toddhunter
Member
I looked it up and judged it by the box cover. As far as my brain is concerned, I still haven't heard of it.
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New Board Gaming |OT2| On Tables, Off Topic
- Thread starter Karkador
- Start date
I looked it up and judged it by the box cover. As far as my brain is concerned, I still haven't heard of it.
Oh I agree. Which is also why people should always see the golden geek for what it is, a popularity contest, and that's all right.
(Liberty or death is highly thematic actually, the stories that unfold on the board really bring you into the theme. And this is coming from someone who is normally not into war games)
Never judge anything by the cover. If anything Concordia should have teached people that.
toddhunter
Member
Snakes + Grapes, what is not to love?
Anyone in the US know how to get Winners Circle or Royal Turf?
Or better question: Anyone in Japan want to help me get this version? https://twitter.com/425suzanne/status/839880042050019328
Or better question: Anyone in Japan want to help me get this version? https://twitter.com/425suzanne/status/839880042050019328
antiquegamer
Member
I like Scythe and the solo Automa system is pretty good but winning solitaire game of the year from BGG just seem a bit of a stretch with so many other solid solo games out there.
What were your other favorites from last year?
Thanks for sharing, Liberty or Death looks pretty damn cool, just watched this at lunch today.
https://boardgamegeek.com/video/920...vethrureview-473-or-blood-there-will-be-blood
https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B01MSBEBXR/
I think Amazon Japan ships to the US now? If not, you can go the shipping proxy route (such as Tenso, which I use).
SillyEskimo
Member
My local Target had Coup for $5 and 7 Wonders for $15, along with a slew of others that I either already own or didn't know anything about. This isn't a nation wide sale, just what our local store wanted to clear out. Target is cool like that. I snatch some insane lego deals the same way every once in awhile.
HashtagLapsed
Member
Damn it, A Feast for Odin reprint has ran into delays.
SapphiCine
Member
Pledges opened up again for Darkest Night 2nd Edition. Someone talk me out of this. How heavy is it?
HashtagLapsed
Member
There is a 3 day convention in my local city and it started today. Unfortunately, I don't think I can make any day due to birthday parties and other life shit. It really sucks because they are small and just starting out (it is the second year this year) and it would be nice to support it.
I didn't have a way to get there tonight so we played more Inis and a few games of Conan. Some of the Conan scenarios are much more interesting than others. Good game though.
I didn't have a way to get there tonight so we played more Inis and a few games of Conan. Some of the Conan scenarios are much more interesting than others. Good game though.
Last night I played 2 games of Inis at a friends. I have now played it 4 times and I think the game is starting to grow on me. My first 2 plays I did not like it at all. I have bad mouthed it in the past but after giving it a few more goes I am starting to appreciate it and the choices/design it has.
Yeah Joel is spot on with his review
When you play it solo do you play with AI controls for the other 3 factions as well? (it sounded that way, I have not read the rules yet)
I am thinking of picking up a copy down the road to try out. I have never played a COIN game before and this one with dice for combat and great AI looks like something I could really sink my teeth into solo.
Thanks, I will have to figure this out. But I have options now. I will let you know how I end up doing it.
Benefit to playing the base game first is that it's much easier and also has fewer mechanics so easier to learn. Personally I'd say just go for Gates though because it changes (and doesn't just add to) the rules and it's how you'll want to play going forward.
Yeah mostly I let the AI run the other 3. But since there are coop rules you can also control 2 of the factions and let the ai run the opposing two. Sometimes I even let the AI run all four just to see what happens
joeyjoejoeshabadoo
Member
What?! A Zman game can't stay in print for more than a month and has problems with reprints? The hell you say.
In all seriousness, the rule of thumb is, if there is a Zman game you are interested in that is not named Pandemic buy it as soon as possible. That company has SERIOUS supply problems.
Sorry, I think the link was messed up somehow - I updated it
It's been an issue for years, long before the buyout, with how they manage supply of their medium hit games never mind their obvious hits.. Some Z-Man games really shouldn't be hard to buy, but they make it so :/
Played London last night, and it was a refreshing blast from the past when Martin Wallace was king of design. All three of us had largely forgotten the guts of it, but quickly remembered, and it was fun to play. Careful deck building, careful tableaux building, fast crappy decisions. Glad it's coming back to print in some form - deserves to be played.
joeyjoejoeshabadoo
Member
The worst is expansions. I've somehow missed the tiny release window for The Ladies of Troyes reprint and now it's gone. However, even if I did luck sack my way into getting a copy there are reports of it being under printed and retailers not getting their full order.
