What Board Game Are You Currently Playing?

[Oliver Upshaw]

Originally Posted by chas

"MY GOD--ITS FULL OF STARS!"
Astronaut, 2001: A Space Odyssey

And that's just opening up the Ars Victor box...

Yeah you get a lot of pieces for your money in the box. One person on BBG wanted to know if they should plan to buy a second copy and I gave them my honest opinion that unless they planned on playing the game to death I did not think it was worth it to get a second copy. Note, I do plan on playing it to death and did pick up a second copy. Mainly to be able to build bigger maps. Hope you enjoy it.

[chas]

Oliver,

Oliver, I've seen several of your posts, now that I've visited the bgg site. I'm not planning to get another game, as I can always use C&C hex boards and terrain to expand it. But I have also printed out the designer's draft rules for a campaign "Tour of Duty," some army building tips, and a list of "Mistakes Noobs Make." So I mention them here for those who may become interested.

I've also printed out the four new units from the promo package. The designer is promising new factions (like alien bugs) and some tank units. Obviously, this game will be supported.

The guy at The Strategist here in NYC pointed out that he had showed the game to me previously, but I had not been interested at the time. I thought I'd seen it some place! But you have to do some research before you shell out $50 for a game these days. (And game store salesmen are not the most unbiased of contacts).

The hexes and the units are very big and colorful. While some criticize the childlike artwork on the units, I find it both functional and charming.

[Gurei-Ornery]

Originally Posted by Gurei-Ornery

I built a foamcore deck holder that someone was kind enough to post on BGG that dramatically reduced SoBs footprint, but even with that I had a 4x4 table and two small TV tray like tables full of stuff and I had to keep the rulebook on the chair next to me because I was out of room.

I decided to ignore the rules (pause for effect) about not doing an Epic threat card with only 2 heroes and it almost proved to be fatal for my Rancher. I ended up drawing 2 Night Terrors, 4 Stranglers, 5 Hungry Dead, and a Corpse Pile. For those who don't know, that is pretty rough for 2 first level characters. Luckily, my Preacher was able to Weaken the Night Terrors defense and the Rancher proceeded to blow them to smithereens with a shotgun we found a few tiles earlier. I feel like this game will be similar to Dead of Winter in regards to the RPG/Storytelling aspect. Multiple times my wife asked me who I was talking to and I just pointed at the Preacher. This game invites getting into character and makes it that much more fun.

We are enjoying similar storytelling in the much maligned Myth at work. We are in Act 3 of our first Story Quest and it has been a blast.

Played Shadows of Brimstone again last night, this time I used the Bandido and the Outlaw trying to get them some experience. The Bandido has a low Sanity and of course all of the monsters we faced early in the upper section of the mine were the type that when you start your turn adjacent, they do automatic Horror hits which you must save against Willpower or lose Sanity. I was down to 1 Sanity by the third chamber and no real way to recover except the Take a Breather, or whatever it is called, roll after each fight, which can gain you back 1-3 Sanity based on your roll. I didn't get to finish and it is dicey right now for our heroes, but I do have one revive token, so I should be alright, especially since the Outlaw found a Sawed-Off Shotgun, which came in handy when we got a Darkness card of 8 Hungry Dead (I swapped Zombies of Morindan for them and they look fantastic). Great game.

[Ixe]

I had the chance to get a few board games in last night and all new ones for me. First I sat down and played 5 Tribes. It was a game that I had heard a bit about and I can see where the criticisms for it are coming from. The mechanics can be a little tough for a new player to rap their head around, but it's not terribly difficult to just let that go and make the first play that you see and not worry so much about how optimal it is. If you feel pressured to play it well, this game can slam you with analysis paralysis for all the possibilities and how they all play into each other. It has a mad and fascinating system of bidding victory points for turn order and it is quite fun once you start getting a feel for what strategy you are working with and how you want to optimize. I ended up getting my hands on a djinn pretty early that allowed me to trade resources to take over empty spaces, giving me a strategy for the rest of the game to empty out spaces I wanted, try to take over another in the process, and keep feeding in those resources to churn out and advantage. Between that and the card set collecting I won the game by a large margin. I enjoyed the depth of it but I can see it as one of those games that I'd have trouble getting people to play.

I also have seem some criticisms for 5 Tribes for its use of slave cards. Slaves in the game are valueless unto themselves and can clog up markets for other resources that you may want. If you are pursuing the set collection, you can't necessarily really avoid them either if they make you feel uncomfortable. Stranger still is how you can spend them to amp up the builders, assassins, and as a resource for the djinn, painting an odd and perhaps disturbing flavorful picture. One could certainly defend their use in the game that it would be an accurate historical representation of the area and period, but the game isn't exactly a simulationist experience with magical djinn flying around. Given how otherwise light and friendly the theme is, the drab slave cards are pretty dissonant for everything else going on. All said, I can see an argument that their inclusion is in poor taste.

