What Board Game Are You Currently Playing?

[Dad_Scaper]

Great day yesterday at the Heroscape tournament. After the competition, I got to play Downforce with @Elstree , @akden , KidScaper, @Sherman Davies , and one of KS's friends. @bunjee supervised. It's a fun take-that game. It's a little bit racing, a little bit betting (like Camel Up), and a little bit gotcha.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by Tornado

EDIT: Is Gloomhaven hex based? If so, are they Heroscape sized hexes?

For Frostgrave, the RPG element is mostly character creation and development?
The game play is pure combat correct with a 'capture the flag'/'treasure grab' theme?

General question: How important are the minis to the game experience? What is their fun factor?

TREX: For coop, are looking for two vs. a random element or more of a 2v1 or 2v2 setting?

Thanks for feedback gentlemen!

Gloomhaven is hex based and the hexes are 1 1/4 inch and butt up to each other, unlike Heroscape that has 1 1/2 inche hexes that have that gap between them. A normal single based Heroscape figure will barely fit within a hex for Gloomhaven, but the peanut bases are bigger than 2 hexes in Gloomhaven.

Frostgrave has character creation for the wizard (main character for each player) and their apprentice has stats that are based on the wizard's, in that they are a certain amount less across the board than the wizard, but increase as the wizard increase. You have a certain amount of money to build your warband. There is a max of 10 figures total in your warband, with some exceptions here and there. There are cheaper people to hire and more expensive ones, so you can build the warband how you like.

The generic game is treasure based and you get Xp's for each treasure you get off the board as well as being able to roll on treasure tables after the game to see what each treasure provides. Some will have gold or potions or scrolls, or grimoires or magic weapons, armor or other items. You can equip people with stuff but there are limits, or you can sell some stuff and you can buy stuff.

After your first game you can choose one if several types of home bases and they each provide a different benefit. You can also expand your base with some upgrade.

You can attack opponent's people, or just go for treasures. There are chances for creatures entering play when treasures are picked up.

There are Ulterior Motives cards that can add other things you can do to earn XP'S. There are a lot of scenarios that add different experiences than just going after treasure.

Honestly, you can pick up the main rulebook for like $20. Makes it a lot easier to understand everything. There are several supplements that add to the game. You can hire a Captain that will become another character that you can level up and has unique abilities.

The recent release of Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago has similar rules but some differences that make it cool to have.

Minis are very important to me. I don't like counters or standees for these types of games. That said, Gloomhaven uses standees for the enemies. I understand the reason, because there are such a huge variety of enemies that it wouldn't be practical financially for actual minis produced for them. But then again, Gloomhaven is more of a board game and not a tabletop miniatures game like Frostgrave, The Walking Dead All Out War, Infinity etc.

Frostgrave and several other systems are miniatures agnostic, so people can use miniatures from wherever.

[Hahma]

Also, @Tornado

You may want to look into This is not a Test

http://worldsendpublishing.com/this-is-not-a-test/

There are also some rules sets from Osprey Publishing

Dracula's America (I have this)
Star Rogues
Scrappers


Ultimately, if you are going for a tabletop miniatures game experience with RPG elements, you might consider investing in a few rulebooks from different genres and give them a good read and look for elements from each that you like and may consider using fir your system.

[TREX]

What im working up for frostgrave will still use all the mechanics of frostgrave. Instead of fighting one another there will be pre placed monsters or monsters placed from random tables. There will be objectives with treasure and players will fight the monsters together. They will still level the same way and monsters will be controlled by the games presets.

[Hahma]

Sounds cool.

[chas]

Am play testing a new scenario for Battle Cry 150 by the honcho for that game on the fan site, www.commandsandcolors.net. Its Antietam: The Cornfield, and lots of fun.

Just finished the 12 official scenarios from Command & Colors Tricorne: American Revolution. I've enjoyed all but one. I played about half with live opponents and half solitaire. Richard Borg has done it again!

This game will have an expansion, and his The Great War will have at least three more, one coming hopefully in 2018. Oddly enough, the next expansions for both games will be called The French Army!