Ah, London. Really glad it's getting a reprint because it's fantastic. I wonder if they will end up using the "Ben-Luca" two player variant as the official way to play it two players. It's pretty much the only way I'll play that game with two players now.
toddhunter
Member
Come to Australia. Games are really easy to buy here because they are all double the price and nobody will touch them :|
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
Does anyone in here have a copy of Nevermore that they play even a LITTLE regularly? I have the promo poker chips from Gen Con when they came out. I was going to throw them away, but I would rather send them to someone who might use them.
-tetsuo-
Unlimited Capacity
We just sleeve them as we start using them. It is madness sleeving everything at once. I just did it for my Myth stuff and it took hours lol
Oh I'm not going to sleeve all the cards at once, just a few more monster decks maybe, and most everything we need at the start.
I think I'm now up to 100 standard, 153 mini euro.
I love a good sleeving sesh. Put on an audio book and while a few hours away....
HashtagLapsed
Member
Tell me about it. A local game shop near my place in Newcastle was asking $170 AUD for Caverna.
That is precisely the guide I'm using already, but thank you!
I haven't given new game reports in a while, but tonight was pirate-themed and I played one new game and one game I haven't played in ages.
I hadn't played Dread Curse in a long time because I thought it was mediocre. It's a push-your-luck game where you pick different pirate role cards, try to bid for the best one, and try to screw people over by stealing things and using cheats/rule-bending cards. It feels pretty arbitrary and swingy to me, though people WERE targeting me a bunch so I ended the game with one coin. I think the winner may have gotten lucky by losing both "lose the game no matter what" coins even though they were captain quite often. The game is also kind of frustrating because the rules are short yet there are lots of cards, so there tends to be ambiguity about how to interpret certain things.
I played Islebound for the first time ever. It's a sort of area control, sort of resource gathering and trading, sort of tableau building game. I came very close to winning with a strategy of rushing cheap buildings and having very little gold but a player who is usually very good at such games won by 2 points. The best part of the game for me was all the other players who actually owned towns getting annoyed at my early building that let me skip ever paying gold entry fees. I just hopped around for a while without gold. I also got a good bit of gold from the treasure map which was fortunate. We didn't have much pirate-collecting or area-contesting since that seemed so slow compared to other methods of collecting buildings, but with more experienced players that might change. Overall the game felt decent, but I think even with the pirate theme I'd choose other games for my resource gathering/trading/tableau building/economy needs.
Polioliolio
Member
Played a few games tonight..
Karuba- Had this on my wishlist a long time ago.. Ignored it after reading a couple reviews that made it sound too passive to be fun.. But I actually really liked it! Sure, it's passive, but there's still a lot of fun here. Definitely has a flavor unlike most anything in my collection. Definitely the type of game one could use to try to introduce non gamers into playing more games. Like I could actually see myself getting my mother or sister to play this with me. It's going back onto the list!
Santorini- played a few 3 player games, so I know it's mostly recommended for two players and can see why, there's definitely something there in the three player game too. We played a basic game without god powers first, which isn't even suggested for 3 and 4 players, but I wanted to show the basics. Could easily end in a stalemate with 3 players, but after a while, someone claimed a victory out of nowhere. Then we played two games where we added god powers. This completely changes the game and adds so much. Love that there are so many powers to play with.
Coup- played this with higher player counts before, and with just 3 players tonight. I think the sweet spot for this game is 3 or possibly 4 players. With 5 players, it becomes too easy to claim a given card, since it's more likely each role is at the table, so counter actions control the game more, with higher players.
Finally, one friend and I tried out Batman RoryStory Cubes. Surprised how much my friend enjoyed that. I can definitely see us playing that again soon.
Karuba- Had this on my wishlist a long time ago.. Ignored it after reading a couple reviews that made it sound too passive to be fun.. But I actually really liked it! Sure, it's passive, but there's still a lot of fun here. Definitely has a flavor unlike most anything in my collection. Definitely the type of game one could use to try to introduce non gamers into playing more games. Like I could actually see myself getting my mother or sister to play this with me. It's going back onto the list!
Santorini- played a few 3 player games, so I know it's mostly recommended for two players and can see why, there's definitely something there in the three player game too. We played a basic game without god powers first, which isn't even suggested for 3 and 4 players, but I wanted to show the basics. Could easily end in a stalemate with 3 players, but after a while, someone claimed a victory out of nowhere. Then we played two games where we added god powers. This completely changes the game and adds so much. Love that there are so many powers to play with.
Coup- played this with higher player counts before, and with just 3 players tonight. I think the sweet spot for this game is 3 or possibly 4 players. With 5 players, it becomes too easy to claim a given card, since it's more likely each role is at the table, so counter actions control the game more, with higher players.
Finally, one friend and I tried out Batman RoryStory Cubes. Surprised how much my friend enjoyed that. I can definitely see us playing that again soon.