Philosophical digressions aside, I next had a shot at Doomtown: Seventh Hero (another one of the Black Box games). This game is much simpler where a person has to pass a card of a certain value while others choose if they want to recruit the card onto their tableau or pass it to the next person. You can't have two cards of the same value in front of you (you lose them both if you do), so you need to be careful about taking it. There are a few additional rules and one-shot powers to the cards in front of you as well. We ended up forgetting the rules for the end condition until the game was really close to finishing, in which case I would have played quite a bit differently, so I didn't come out ahead in this one. It seemed like a fine, quick game that is basic enough though not something that I particularly want to play again.

Lastly, I played a game of Santiago. It's an interesting little euro game thats almost a worker placement but with only 1 worker. It is pretty easy to pick up and had quite a few "take that" elements of denying resources to other players or stripping away demand for something that they have. It has some memory issues to it as well since you can see what players are doing and ostensibly memorize everything that they have but resources are otherwise hidden behind a little screen so you can't just count up every time you need the information. Our game was extremely close where I edged out the other two players by just 1 victory point to seal the game. I rather enjoyed it overall, having a little more passive aggressive conflict than some other Euro games I have played.

[sdebaun]

@David hsl, chas:

Hey there! Thanks for picking up an Ars Victor! I'm Steve DeBaun, the designer and publisher. I wanted to make sure you know, if you just bought the game, from *anyone*, I will send you a free promo pack. If you get a friend to buy a game, I will send the pair of you FOUR promo packs. See http://bit.ly/avsyos

As an old wargamer, I don't usually like games that play in only an hour, but now you've got me interested! Hmmm...

My old man was a writer for S&T and F&M; thus I was lucky enough to grow up on things like Tactics II and the old AH Gettysburg. I designed Ars Victor out of a craving for a meaty strategy game that didn't require me to set aside a weekend to play.

"MY GOD--ITS FULL OF STARS!"

Heheheh, yes, its got quite a bit of cardboard in it. Some people have complained that there's too many parts because it's hard to get back in the box.

Obviously, this game will be supported.

I do my best! The Tour of Duty campaign game rules have added a whole new level to the game, especially for veteran players. I would, however, recommend starting with the basic game before you throw in experimental rules.

There's lots of discussions on BGG about new factions, the AFV expansion, and other stuff -- I'd love to hear what you think!

Let me know if you have any questions about Ars Victor, either here or on BGG. I hope you enjoy your Ars Victoring!

[davidlhsl]

Originally Posted by sdebaun

@David hsl, chas:

Hey there! Thanks for picking up an Ars Victor! I'm Steve DeBaun, the designer and publisher. I wanted to make sure you know, if you just bought the game, from *anyone*, I will send you a free promo pack. If you get a friend to buy a game, I will send the pair of you FOUR promo packs. See http://bit.ly/avsyos

Man gets around, doesn't he?

Thanks for the note about the order being placed with anyone, because I had already pulled the plug with Amazon before seeing your offer.

I also have no idea who hacked into my computer and said those not-so-flattering things about the artwork.

Spoiler Alert!

Yeah, it was me.

I would never describe it as childlike at all.

Spoiler Alert!

Because children can draw a lot better than that.

In fact, my favorite unit in terms of art design is the Brute!

Spoiler Alert!

By "art design," I mean something along the lines of Andy Warhol during a bad LSD trip.

My ETA is next Thursday, so I'll sit patiently and wait for my game.

Spoiler Alert!

Can't joke about this part, because it really does look interesting.

Since Oliver made two sales, will he receive a case of promo units?

[sdebaun]

Man gets around, doesn't he?

Gotta flog it wherever I can.

Because children can draw a lot better than that.

I could offer any number of excuses, or I could just hold up the Ars Victor artwork as a case study as to why I am not allowed to have anything to do with art decisions on any future Trip West Games products.

I think the nicest thing anyone had to say was, "It's the South Park of wargames".

But still... how can you not love the Brute? HE IS SO CUDDLY. He just wants to give you a hug... WITH AXES.

Can't joke about this part, because it really does look interesting.

Based on what you said you found interesting your earlier post, I think you're really gonna like it. I think there's enough tactical meat for you to chew on for a while.

