What Board Game Are You Currently Playing?

[Bengi]

Originally Posted by Hahma

It was fun despite the downtime and the length of the game, though it will be quite a while before I want to spend that much time on that game again when I could have gotten three 1 1/2 hr games in. The theme of the game is top-notch and I think that if there were several really experienced players of the game, the game length might be down to the 3 hour mark and more manageable.

Give BSG another chance. We used to have games go to the 3 hour mark, but never anymore, now that we know how to play it. If everybody knows what's going on, the turns go much faster and the game plays very smoothly.

As for last night for me:
Innovation (+Echoes) - I lost a close one. We each had 6 achievements, but my opponent won with a special victory condition. Very good game and I love the expansion.

Space Alert (x2). We had 1 noob who kept messing up the ship, resulting in a hilariously epic loss. 2 characters were knocked out by an internal threat and the ship took all 18 possible damage, as each zone simultaneously acquired it's 6th damage.

Runewars - A "quick" game (4p). Ended after 3 years as I grabbed 3 runes in 2 seasons. 2 new players loved it. Can't get enough of this one, but you've gotta have time to play, especially if someone doesn't know the rules. I made a push to end it quickly as it was 1:30. Can't wait for the expansion, which should improve the hero phase.

Other people at game night played Stone Age, which is one of my new favorites as well. A good 'gateway' game as the non-gamer that was there said she loved it.

[nyys]

Originally Posted by B:T:L Matt

I'm surprised you didn't post up scores. My 2VP for Thunderstone would have been a topic of discussion, I think...

I didn't want to rub your ineptness in... The bad draw of monsters at the beginning of the game certainly didn't help.

[wdgrant]

I'll second the fact that you should give BSG a chance. It is one we play in about 2 or 2 1/2 hours and it is now much better. Once people have the mechanics down, they can focus on the problems at hand and picking out the cylons. The Resistance sounds good, but as a cylon, you can have a blast. I once talked everyone into believing another player was the cylon while I was in the brig. They wasted their resources getting me out and then I immediately revealed as a cylon and proceded to blast them to pieces.

As for me, little gaming lately. I played a couple games of Puerto Rico on BSW and have an ongoing PBEM game of Titan and Wallenstein going on. Titan is one of my favorites and has been a blast, while Wallenstein is new to me and has started out well.

[Raider30]

Greetings,

Well I've managed to get in a few games this week with the boys. A month ago our comic shop had a 50% off sale on games so I took them with me and we ended up getting a bunch of stuff including 2 games they thought looked good.

So this week it was:

Magdar: Quick little gem/mithril mining game. Very light on the strategy element, but sort of like Sorry! in that you can send the other players back to the entrance of the mine. Personally I think the game would have been better if they had left off a few of the dice icons on each tile. For those who haven't played it(and I'm guessing most haven't) a tile is a cave "room". Each tile has various sides of a 6-sided dice represented. There are 4 tiles in a column. At the end of your turn you roll the dice and then get to remove one of the tiles(to simulate the demon coming for the dwarves). Most of the tiles have 4 dice faces represented, so you have a really good chance of rolling a number that corresponds to one of the tiles, meaning tiles disappear very quickly. I think it would have been better to have at most only 3 faces represented on the tiles. This would have allowed the game to stretch another 10 minutes or so and made it a bit more fun.

I've won or tied all 4 games we've played and I only had *1* gem mined, and it wasn't even a very high value one, just because rooms disappear so quickly. Fun game though with kids. Matthias daughter liked it, because "it seems really simple".

Van Helsing x2 - this is the other game the boys thought looked fun. They are very into vampires and werewolves right now and the Van Helsing movie is one of their favorites. I would describe this game as Fury of Dracula Light. It shares some of the same mechanics of FoD, Dracula disappears and moves around the castle unseen, except at the start of his turn he must reveal himself, when he stops to pick up an item, when he enters a room with a hunter or a hunter enters a room with him. So there are lots of chances to get on his trail. Plus unlike FoD the path choices are more linear, not totally, especially if you use the stairs, but in FoD Dracula can have 3-4 path choices per city he's in, so if you miss him he can be gone in a hurry.

Again this is a good game for younger kids, and truth be told I had a blast too. The first game they beat me pretty easily by finding and killing 5 of my 8 brides. I only killed one of the 4 hunters. I was trying to take it easy on them. Dracula starts the game off much more powerful than the hunters until they can find some good weapons, then it gets interesting.

