The Big Thread of Board Games

[Zinegata]

Also, that reminds me: Clash of Culture may indeed be the best Civ-style boardgame yet. Very clean mechanics. Has Marcussen's signature long down time though.

[wautd]

Anyone ever played the Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game? Toughts about it?

[weemadando]

Haven't played it, but the price tag is prohibitive.

Another game of Spartacus played - went down completely differently, hardly any intrigue was successful/that influential, but some serious arena action was happening. And Stofsk was DESTROYING the economy, we other players dropped the ball and he was able to run insane amounts of gold through his palm each turn.

[NeoGoomba]

Has anyone given the Star Trek Catan a whirl yet? I am curious to see how the new mechanics add to the game.

Also, fresh from PAX: East (even though it was a while ago) I picked up Cthulhu Munchkin, Puerto Rico, and Space Alert. Everyone loves Munchkin and Puerto Rico, but I wish more people who had patience lived near me to give Space Alert the attention it deserves, it's intriguing. At a (very) brief glance I thought it was what FTL was based off of.

[PainRack]

I keep reading bad reviews of Space Hulk, the card game from FFG.

Has anyone here played it?


I'm interested in bringing a new game to my group outside of San Guo Sha or Munchkins

[Vejut]

Played it twice, maybe three times with friends, none of whom are 40K people. It's a co-op, you vs. the deck game. We found it rather fun, with each game seeming to come down very tight, though IIRC we won each time. It did come down to collectively deciding who to throw under the bus for time with the abilities, and hoping you got a good roll/not another stealer swarm though at the end each time. Tense, but I could see it getting old.

[Zinegata]

I keep reading bad reviews of Space Hulk, the card game from FFG.

Has anyone here played it?


I'm interested in bringing a new game to my group outside of San Guo Sha or Munchkins

It's mechanically sound but not really challenging once you've figured it out.

[wautd]

I'm sitting on the fence on buying Spartacus. I know it has excellent revieuws but I'm a bit worried about the luck factor and I don't like the artwork at all (reminds me about the awful Hunger Games: District 12 boardgame). Love to give it a try though, but I don't think it's something that will be presented in my gaming group any time soon.

[Nephtys]

So I've started playing Android: Netrunner lately.

I'm enjoying it a great deal. It's one of Fantasy Flight's LCGs, where one side plays a large megacorporation setting up servers and advancing their agendas to score points, while the other player is a hacker attempting to break in and steal these secrets. A lot of secrecy is involved, as the Corporation player sets up their servers face-down, with anti-hacker programs (Ie, 'ICE'... yes, lots of 80s cyberpunk terminology here) face down as well, that the Hacker is going to have to decrypt or overpower, while trying to avoid being traced by the corporation and arrested, brainfried, or 'accidentally' exploded.

The deception factor really makes it feel different for me from most card games, where you eventually see all the 'obvious' builds, and get bored. You need to play your opponents' bluffing, and take risks as the Runner, or entrap them as the Corp. Plus again, all those silly 80s terms for what they thought computers would be like. Ie, Cyberdeck, ICE Breaker, Jack, a corporation named Weyland, etc..

[madd0ct0r]

is there genuine decryption in there like mastermind?

[weemadando]

I'm sitting on the fence on buying Spartacus. I know it has excellent revieuws but I'm a bit worried about the luck factor and I don't like the artwork at all (reminds me about the awful Hunger Games: District 12 boardgame). Love to give it a try though, but I don't think it's something that will be presented in my gaming group any time soon.

Luck plays a part as it does in any card drawing or dice rolling game, but there is also a lot of off the table diplomacy required as many cards require multiple players to support them. And the Arena phase though dice rolls can go against you, it is tactical errors which guarantee your death and failure.

In the most recent game I'd been aiming to use my house's special abilities to try and dominate the intrigue phases, but I just wasn't getting the guards I required to do that (while Stofsk had more than he could possibly use). But I was able to get into the Arena often enough (cutting deals and outright buying hosting rights) to win most of my influence from there.

Definitely give it a try if you can find a copy playing at a store/event, but it's a damn cheap RRP for the quality of the game/components. And yes, the art is all pulled from the TV series, but that's not such a huge issue unless you are totally opposed to the show.

[Crazedwraith]

Just played the X-Wing miniatures game. On time as an X-Wing in a quick fight against two ties using simplified rules and second time as two fighters trying to shoot down a shuttle defended by an x-wing. I lost both times but it was still pretty fun.

A board game novice I found it quite complex. You blindly select your movements before hand. and then get to use abilities and fire. The better your pilot the later you move, (actually allows you to use abillities more effectively since you know where the targets have gone to) and the sooner you fire.

Didn't get into the really advanced additional weapons or droids but still fun. May 20-30 minutes a scenario and gets quicker once you know what you're doing obviously.

[wautd]

Played The Speicherstadt (+ Kaispeicher expansion) last night. An elegant bidding games with simple rules so a pretty good gateway game in my opinion. The expansion adds some more meat to the game and sweet metal coins.

[wautd]

Finally got to play A Game of Thrones: The Board Game and it was, as I expected, excellent. Really tense (the map becomes quickly too small) and I felt really paranoid on who does what. Hope to play it again soon.

[weemadando]

I picked up Thunderbolt Apache Leader which though it has some production issues (slightly off with the cutting of pieces) is a fairly complex, yet not complicated game. Did a trial "mission" and dear god did I underestimate how dangerous it was. It's a solitaire game, but you could easily co-op it and we might give that a shot today.

