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New Board Gaming |OT2| On Tables, Off Topic

-tetsuo-

Unlimited Capacity
Shipment I sent myself from Gencon comes today. I am pretty excited to try out these Cthulhu Wars expansions. One of my favorite games and the new stuff looks like it is going to be a pretty big mixup to the gameplay.
 

Nezumi

Member
Shipment I sent myself from Gencon comes today. I am pretty excited to try out these Cthulhu Wars expansions. One of my favorite games and the new stuff looks like it is going to be a pretty big mixup to the gameplay.

Mistwalker is probably my favorite fraction. ChuChu aren't really as balanced as the rest sadly. We've yet to play with independent monsters. Somehow there is always someone with us playing for the first time so that we stay away from trying out too much stuff at once.
 

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area
I think GenCon being less crowded might have to do with people being fed up with the hotel situation and not going anymore.

considering all four days were sold out... and it hit over 200K attendance... I'm gonna go with "probably not that"
 
It definitely feels like Gen Con is starting to hit the upper limit on what Indy can handle though. I didn't have any problem with the crowds except maybe on the first morning (which makes sense), and Lucas Oil could probably fit some more stuff, but they're definitely getting there. If attendance keeps going up they might have to look elsewhere.
 
I need to give Shadows of Brimstone one more chance but leaning towards selling it all off (once I ever get the final shipment). Any advice on where to look to sell it?

I know BGG is obvious place to check first.
What do you have and what's the price in case?
I was looking for it, but I'm in eu ;_;
 
It definitely feels like Gen Con is starting to hit the upper limit on what Indy can handle though. I didn't have any problem with the crowds except maybe on the first morning (which makes sense), and Lucas Oil could probably fit some more stuff, but they're definitely getting there. If attendance keeps going up they might have to look elsewhere.

They sold out this year, so they can't really grow anymore. Personally would have liked to see them cap the event at a lower attendance and if need be just increase badge prices slightly to compensate a bit, but they obviously want to go for the convention capacity which is what it reached this year.

The biggest issue with Gencon capacity problems is lack of places to stay. The area could use some more close by hotels, would make things so much easier.

The stadium apparently helped a good bit, from what folks have told me, it sounds like they could have maybe put more stuff in the stadium to entice more people there, as most people still were in the main convention hall, while the Lucas stadium stuff was more of extra content expansion. Perhaps but more actual exhibitors at the stadium, less game tables, as there is already tons of open game tables at the main convention center.

Still think they could also optimize event space, with so many rooms occupied by events all day that have very few attendees, while other events fill to capacity too quick.
 

-tetsuo-

Unlimited Capacity
Mistwalker is probably my favorite fraction. ChuChu aren't really as balanced as the rest sadly. We've yet to play with independent monsters. Somehow there is always someone with us playing for the first time so that we stay away from trying out too much stuff at once.

The great old one pack is what I want to try out the most, I think. Playing new factions is always great but this is a new mechanic to game, basically.
 

Chorazin

Member
It definitely feels like Gen Con is starting to hit the upper limit on what Indy can handle though. I didn't have any problem with the crowds except maybe on the first morning (which makes sense), and Lucas Oil could probably fit some more stuff, but they're definitely getting there. If attendance keeps going up they might have to look elsewhere.

Indy loves GenCon as much as GenCon loves Indy. All those businesses see GenCon as Christmas, a lot of them wouldn't survive without all that cash every year.

I doubt they'll ever leave, just use more and more of Lucas Oil.
 

Karkador

Banned
It definitely feels like Gen Con is starting to hit the upper limit on what Indy can handle though. I didn't have any problem with the crowds except maybe on the first morning (which makes sense), and Lucas Oil could probably fit some more stuff, but they're definitely getting there. If attendance keeps going up they might have to look elsewhere.

They don't need to remove GenCon from Indy, just lighten some of the demand with cons hosted in other parts of the country. This is why I'm excited for PAX Unplugged, though I'm not expecting toooo much from the first year.
 
