Scape maps to the tournaments. Which meant that we could play some of the bigger games, that take more than one sitting in our busy house, and play them.

So Mage Wars hit the table again. KidScaper and I were both thrilled to blow the dust off it and remind ourselves what the rules are, and we had a fun game that actually stayed within the normal time window, too. I think it took about an hour, after we had our decks built & in the books. Much, much faster from the 2 hours or more it used to take.

We're trying not to turtle any more to get the games moving faster, which led KidScaper to play a little too aggressively with his Wizard, who overextended, and approached my Beastmaster with one big ethereal baddie, but he was unprepared to defend himself from the Death of 1,000 Bitterwood Foxes. It was a lot of fun, and we were very happy to get this one out again.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by davidlhsl

Memoir 44

Got this back to the table playing a scenario from the Air Pack. My dad was able to launch airplanes during both battles (one as French and one as Germans when we switched sides), and he delivered some potent strafing runs (fly over units and roll a die to attack). He also did some ground interdiction. Using this type of air mission, you position your plane adjacent to opponent's units, and those units can't move during their turn.

Anyway, the Germans won both scenarios 4-1 and 4-0. Since I scored the 1 point playing the Allies, I won the Match 5-4.

Then I checked out Memoir44.com, and I see they're releasing a set of 6 pre-printed battle maps as Memoir 44: D-Day Landings to commemorate D-Day. You can even combine maps together for a massive battle! I don't have the table space or the number of breakthrough decks/sets necessary to play, but I can drool and I can covet. The maps are printed on paper, which is how they printed their overlord maps. They are also as wide as breakthrough, but deeper than breakthrough by 6 hexes.

It was great fun getting this game back on the table.

Cool to see you get it back to the table David. The D-Day battle maps thing has been a topic in our group and I'm sure it will be purchased and get some play

Someone in our group posted this picture from Days of Wonder, who makes Memoir. And below that is the map image for it. We've done 8 player Overlord games before with one player on each side being the commanding General and issuing cards to each of his 3 subordinates, but only a couple maps were used I believe. Nothing like what they have below. Though it was still fun.

[Taeblewalker]

I played two games of Kemet today with Shermandavies and Chas. It was mine and SD's first time, so Chas, who has played a number of times, won the first game. But in the second game, it was as close as a game could get.

We each had 8 victory points (the number needed to win). The tiebreaker was the number of points each player had from winning battles (as opposed to victory points from other accomplishments). SD had 6 battle VP's, I had 5 and Chas had 4. You know a game is close when even the tiebreaking rule still has all three players within one point of each other.

Fun game, and definitely one I would play again.

[chas]

Continuing with Taeblewalker's post above, the first tie breaker in Kemet is as he says, but the second if that's still a tie, is who went earlier in the turn order--usually the worst position--where I had placed TW, who had been ahead of us both at the end of the previous turn (as the lowest VP player, the turn order had been my choice). This was TW, but he was now wiped off the map, and so could no longer get points that turn, but had the most VPs. (In Kemet, losing your men or even all of them is not such a big deal, as you can come back easily enough. But its all about the timing, and in this case he couldn't come back in this last turn, as he'd used up his two Movement actions).

When the turn came around to me, we figured that I might determine the winner by my next action. Rather than set up an automatic ending that way and be a 'king maker,' I went to both maximize my own points and try to catch up, as well as make it a possibly become a tie between the other two (VPs can be both gained and lost by players), so the game would continue for another turn and I'd have a later chance at winning myself. With an attack on SD, I came from several points behind at that moment to tie TW. But SD still had an effective movement turn left, and managed to tie us with an attack, which gave him the type of Battle VP to both tie us both, but win due to having one more of that type than TW or me. What a game! In Kemet, there are about seven different types of VPs, all earned in different ways; some are permanent, some temporary.

So it was that after many other interesting events in the first three turns, Bast the Cat Goddess with her clawed female follower figures (SD) beat out both Horus the Hawk God with his hawk helmeted guys (TW) and Sebek the Crocodile God with his long spears (Me) for the win. CROCODILOPOLIS!!!* Foiled Again!

Kemet and Cyclades (both made by Metagot) will both get a new expansion coming up, probably this year. The Cyclades Second Expansion will be up first next September--'Cyclades Titans,' following up the first, 'Cyclades Hades.'

In other recent news on bgg, C&C Napoleonics will not only have the Prussians, an Epic two board version, and 'Generals and Marshals' (possibly a card deck) but ALSO Minor Ally forces for both sides and 1812 Americans! Wow!!! GMT knows a winner when they see one.

*For those who don't remember my last Kemet post, 'Crocodilopolis' is the actual translation of the city where Sebek was worshipped in Ancient Egypt (aka 'Kemet'). Hopefully you can see how exciting a game it is. Each of the gods becomes different every game as you buy a new combination of Power Tiles to pump them up permanently, and accumulate one time use 'Divine Intervention' cards to play at critical times. Its a god thing.

[Hahma]

Good stuff fellas. I enjoy Kemet, it's a cool game for sure!

I'm hoping to play some C&C Napoleonics soon with my friend Brian, I'll let him know about that new stuff coming out for it. Though he may already know, as he is very active on BGG.