[Zinegata]

Thunderbolt/Apache is honestly a bit imbalanced, with the AC-130 and the A-10 being extremely powerful compared to the helos. I honestly liked Hornet Leader more as the game series' strength is really the mission planning aspect.

[weemadando]

It's my first go with the designers work and I liked the concepts behind TAL more than Hornet Leader. And a bit of imbalance is good - after all, using AH-64Ds low behind ridges as Hellfire launch platforms for targets marked by a RQ-1 is a far "easier" game than having to zoom and boom at low level and have pilot stress blowing out. I imagine the scenarios will probably scale up a bit to counter this though.

[Zinegata]

Actually, I found the opposite - zoom and boom with the A-10 is easier than pop-and-shoot with the Apache; at least from the strategic perspective.

The real big kicker is the cost of munitions. The AC-130 basically doesn't cost any additional points for munitions. The A-10 can get by using only cheap dumb bombs. But the Apaches and Cobras who want the top of the line Hellfires generally need to pay a lot for their missiles - and they pay for each and every mission.

Essentially, when I do a mostly Apache setup I start running into supply issues pretty quickly into the campaign, whereas the A-10 and AC-130 has a big initial cost outlay but much less point spending on a per-mission basis.

[weemadando]

That's a point - I'll be interested to see how it all goes. I can definitely see the AC-130 being a powerhouse though - having that much ability to soak damage as well as excellent pilot evasion compared to others.

Have you done any "co-op"? Looking at running a campaign where each person would get their own pilot group.

[Zinegata]

I haven't but A/H is big enough to do a Co-op. That's one aspect where it's better than Hornet Leader - because at least there's more tactical decision making at the mission level so you can realistically split off control of planes to different players.

[weemadando]

Also, played more Spartacus yesterday - a 5hr epic of a game between 4 players (myself, Stofsk, Vympel and a RL person) which was a lot of fun.

And had a few quick games of Forbidden Island which I really liked. Beautiful art, elegant design and mechanics. But the fact is, that on the first attempt we failed before the second set of turns were done. So, yeah, that can happen.

[weemadando]

OK, first campaign (Iraq - Show of Force) completed. Had some damaged airframes and stressed pilots, but no losses. Destroyed a Forward HQ (2x Cobras) and wiped out a Forward deployed Tank Battalion (2x A-10s and an F-16) on the First day. The F-16, piloted by Mohawk was a campaign MVP, he spent most of his time buzzing around at high altitude, zooming into heavily defended sections and dropping GBUs on everything and occasionally downing a helicopter. Second day had some bad luck as I drew extra enemy air cover and decided to sacrifice some pylons to Sidewinders rather than spend 2 SO. First target was a Scout Battalion that I sent the Cobras against and they couldn't destroy, but got under half before having to bug out and then the fast movers went to work on a Anti-Air Battalion in a brutal, but lucky, LUCKY mission for me (very good draws for damage) - again, Mohawk blitzed a heavy concentration on the first turn (he's on his way to being a genuine Weasel), however he blew his shots on the chopper. An A-10 then did a little air-to-air work with the GAU-8 and then worked over the remaining forces until there was nothing left. Had I not been so lucky with my damage draws it would have gone south SO quickly that last mission as I neglected to read the battalion special rule ahead of time (extra range to all anti-air).

I'm liking it and may set up a LP thread to narrate my experiences.

[madd0ct0r]

draughts / checkers.

30second set up time and could bash through 4 games with the wife in an hour. She went from learning to chasing me around the baord with queens whispering "I love you"

[Zinegata]

OK, first campaign (Iraq - Show of Force) completed. Had some damaged airframes and stressed pilots, but no losses. Destroyed a Forward HQ (2x Cobras) and wiped out a Forward deployed Tank Battalion (2x A-10s and an F-16) on the First day. The F-16, piloted by Mohawk was a campaign MVP, he spent most of his time buzzing around at high altitude, zooming into heavily defended sections and dropping GBUs on everything and occasionally downing a helicopter. Second day had some bad luck as I drew extra enemy air cover and decided to sacrifice some pylons to Sidewinders rather than spend 2 SO. First target was a Scout Battalion that I sent the Cobras against and they couldn't destroy, but got under half before having to bug out and then the fast movers went to work on a Anti-Air Battalion in a brutal, but lucky, LUCKY mission for me (very good draws for damage) - again, Mohawk blitzed a heavy concentration on the first turn (he's on his way to being a genuine Weasel), however he blew his shots on the chopper. An A-10 then did a little air-to-air work with the GAU-8 and then worked over the remaining forces until there was nothing left. Had I not been so lucky with my damage draws it would have gone south SO quickly that last mission as I neglected to read the battalion special rule ahead of time (extra range to all anti-air).

I'm liking it and may set up a LP thread to narrate my experiences.

The planes really are killers with the bombs. The Cobras, as you experienced, tend not to have enough moxy to do a full wipe out, and the Apaches are not much better. The helis really exist more as mop-up for things your planes missed.

In harder campaigns you generally have to wipe out a battalion with each mission, or else the strategic layer overruns you.

[weemadando]

Yeah, I just started a new campaign in a more modern era (http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 4&t=158463) and it's amazing just how dangerous linked aircraft and one's with natural to hit bonuses are.