The second game was much, much closer. I decided to be a bit more offensive and tracked down and killed Van Helsing, turning him into a vampire and using him to harass the other 3 hunters. They found and killed 3 brides, while I managed to bring 2 safely back to my coffin. Unfortunately they found and killed another bride and then discovered another one, but I was able to move her behind a locked door. At that point it was a race to see if I could get Dracula to her before they brought up the hunter who had the set of keys. I did manage to get to her and started moving away but they trapped me. I killed one of them leaving only 2 to face me. Unfortunately the next turn Jonathan Harker, wielding a crossbow and having 2 actions took aim at my beautiful bride. A crossbow has an attack of 4, meaning you must roll 4 or less on the dice for a hit. He rolled a 6 on his first action so I was still alive. Then he rolled a...4. Aarrgghh!!! 5 brides dead and I lose. Definitely a lot of fun.

Heroscape - Played a Hero's only game last night. Played a version of my gen-con army vs a mishmash of guys that "looked cool". Clobbered them pretty good. But we did have fun and that's what counts. Hoping to play another one this morning. Or at least some other game before the day gets busy.

Considering how busy we are in the summer(and during school) to get in 4 games this week was pretty good!

Oh, and as a bonus the interest in Van Helsing spawned an interest in classic monster movies so last night, courtesy of Netflix we watched the original 1932 Dracula followed by the 1954 atomic bomb mutation classic Them! Both were awesome, particularly Dracula. That movie was amazing and if they released a blu-ray version with the static in the sound cleaned up I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I believe they want to watch the original The Wolfman, The Mummy, and Frankenstein next.

- Raider30

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by Land-based AE

Battlestar Galactica is a fun game but for pure traitor in the midst I enjoy The Resistance much more.

BG had been on my want list forever and I found after playing it that A: There wasn't as much find/worry about the traitor(s) as I would have wanted, namely because so much else is going on. And B: Once a person reveals themselves as a traitor, there's not much to do with them. They stop being a pain on the ship and go to their own ship and be a pain there. It kind of made me feel like "Yeah, you found me, so what?"

With The Resistance, the entire game is nothing but the traitor mechanic so the debate is much more fluid and being as people are being asked to play cards, if you are discovered as a traitor, that's a good way to sit for the rest of the game with no one asking you to play cards.

And you'd love the fact that The Resistance can be played in 30-45 minutes, depending on how much your group wants to argue everything.

Yeah, The Resistance is on my radar, as are a lot of other games and I'll have to wait awhile for anything new since I just got Battleship Galaxies and Defenders of the Realm not long ago. But it sounded fun and the game length is definitely a plus for our game nights since there are times when you want to get a quick game in while waiting for others to finish up something so you can get in a bigger game or whatever. We had 20+ attendees last night, so it's nice to have a variety of game lengths. Thanks for the reminder about that game

Originally Posted by Bengi

Give BSG another chance. We used to have games go to the 3 hour mark, but never anymore, now that we know how to play it. If everybody knows what's going on, the turns go much faster and the game plays very smoothly.

As for last night for me:
Innovation (+Echoes) - I lost a close one. We each had 6 achievements, but my opponent won with a special victory condition. Very good game and I love the expansion.

Space Alert (x2). We had 1 noob who kept messing up the ship, resulting in a hilariously epic loss. 2 characters were knocked out by an internal threat and the ship took all 18 possible damage, as each zone simultaneously acquired it's 6th damage.

Runewars - A "quick" game (4p). Ended after 3 years as I grabbed 3 runes in 2 seasons. 2 new players loved it. Can't get enough of this one, but you've gotta have time to play, especially if someone doesn't know the rules. I made a push to end it quickly as it was 1:30. Can't wait for the expansion, which should improve the hero phase.

Other people at game night played Stone Age, which is one of my new favorites as well. A good 'gateway' game as the non-gamer that was there said she loved it.

I'd like to give BSG another chance at some point for sure. It's just that our group has 1000+ games to choose from and everyone likes to try something others have that they haven't tried yet, new games someone just got, or people like to bust out games they have had sitting on the shelf for awhile. So getting to replay games can be challenging, though we did get to replay Mare-Nostrum recently. The one Monday that I missed in June was a night the group busted out BSG prior to last night, so it is still relatively recent for the group. That said, given the chance when others are wanting to play, I'll give it another go. Though someone on our group's facebook page asked if we wanted to get a Ticket to Ride tourney going, where everyone chips in 1$/game and we play all 5 versions. The top finisher gets the money to get any game they want, within the amount of $ collected of course. I have never played TTR, but agreed to try it out and hope for some beginners luck.