We went for the base game and she liked it. Of course it felt like we did it wrong cause it was easy, which is a good intro for this game for my gf. We played it right but we played with Kate Winthrop who is immune to terror and never lets monsters come out on their turn. Since it was always Kate's turn when it struck midnight, Shub could never spawn monsters. It was close at the end but Shub didn't awaken.
Might play it 1-2 more times before busting out Gates.
antiquegamer
Member
Hmm I will have to check but I would put solo Feast of Odin over Scythe and the expansion for Tesla VS Edison have a really robust solo not to mention all the Arkham games.
-tetsuo-
Unlimited Capacity
Good god Myth 1.0 rules and cards were a damn mess. Lol holy shit this is why people are afraid of Kickstarter. They just flat out didnt clarify tons of keywords or mechanics. The quest cards are just lol. I understand that it was supposed to be a make your own story type deal, but sone of this stuff needed to be defined. The difference beyween the 1.0 content (rulebook, hero deck, quest cards etc) and the 2.0 stuff is staggering.
Yeah, opening Myth with a group, all looking forward to learning it and playing, only to have those terribly unclear rules, was one of the worst board gaming experiences I've had. We boxed it back up and I eventually resold it at an auction for like 75% of cost.
BattleMonkey
Member
Their next kickstarter Mercs: Recon wasn't much better either, the rules and product were pretty messy.
Went to PAX East. We went 2-3 years ago, and it seems like tabletop has only grown since then. LOTS of people buying games, playing games - it's good to see.
I played and bought a few games, as well:
MEGA Catan / Catan Big Game Tournament - I was curious to see what a 64 player Catan game is like, so I joined this tournament. The way it works is that the board is one long, pre-printed sheet, which players sit on either side of - like a Catan banquet. It's pretty much Catan, but the gamerunner calls out one number for the entire crowd (kinda Bingo-ish), and either side of the table takes their turn at the same time. You are only in direct competition with the player opposite of you for Longest Road and such, but you can trade with the five players around you. However, the first to 25 points (in the entire group) is the winner. It was interesting, but I got walloped. It actually only took as long as a regular game of Catan.
Hounded - This is a pretty cute, 'thematic abstract' I guess you'd call it, with a nice variable setup and asymmetric play. One player is a hunter and his pack of dogs, and the other is a Fox trying to outwit them. All the pieces do something different and useful, but it's easy to remember. Think of chess, but the board is very colorful and randomly made up of tiles with different effects. It seemed like the Fox really has it stacked against him, but it's actually pretty challenging for the hunting party to try and pull off a strategy to trap him. I thought this was a pretty neat game, and it's fairly inexpensive.
Pass the Buck! - We met up with some fellow GAFfers at PAX and they bought this game from the Indie Tabletop section. It's primarily a bluffing game like Mascarade, but it adopts a climbing structure almost like Phase 10 (a game I fucking loathe) and actually makes it work. You all play as employees at a company, trying to pass off 'work cards' to each other in order to not have tasks left and get promoted - but you can only pass it if the work matches that player's job skills (which are secret). There is some funny roleplaying to it, where you "call HR" if people refuse to take the work and you think they're bluffing. It's got a nice mix of that sort of super-critical social gaming, but then some cathartic release once somebody has been outed as being in, say, the IT department, and everybody can now dump their bullshit IT tasks on them.
and what I bought:
Orleans - Picked it up on sale at a table. Not sure what to say about this game that hasn't been said already. Highly rated, can't wait to try it.
Nautilion - I like the Oniverse games a lot, and had no idea this was coming out. This time, it's a dice game. I played a couple of basic games of it (of course, it has expansions right in the box) and won both - bizarre for this series of games, even on the basic level. I enjoyed it, but I'm looking forward to cranking the difficulty way up.
I played and bought a few games, as well:
MEGA Catan / Catan Big Game Tournament - I was curious to see what a 64 player Catan game is like, so I joined this tournament. The way it works is that the board is one long, pre-printed sheet, which players sit on either side of - like a Catan banquet. It's pretty much Catan, but the gamerunner calls out one number for the entire crowd (kinda Bingo-ish), and either side of the table takes their turn at the same time. You are only in direct competition with the player opposite of you for Longest Road and such, but you can trade with the five players around you. However, the first to 25 points (in the entire group) is the winner. It was interesting, but I got walloped. It actually only took as long as a regular game of Catan.
Hounded - This is a pretty cute, 'thematic abstract' I guess you'd call it, with a nice variable setup and asymmetric play. One player is a hunter and his pack of dogs, and the other is a Fox trying to outwit them. All the pieces do something different and useful, but it's easy to remember. Think of chess, but the board is very colorful and randomly made up of tiles with different effects. It seemed like the Fox really has it stacked against him, but it's actually pretty challenging for the hunting party to try and pull off a strategy to trap him. I thought this was a pretty neat game, and it's fairly inexpensive.
