What Board Game Are You Currently Playing?

[akden]

I'm a little behind in posting, but on Thursday I got home from work very early, and with it being a snow (mostly just leftover stuff) day for the kids, several of the neighborhood kids asked to come over and play Heroscape. I was happy to oblige, but I couldn't convince them that a six-player game wasn't the best idea. So we played a multiplayer game with six, and it was fun, although they all agreed that next time we could just build several smaller maps and play multiple smaller games in the same amount of time (they should listen to their elders next time ). It came down to everyone having one hero left, and my Marcu just flew around and wiped them out, until he came up against my son's iron golem, which had only one life left. Despite attacking from height, I couldn't get through that six defense. My son rolled five skulls on his first attack and four on the next, and Marcu was no more. It was a long game, but very fun. The kids did agree that they want to play more often, which is a good thing.

We then played a game of Dead of Winter with some of the cards removed to tone it down a bit. Despite the group making a bad choice and exiling someone early on, we were doing well. With one round to go, we accumulated the last sample needed, so we just had to survive the round. Our morale was at three so we seemed to be in good shape,but we knew we couldn't meet the last crisis. I watched as a teenage girl insisted on going to the library ("I need to get to the library!") on the last turn despite everyone advising against it. That character died, which dropped our morale by one. We then failed the crisis, which dropped our morale to zero. Game over, we lost. There were no traitors; she just needed one more thing to complete her personal objective. That will be the story of the zombie apocalypse, and that's why the game works so well.

[Hahma]

Last night I started my 2nd campaign for Warfighter, this time in the Middle-East and against Insurgents.

Only went in with 1 soldier that had good move value (having Point Main ability and 1 base move). He had M4A1 Carbine, with ACOG sight and dual magazines for quick reloading, and he also had 3 grenades. Since he started out at 16 points, the weapons/equipment brought him up to the 27 allowed for this mission.

The mission was called Short and Sweet, with the Objective being Bomb Shop, where I needed to destroy the bomb shop, thus requiring explosives (grenades).

Failed the first time as I ran out of time. But tried again and succeeded...barely.

This morning added an NPS (Non-Player Soldier) to try the 2nd mission (Short Patrol) with an objective called Insurgent Chieftain, where we need to kill the Chieftain. I added a suppressor for my M4A1 Carbine to make stealth attacks, but since the NPS soldier came with 2 grenades, I didn't have my Player Soldier have any since I only had 36 points to spend total and the NPS cost 9 all loaded out.

Started out pretty good and even got some sniper support, but then when we moved into the Market Place next to where the Chieftain's hideout was, we got all kinds of hostiles. Had IED team, a suicide bomber, several militants, a fanatic and a stalker. We handled them with the help of the sniper, but it took precious time (we already started with 1 less turn than the mission allowed because of a d10 roll at the end of the 1st mission to adjust next mission in campaign). Then when we activated the Chieftain's hideout, we got an Armed Mob with 5 hostiles on it and some gunmen. Add to that there was an event card called Martyrs, that gave all hostiles in that location the Fearless trait, which meant they couldn't be suppressed (not good on the objective card since the Chieftain was screened by all hostiles at that location, which means you can't attack him until all hostiles there are either killed or suppressed, but since they are fearless, then you now have to kill all of them (tougher) before attacking him and he was tough enough to hit and required 3 kills). Then while still in the Market Place there was a Radio Man reinforcement that is a pain because even though he doesn't attack, he causes you to discard a card at the beginning of each Hostile Attack phase, and with only one player soldier to be able to draw/hold/play action cards, it wasn't good.

So anyway, the Armed Mob moves into the Market Place to chase down the NPS (Aktari) and the player soldier (Baker) is able to move into the objective card and take down some hostiles and put 1 of 3 wounds on the Chieftain. Unfortunately, there were reinforcements there and more hostile cards in the Market Place that were able to put 1 wound on Baker and suppress him (takes an action to unsuppress). So then it became too many hostiles and too few actions to be able to clear the objective card of hostiles that screened the Chieftain. Ran out of time and lost.

For the campaign, if you fail a mission, you check on a chart to see what affect your team had in the overall theater and basically see how good or bad you did. But you also have to start the campaign over. So that I will do tomorrow morning most likely.

Middle-East Insurgents is certainly tougher than the Jungle Cartel. And the Middle-East Military is even going to be more difficult than the Insurgents.

I really love this game.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by akden

We then played a game of Dead of Winter with some of the cards removed to tone it down a bit. Despite the group making a bad choice and exiling someone early on, we were doing well. With one round to go, we accumulated the last sample needed, so we just had to survive the round. Our morale was at three so we seemed to be in good shape,but we knew we couldn't meet the last crisis. I watched as a teenage girl insisted on going to the library ("I need to get to the library!") on the last turn despite everyone advising against it. That character died, which dropped our morale by one. We then failed the crisis, which dropped our morale to zero. Game over, we lost. There were no traitors; she just needed one more thing to complete her personal objective. That will be the story of the zombie apocalypse, and that's why the game works so well.