[Spidey'tilIDie]

Picked up Betrayal at Balder’s Gate. It is Avalon Hill’s Betrayal at the House on the Hill with DnD theme overlayed. Now each character has a class and a race which coincides with reasons for their particular stats. It seems to fix some of the issues with Betrayal while appealing to a new crowd with the changed theme. I highly recommend it. Also played several games of King of Tokyo with new gamers over the weekend. Power-up really enhances that game. I don’t think that one will ever get old. Now with Cthulhu!

[chas]

Played my first of GMT's COIN (Counter Insurgency) very popular series and liked the system; now I plan on getting two of them myself! Each has four asymmetrical factions vying for victory in a particular war, each with different resources and victory conditions. Each game has an area movement board, and simulates the politics, economics, and diplomacy of an historical conflict, as well as its military aspects.

Lately they have been getting away from just modern counterinsurgency campaigns. These designs are very popular on boardgamegeek, regularly win awards, and have become standard events at game cons. Most have a different designer but a general series editor. They are becoming one of GMT's best selling lines.

The COIN Games are:

1. Andean Abyss: The guerilla war in Columbia

2. Cuba Libre: Castro's revolution in Cuba

3. A Distant Plain: Modern Afghanistan

4. Fire In The Lake: The American Effort In Vietnam

5. Liberty or Death: The American Revolution

6. Falling Sky: The Gallic Revolt Against Caesar

7. Colonial Twilight: The Insurrection In French Algeria

8. Pendragon: The Fall of Roman Britain

9. Ghandi: The Independence Movement In India (Not out yet)

The game I played yesterday was Cuba Libre. Next month we'll be playing Falling Sky, which along with that design is considered the best as an introduction to the series, being more simple. The two I plan to get myself are Pendragon, just coming out this month, and Fire In The Lake, which will be reprinted next summer.

[Hahma]

@chas

I've played Andean Abyss and Cuba Libre, a while ago and liked them. I bought Falling Sky and played it solo, but recently sold it because it didn't seem like it would see play time with my group. Besides, my buddy Brian has all the COIN series, so I'm sure I may get to play Fallin Sky with him some day.

[Hahma]

Yesterday, 5 of us started our Sword and Sorcery campaign. I had to leave at a certain time to go to a high school play my daughters were involved with, but we were near the end anyway.

It went long for what it was, mostly because my friend Jeff didn't quite have everything down ruleswise, but mostly. And then for us learning what symbols mean and other such things. 3 of us "died" but came back, though is cost us those crystals? to bring us back. Actually, I probably didn't need to come back and could have saved that crystal because I was so far back because of where the respawn point was by that time, that all I did was move and use an action to move an extra space. I was almost caught up to the group when I had to leave. My character is the Shaman and I chose the Tracking spell that allows me to look at the top card of the event deck and either keep it or put it at the bottom. We also had the Pirate Ghost character, the Dragonkin guy, the Elf Archer and the Knight (chaotic). The Elf Archer is the only one with range, so those Gremlins were deadly because of taking hits when you damage them if you are in the same area. Kind of hard to avoid that when 4 of us were melee. I do have a staff that allows for a Bash to send them to another area if I roll the star symbol when attacking.

Pretty much a learning game for sure and I'm sure we'll get more accustom to the symbols and such next time, and I'll be sure to not have anything planned when we play next. We plan on playing once a month since we all have so many other things going on.

[Spidey'tilIDie]

Played Blood Rage with Kickstarter Exclusives last night, had to end after 2nd Age, but still fun. I came in second, but I was set up for a dastardly Third Age. Would have been nice to see what happened. I was the only player starting the Third Age with 12 Rage (Actions). I also had both my Mystics, The Fire Giant, and the Dark Elf. Like I said, great set-up for Third Age, just ran out of time.

[chas]

I was just gifted a Euro two player strategic game of the Peloponnsian War called Polis: Fight For the Hegemony (Asylum), which plays in two hours, and looks to be very good indeed! Gadzooks, there are so many games I never heard of out there.

Star Trek Ascendancy's third expansion The Borg Assimilation just got into the GF9 warehouse, and will start shipping soon.

Appearing at Essen and also available soon should be Cry Havoc's Aftermath expansion.