[Hahma]

Played Warfighter: The Tactical Special Forces Card Game this morning.

My 3rd solo game (it plays 1-6 but I'd be more comfortable with 1-3) and played another Jungle mission versus a drug cartel. 3 Soldiers fought their way through several jungle locations from the entry point to get to the final location where there was a big cartel VIP meeting set up and we had to defeat the hostiles before we could blow up the building where the meeting was being held.

Mission was successful and got through with only 1 of my soldiers taking a wound. He had 6 health (which also reflects your hand size when taking a discard and draw action to get more action cards into hand, which are super important and have tons of uses). Another soldier had 7 health, and the NPS (Non-Player Soldier) has only 3 health and doesn't get to draw a hand of cards. He's only 8 mission points (toward the 60 total allowed for this mission) and comes loaded with a Suppressed MP5 assault rifle a first aid kit (he's a medic and gets +3 on 1st aid rolls). He had tried but failed to heal the lead soldier's wound.

The wounds are interesting as they come with numbered chits with a number (ranging from 1-5) on the front side and another number on the back side with a bandaged image. So basically when your soldier takes wounds from an attack, you use that numbered chit. Each time that soldier takes damage, a different chit is used. So you could take 2 damage with one attack and 1 damage with another attack, then you would have a chit with 2 on it and a chit with a 1 on it. This represents them taking separate wounds with various severity. When someone tries to heal a soldier, the can only attempt to heal each wound separately and only one time each. So if a soldier has a 2 and a 1 chit, each can be attempted to be healed once. 1st aid kit comes with 4 bandage chits, where each one is expended with each heal attempt. Rolling a d10, 1-6 is a fail, and then you can heal 1, 2 or 3 (I believe) with various higher die rolls. A medic soldier gets +3 to his rolls. But once a wound is healed or attempted to be healed you flip over the wound chit to show the bandaged side to show that it was attempted or lowered. So if I rolled to heal 1 wound when attempting to heal the 2 wound chit, I'd replace it with a 1 wound chit showing a bandage on it and it can't be healed any further. If a 1 wound chit is healed, the it 's removed. Again, the number of remaining health is the hand size for a soldier when they take a discard/draw action and action cards are key to so many things.


Awesome game!

[davidlhsl]

Originally Posted by Hahma

Played Warfighter: The Tactical Special Forces Card Game this morning.

Thanks for the great report. I've only played once so far and really enjoyed it (despite failing the mission).

There's a Kickstarter for extra expansions, but I've decided to take a pass. This is really weird for me, because I tend to be pretty compulsive about wanting to have everything available for a game I like. However, with the base game plus the three expansions I already have, I feel there's enough stuff in what I have that I don't feel the need to add more to it.

What did you think of the bullet dice. I think they're fun, but they have a tendency to roll all over the place before they finally come to a rest.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by davidlhsl

Thanks for the great report. I've only played once so far and really enjoyed it (despite failing the mission).

There's a Kickstarter for extra expansions, but I've decided to take a pass. This is really weird for me, because I tend to be pretty compulsive about wanting to have everything available for a game I like. However, with the base game plus the three expansions I already have, I feel there's enough stuff in what I have that I don't feel the need to add more to it.

What did you think of the bullet dice. I think they're fun, but they have a tendency to roll all over the place before they finally come to a rest.

I didn't back this on kickstarter, I saw it at Miniature Market as a new arrival or something and then researched it on BGG. So when a friend of mine was wanting to combine orders on Miniature Market to get free shipping, I ordered the base game and the first two expansions for it. Money was tight so I didn't get the 3rd expansion, but kind of wish I had. But I will get it eventually I'm sure.

So far I've only played the jungle missions (since they are supposed to be easier) and have only used the base game cards. I figured I'd do that first and then add the expansion cards so that I can get more bang for my buck, though there is a ton of variety just between having different mission and objectives cards, as well as using a ton of different soldier/loadout combinations.

I've seen the new kickstarter for the next wave of stuff, but I'm not going to back it. I figure that I can always order the British, Russian and European theater missions down the road some time. It's one of those things though where between the first three current expansions and the base game, there is going to be enough variety in soldiers, that I may not need the British or Russian ones. But the European hostiles expansion would be cool to extend the base game and 1st 3 expansions with U.S. soldiers.

Yeah, the bullet dice are different for sure. I agree that they are neat, but can be a pain when they roll and are a little harder to read sometimes with these old eyes. But they will work well enough until/or if I decide to buy a bunch of 10 sided dice.