Yeah @akden , it's funny how those personal objectives can really make someone put the whole group at risk. Interesting dynamic that shows how a survivor's compulsion or other personal trait can have them do unwise things in dangerous times.

[Johngee]

Originally Posted by 1Mmirg

Played Among the Stars again last night--yup, we like this one! I'm glad because I bought several expansions for it before we ever played it (whew!)--long story, but it was under the tree and I had some opportunities to get expansions/promos really cheap. Anyhow, so glad that I put that much into the game--we are having fun adding one more set of promos or expansions each time we play--great stuff! It's light, but just the right amount going on--great family game, imo.

I'm not familiar with "Among the Stars" at all, but if it's about building cities and has "just the right amount going on" for a great family game, then I'll have to look into it.

I liked your comment about adding expansions. That's how we got hooked on CARCASSONNE - by adding a new expansion every couple of months whenever a new one was released. We've been playing this game ever since it arrived in America to the point that family doesn't want to try anything new or different... arrrgh! Now it takes almost three hours to pull ALL of the tiles out of the bag.


We played it AGAIN last night (me, wife, step-son, and daughter-in-law) and in my typical fashion I took an early lead ( 109 to 61, 57, 53 ) until I had way too many meeples stuck on monasteries. Then they colluded to gang up on me and it was a desperate fight to the finish as everyone tried to connect extra farmers to the two huge farm areas ( 13 and 10 cities respectively, with PIGS ). After loosing the King to my wife, who now had both it and the Robber Baron, I new the game was over for me and intentionally assisted ss & dil against her in the final three rounds. I eventually came in third ( 336 to 323 to 307 to 298 ), but was delighted to see my Padawans finally exceling enough to challenge the prowess of their old Master . . . hahaha.


Personally, I'd rather be playing HeroScape and may just have to drive over to @akden 's house the next time that it snows and those kids show up ~~lol~~

[Johngee]

Originally Posted by Hahma

Yeah @akden, it's funny how those personal objectives can really make someone put the whole group at risk. Interesting dynamic that shows how a survivor's compulsion or other personal trait can have them do unwise things in dangerous times.

I would put that into the "Fog of War" category. I seen young Lieutenants on live military maneuvers reading a map upside down and then end up where they're not supposed to be. Wasn't the Russian Army three days late in arriving at Austerlitz because they were using a still the Greek Orthodox Julian calendar while their Austrian allies were on the Roman Gregorian one. Consider the idiotic (politically motivated) moves of Dan Sickles at Gettysburg or George Custer at Greasy Grass. I'm just glad to see that designers are experimenting with various methodologies to introduce this concept of "a loose canon" into their board games beyond the standard stochastic roll of the dice.

[Jim]

Originally Posted by Johngee

I'm not familiar with "Among the Stars" at all, but if it's about building cities and has "just the right amount going on" for a great family game, then I'll have to look into it.

Technically, not cities, but Space Stations.

Originally Posted by Johngee

We played [Carcassonne] AGAIN last night (me, wife, step-son, and daughter-in-law) and in my typical fashion I took an early lead ( 109 to 61, 57, 53 ) until I had way too many meeples stuck on monasteries.

Sounds like you need to add the Festival expansion to help you with stuck meeples...

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by Johngee

I would put that into the "Fog of War" category. I seen young Lieutenants on live military maneuvers reading a map upside down and then end up where they're not supposed to be. Wasn't the Russian Army three days late in arriving at Austerlitz because they were using a still the Greek Orthodox Julian calendar while their Austrian allies were on the Roman Gregorian one. Consider the idiotic (politically motivated) moves of Dan Sickles at Gettysburg or George Custer at Greasy Grass. I'm just glad to see that designers are experimenting with various methodologies to introduce this concept of "a loose canon" into their board games beyond the standard stochastic roll of the dice.

Well for Dead of Winter, I guess the "fog of war" aspect is that other players don't know what the other players have as their secret objective, so something they do may unknowingly help the other player.

However, the secret objectives for players will have them struggle with a balance of working toward the common/public objective that everyone except the betrayer player (if one is in that particular game) and working toward their own secret objective that can sometimes be counterproductive to the common objective.

For example: you can have a secret objective of being a drug addict and need to end the game with a certain amount of medicine cards for your own objective, as well as the group succeed at the common objective. So you may get some medicine cards here and there when you search different locations, but you keep what you find a secret, like others mostly do. Then the group might have a crisis card at the beginning of a round that requires 1 medicine card for each non-exiled player. So in a 4 player game, that would be 4 medicine cards as long as no players were exiled. Cards are secretly added to the crisis, face down on each player's turn. If you are the last player that round and there have only been 3 cards played into the crisis by other players and you need to put 1 of your 3 in there to avoid the penalty for a failed crisis, you might say, "sorry guys, I don't have any medicine. I told you that before. Why didn't Joe put an extra card in to cover me?" So you let the crisis fail because of your personal objective. Now others have to decide if you are hoarding medicine and need to be voted to exile, or believe you that you didn't have any. On a future turn, you can go out of your way to be extra helpful to others and the group's goal, as long as it doesn't involve giving up the meds.