Pass the Buck! - We met up with some fellow GAFfers at PAX and they bought this game from the Indie Tabletop section. It's primarily a bluffing game like Mascarade, but it adopts a climbing structure almost like Phase 10 (a game I fucking loathe) and actually makes it work. You all play as employees at a company, trying to pass off 'work cards' to each other in order to not have tasks left and get promoted - but you can only pass it if the work matches that player's job skills (which are secret). There is some funny roleplaying to it, where you "call HR" if people refuse to take the work and you think they're bluffing. It's got a nice mix of that sort of super-critical social gaming, but then some cathartic release once somebody has been outed as being in, say, the IT department, and everybody can now dump their bullshit IT tasks on them.
and what I bought:
Orleans - Picked it up on sale at a table. Not sure what to say about this game that hasn't been said already. Highly rated, can't wait to try it.
Nautilion - I like the Oniverse games a lot, and had no idea this was coming out. This time, it's a dice game. I played a couple of basic games of it (of course, it has expansions right in the box) and won both - bizarre for this series of games, even on the basic level. I enjoyed it, but I'm looking forward to cranking the difficulty way up.
-tetsuo-
Unlimited Capacity
This is what I mean with these quest cards:
1.0 Quest
2.0 Quest
The new cards are double sided, and have setup information. The old card didn't even tell you how to save the girl! Like I said, I get the make your own path stuff, but you have to do better than that.
1.0 Quest
2.0 Quest
The new cards are double sided, and have setup information. The old card didn't even tell you how to save the girl! Like I said, I get the make your own path stuff, but you have to do better than that.
toddhunter
Member
I would say both but mostly production.
It is a good game but if it wasn't for the production it would be very niche. The videogame equivalent is "The Witness".
BomberMouse
Member
I'd argue for production, seems like one of those games where you are forced to make a move so your opponent doesn't win right now.
BattleMonkey
Member
I enjoyed Santorini, but don't think it's anything amazing. It's a simple fun little game, don't think its bad at all, but it's overhyped.
I liked that aspect since it meant the actual game was in trying to get those forced moves to come out in your advantage. I only played five or so games with a friend but could see it being a very fun thing to play a lot with the same person. I'd love a phone version with asynchronous play.
This sounds very neat, and it's $10 clearance at Miniature Market! Thanks for the review.
I extensively played The Witness and I'm not sure how to interpret this. The Witness was one of the most painstakingly designed things I've ever played. It wasn't just production values, great care went into the puzzles, clues, world, etc.
I could imagine one of the "walking simulator" genre games having very good production values but being niche. "The Vanishing of Ethan Carter", for example, has little gameplay but is a gorgeously presented game.
Wellll I bit the bullet and signed up for a 30+ person Destiny tournament and pre-release event about 90m from me. Going to basically be equivalent to Netrunner Regionals in terms of consuming the entire day and being a really meaty experience with lots of diversity in the players so excited about that (not super excited about commuting three hours but hey you do what ya gotta do, and at least I'll have a friend with me).
toddhunter
Member
The witness was used because despite all its quality, it is still just a game of very specific puzzles that unapologetically offers absolutely nothing else.
Santorini is like that. You may look at it and see something extremely well put together with a lot of care and may want to love it. But it is really just a somewhat limited abstract strategy.
Nothing wrong with either but it is something that the majority will try but not fall for. Personally I appreciate both and celebrate their creation and success... but to my taste "meh".
I finally finished Gloomhaven scenario 1. I accidentally cheated on the first turn and had to redo it (the rules say that every heal card has one of two labels, but this isn't true! Some heal card(s) have a third label).
After that I think we avoided cheating until the very end, where I messed up ranged enemy focus and movement. That's by far the most fiddly thing for me in Gloomhaven. The only good part was that I cheated in the monster's favor once, and the other time I think it was only a one hex difference in favor of the monster and we probably could have killed it that way as well.
I like the idea of developing characters and a developing world, but I hope the road events don't end up being too much like the first one we got (which oddly gets shuffled back into the deck): A) Do something smart, nothing bad happens. B) Do something stupid, and get a negative effect to start your scneario.
Maybe some of the road events will twist this and make the apparently smart choice result in a bad thing, so either way it's a dice roll.
After that I think we avoided cheating until the very end, where I messed up ranged enemy focus and movement. That's by far the most fiddly thing for me in Gloomhaven. The only good part was that I cheated in the monster's favor once, and the other time I think it was only a one hex difference in favor of the monster and we probably could have killed it that way as well.
I like the idea of developing characters and a developing world, but I hope the road events don't end up being too much like the first one we got (which oddly gets shuffled back into the deck): A) Do something smart, nothing bad happens. B) Do something stupid, and get a negative effect to start your scneario.
Maybe some of the road events will twist this and make the apparently smart choice result in a bad thing, so either way it's a dice roll.