It's cool that you have this game too. So far I've only done solo (which this game totally works for) but hopefully will get a 2 or 3 player game going sometime with my group. I don't want to try 5 or 6 players but might at some point if enough people are interested and some of them have at least played at a lower play count before.

Look forward to hearing how your games go with this.

[Hahma]

Played my 4th game of Warfighter and this time I decided to start a campaign. Going to start with the Jungle region cartel campaign, as it's the easiest, compared to the middle-east insurgents and middle-east military areas of operations.

For a campaign, you start with the lowest mission point allowance mission card (of the 5 I have from base game and 1st two expansions) and then you shuffle up the objective cards (also have 5 of these) and randomly choose one. This way you will work your way up mission point allowance missions (meaning more points to put toward soldiers and equipment, as well as more bad guys showing up) and work your way through the different objectives. You will only use each one of each type once.

Soldiers that live through the mission will go on to the next mission, though you can add more, because there will be more mission points to spend on them. Soldiers that don't make it, can't be played in any future missions of that campaign.

Here's the first one.

Warfighter Jungle Campain

Including everything from the base game, as well as Action Cards, Mission and Objective Cards from Expansions #1 and#2.

Mission – Covert with 37 mission points allowed.
Objective – Drug Huts at location #4.
Soldiers:
Hospital Apprentice Stevens (Medic). Equipped with MP5 Carbine (Suppressed) with 8 mags of ammo, First Aid Kit, Canteen and 2 Grenades.
Staff Sergeant Giacomelli. Equipped with M16A2 Rifle with 6 mags of ammo, Knee Pads, Canteen and 3 Grenades.

Stevens and Giacomelli dropped in from an H-60 Seahawk. Satellite recon had determined that their entry point would be near a village through which they needed to pass on their way to the objective. While just outside of the village, a lone local muscle confronts the pair and has his sights set on Stevens. The local tough is way out of his league, as Stevens is first to act and sets his MP5 on full-auto, wasting the hostile, but expending a full magazine in doing so. At least with his weapon being suppressed, his attack didn’t bring any other unwanted attention just yet. He quickly reloads and enters the village, followed by Giacomelli, who surveys the area upon entering.

Stevens drinks from his canteen and then spots two potential paths leading toward their objective. The first one had some very rough terrain that seemed to offer good defensive positions that could work either for them, or for some hostiles. The other path led toward a river that seemed to be a more direct route. The pair carefully negotiated their way through the village without drawing any more attention.
The river had looked closer from the other side of the village, but dense vegetation made for some slow going.

After struggling through the dense vegetation, it’s Giacomelli’s turn to drain his canteen. Just in time to deal with what looks to be 3 smugglers and their leader. Both Giacomelli and Stevens make their way to the riverbank to confront the hostiles. Stevens tries to take advantage of his suppressed MP5 to make a stealthy first attack against the leader. He fired on full auto but somehow missed. Giacomelli was quick to follow up with a quick burst from his M16A2 and was able to take out the leader.

Next, Stevens unloaded on one of the smugglers and took him out and then keeps the stream of lead going and takes out another smuggler, but that took the rest of that magazine. Giacomelli finishes off the 3rd and final smuggler with a precise burst.

The pair sat tight for a few moments to catch their breath and make sure there weren’t any other hostiles lurking about. Then they head down the riverbank.

After proceeding carefully for an hour undetected, Giacomelli spots the clearing with the 3 drug huts. The huts are like small warehouses where drugs are temporarily kept before being moved to a small makeshift runway nearby, where the drug runner planes land to pick up their load.
Fortunately for the pair, there looks to only be a couple of hostiles guarding the perimeter, though these look to be more heavily armed and professional than the scumbags near the river and village. Giacomelli advances and double taps one of the guards with his M16A2, killing him with a double headshot. Stevens follows up with a full auto blast to the chest of the second guard, killing him.

Stevens tosses a grenade into one of the huts and blows it up, then he stood watch as Giacomelli took out the final two huts with a pair of grenades.

Checking their watches, the soldiers realized that they had made pretty good time. The resistance wasn’t as bad as they allowed for, which was always a good thing. Now they just had to make it to the extraction point and wait for their ride home.

With the success of this mission, the soldiers earn a total of 4 experience points toward the campaign, based on this objective being at location #4. These experience points will help determine the scale of their actions over the course of several missions, and the points can be divvied up between them to put toward Skill Card/s to use in the next mission, or they can save the points to put toward more expensive Skill Cards after future missions. Fortunately any Skill Cards purchased for the campaign don’t count toward mission points allowed for each mission.

[Serenity]

Warfighter sounds fun, thanks for all the info. I'll probably add it to my birthday wish list for March.