[akden]

My son and I have played through three games of Imperial Assault now, and we really like it. Our first game was the tutorial, and my son played the Imperials as usual. He definitely picked up the nuances faster than me because as I pulled my rebel team back around a corner to take a breather, he waltzed a stormtrooper right by, activated a console, and won the scenario. On the next game, he completely bogged my team down, keeping them busy until the rebels ran out of time. We replayed that scenario, "Aftermath," a second time, and I finally won one. My last unwounded rebel destroyed the last terminal on the last round with his last action. He needed two hits to destroy it and got three. I love games that come down to a dice roll like that; it had us both on our feet at the end. Excellent game, and I can't wait to continue the campaign.

I also played four games of Coconut Duo with my daughter last night as the Panthers lost to the Seahawks. It's a cute little dexterity game that involves flinging coconuts into cups to stack them. The first person to stack six cups wins, but you can steal your neighbor's cups and add them to your own by landing your coconuts into them. It was lots of fun with little coconuts flying into the air and bouncing into cups. I'd recommend it to anyone with kids, and I can even see it being fun for adults if you just want a light silly game.

[Johngee]

Originally Posted by Jim

Sounds like you need to add the Festival expansion to help you with stuck meeples...

O.M.G. - A Carcassonne expansion that I don't own yet and haven't even heard of; I'm shocked. When did this this come out and where can I get one?


Ha ha, I can see the advantage of retrieving a Farmer, Knight, or Robber meeple back if they are obviously stuck in an outnumbered situation of on an unfinishable feature, but if would be a tough decision to pull back a Nun/Monk from a convent/monastery and sacrifice 7 or 8 points when the next tile or two could complete it for full scoring. Why is there a Number Ten (10) on each tile along with the fireworks? I didn't see any mention of scoring points in those abbreviated rules.


Yeah I'll probably add this to my collection eventually, but I don't really need another rule to further complicate an already awesome game system - if you choose to implement ALL of the other mechanics. We already ignore some of them via House Rules to make it less "cut-throat" and more "family-friendly" (i.e. Tower captures, Princess ejections, Dragon gobbles, etc.), but keep all of the tiles in the bag anyway. I have to appease my gaming partners in order to keep them participating or else I'll be back playing solitaire.


Speaking of solitaire I ordered Star Wars: Imperial Assault for my birthday and it arrived Monday. I've been looking forward to finally cracking open the box (today), looking over the rules and maybe even giving the tutorial a quick run through.

[chas]

A two player game of Commands & Colors Epic Ancients: Clusium. It was a 3 1/2 hour game with only two of us playing what is usually a multi- player scenario. On the grounds of an historic Roman defeat, I hurled every type of Gaul I had against the vaunted Legions--Light Barbarian Chariots, Warrior Bands, Light and Medium Cavalry, Auxiliary and Light Infantry--the works. I took heavy casualties, but had the initiative most of the game. At the end, a kind of Pickett's Charge with my last good stuff almost took him out and caught me up VP wise. A counterattack in that sector got him nowhere, but then he finally came down off a hill, and hit me where I was weak, taking the final two banners for the win! A great game.

I'm now halfway through the Epic scenarios with one or multiple partners (!?!), the last Official C&C Ancients scenarios I haven't played yet, out of over 100 games. But almost all of the six C&C games by Richard Borg have fan generated scenarios available online, and I've only played most of them for Battle Cry! so far...

[Jim]

Originally Posted by Johngee

O.M.G. - A Carcassonne expansion that I don't own yet and haven't even heard of; I'm shocked. When did this this come out and where can I get one?

Use Google Chrome to auto-translate it, then go here (cundco.de) and order it. It is 3.99 Euro. As long as you keep your total under 10 Euro, shipping from Germany is reasonable.

The expansion originally came included in the 10th Anniversary Edition:

Originally Posted by Johngee

Why is there a Number Ten (10) on each tile along with the fireworks? I didn't see any mention of scoring points in those abbreviated rules.

See above (10th Anniversary). There are no points scored. The "abbreviated rules" are not really abbreviated; that single front-and-back-tile contains all the rules for the mini-expansion.

Originally Posted by Johngee

Yeah I'll probably add this to my collection eventually, but I don't really need another rule to further complicate an already awesome game system - if you choose to implement ALL of the other mechanics.

Heh. I've got pretty much every expansion printed for Carcassonne. I usually use the base game with the Inns & Cathedrals and the Traders & Builders expansions. If I want to try a new expansion, I'll usually play the new one with just the base game only.

[Hahma]

The 10th Anniversary Edition and Inns and Cathedrals are the only two Carc things I have. My game group isn't huge into Carc anymore, so it's up to my kids to play it with me once in a great while. Darn fickle 11 year-old twin girls