Oh and I can only imagine the epic loss in Space Alert with the noob, I was part of that once In fact, I referenced Space Alert during the BSG game when I got Admiral handed to me and threatened to shoot the Nuke when there were no Cylon ships. I said that it would be like Space Alert when I pressed the A button but there was no threat in that sector.

Originally Posted by wdgrant

I'll second the fact that you should give BSG a chance. It is one we play in about 2 or 2 1/2 hours and it is now much better. Once people have the mechanics down, they can focus on the problems at hand and picking out the cylons. The Resistance sounds good, but as a cylon, you can have a blast. I once talked everyone into believing another player was the cylon while I was in the brig. They wasted their resources getting me out and then I immediately revealed as a cylon and proceded to blast them to pieces.

As for me, little gaming lately. I played a couple games of Puerto Rico on BSW and have an ongoing PBEM game of Titan and Wallenstein going on. Titan is one of my favorites and has been a blast, while Wallenstein is new to me and has started out well.

As I mentioned above, I'll give BSG another chance when next it comes up with the group. I know it will come up again as it's a top game for some of the group, but as mentioned above, there are other circumstances determining which games we play.

I guess part of my disappointment (not that I was really disappointed in the game itself) was that I brought my 15 year-old nephew for his second time to the game night and after playing the game and on the ride home, he mentioned that it was an okay game and all, but he would have rather gotten in 3 games last night instead of just 1. With school starting again and his other activities, getting him back to the big game nights will be more challenging and farther in between. He had fun, but it could have been better for him. I figured BSG would have only taken 3 hours and we would still have had time for another 1 1/2 hour+ game in or a couple shorter ones. Oh well, since we're not having a Monday night meeting this coming week due to carpet cleaning at the facility, I'll have my nephew over and get some other gaming in.




That all said, I got up early today and got in a couple solo games of Thunderstone in. Had a relatively close loss for the first one and a relatively close win for the second one.

The wife is going out tonight with some friends, so hopefully I can get a game of Defenders of the Realm in with the kids.

[A_Train]

Played Settler's of Catan with Rivers of Catan, and the HarbourMaster card last night, I managed to squeak out the win. Also played Ticket to Ride: Europe last night. In an attempt of a new strategy, for the first time I discarded my longest route and attempted to win by picking up more smaller routes, and screwing over routes of opponents. I cam in a tie for second.

[EternalThanos86]

Wife is gone and the town I'm living in is having a big social event that I'm not interested in, so I broke open Merchants & Marauders and played two solo games. I was frustrated that the pirate lifestyle is much more difficult than the merchant, but toward the end of the second game, I started to see the advantages of each. Unfortunately, my pirate got eaten up by a Spanish Naval Frigate early in the game, so the final score was lopsided, but at least I can now teach the game to people at GenCon!

[The Doctor]

Me and my family have enjoyed a long tradition of playing LOTR risk which is a blast.

[Kaemon Awa 123]

Found an out of the shrink wrap but unplayed copy of Risk at a rummage sale for $2, and we've already played a couple games. I won both times, a 3-player FFA and a 2v2 game.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by EternalThanos86

Wife is gone and the town I'm living in is having a big social event that I'm not interested in, so I broke open Merchants & Marauders and played two solo games. I was frustrated that the pirate lifestyle is much more difficult than the merchant, but toward the end of the second game, I started to see the advantages of each. Unfortunately, my pirate got eaten up by a Spanish Naval Frigate early in the game, so the final score was lopsided, but at least I can now teach the game to people at GenCon!

Hey ET86, how's it going? I've been keeping an eye M&M as a potential future purchase down the road. I look forward to hearing how this game goes for you after a bunch of games, and what your opinion of it is. It says that it takes 3 hours, but I'd be interested to know if that's on the high end or average with some games going much longer and shorter.

Anyway, have fun at Gen Con

[B:T:L Matt]

Originally Posted by Hahma

Hey ET86, how's it going? I've been keeping an eye M&M as a potential future purchase down the road. I look forward to hearing how this game goes for you after a bunch of games, and what your opinion of it is. It says that it takes 3 hours, but I'd be interested to know if that's on the high end or average with some games going much longer and shorter.

Anyway, have fun at Gen Con

I have Merchants & Marauders on my wishlist, but the three hour game time keeps it under the "I will get this eventually" category. I'm not against playing long games as I own some, but I'm more inclined to readily purchase games with a shorter elapsed time.

Much like you, I'd be interested to know what's the general consensus as to how long the game takes.

[A_Train]

Monopoly Cities tonight. I dreaded playing it, but it wasn't so bad. Leaps and bounds better than original Monopoly, but still not as fun as most of my other games.