They don't need to remove GenCon from Indy, just lighten some of the demand with cons hosted in other parts of the country. This is why I'm excited for PAX Unplugged, though I'm not expecting toooo much from the first year.

Other gaming cons are seeing higher attendance, and yea now Pax is jumping in on the game. I can see gaming cons slowly growing around the country, similar to how comic book conventions grew in the past decade, from small town affairs to much bigger and common things. Origins keeps getting bigger, BGGcon growing, Pax coming in. Dicetower has become a local event for FL which has been growing and could have growth potential. Can see lot of little cons like that growing everywhere.

Gencon has hit it's peak pretty much, selling out is the one limit that will keep it from growing as apparently the 70k number is the restriction placed on the facility for safety. Now that the con has hit a ceiling in growth, we have to see how they can improve it perhaps using the space they got, but it's not gonna grow anymore than it is now cause of the facilites safety limits limiting ticket sales. Gencon would have likely hit that ceiling long ago if the housing situation was better
 
Packing up some games to take with me as I escape from an incoming tropical storm/hurricane. I wish I had a good board game bag. What I do have are some photo boxes from Michaels. Very handy for combining multiple smaller games and I don't have to worry about the original boxes being damaged in transit. I have Arkham Horror: The Card Game core set and Space Hulk: Death Angel in one box. A box dense with frustration.
 

Blizzard

Banned
A Feast For Odin is quite daunting at setup. I'm going to learn the solo game, but how easy is it to teach the game for a 3-4p run? I want to try and get some friends together every week or two to play games since I feel like I don't do that enough.
You'll want to understand the rules well yourself first, of course. The good news is that solo and multiplayer are identical besides remembering to check for the new starting player, and besides leaving meeples on the board.

I'd say it's not the easiest to teach a bunch of new players, and 3 new players will probably take like 2.5 hours. However, you can pretty intuitively go through the game phases other than the action phase in order. You can explain filling in the 8 surrounding squares to get a bonus when you explain the bonus phase, and you can explain the income covering rules to get income when you explain the income phase.

Lastly for the action phase you can either talk about the general categories or just dive in and accept that your first few turns won't be optimal. It's pretty unlikely someone can memorize all the actions, and people will start having their eyes glaze over. So instead if you dive in, just encourage people to try spaces and/or ask what they do before trying them. Then they can change their mind if they don't like it, and other players will learn by example what the symbols mean. Before long it becomes intuitive.

Definitely keep the reference rules out for the occupation cards though. The symbology is reasonable, but some cards may have edge cases that aren't spelled out on the card. It's easiest to just let someone look their card up when they draw a new one.


Final note, to make setup and teardown easier I use a tiny plano box with like 12 spaces. Most everything besides the big cardboard pieces and the special tiles fits in there. Make sure you use the trays in the recommended layout because it's logical AND certain occupations depend on the layout being that way. It also makes it much faster to just grab for the right spot once you learn the layout.
 

EYEL1NER

Member
Packing up some games to take with me as I escape from an incoming tropical storm/hurricane. I wish I had a good board game bag. What I do have are some photo boxes from Michaels. Very handy for combining multiple smaller games and I don't have to worry about the original boxes being damaged in transit. I have Arkham Horror: The Card Game core set and Space Hulk: Death Angel in one box. A box dense with frustration.
It does no good now, since you can't get one in time, but Cajon bags such as this one are recommended on BGG a lot. I think that one is supposed to be a good one, but it at least serves as an example of what to look for. They are a lot cheaper than those $100+ bags sold as being "Board Game Bags" that pop up on Kickstarter and do the exact same thing: hold your games in transport. I'm not saying to get the one in that link, probably better to do your own research, but I'll probably pick one of those up soon.
 
So I don't know if anyone here plays it, but I just learned that the people who made Wits and Wagers are doing a Kickstarter to make a Vegas expansion for the Party version. You can pledge to get just the expansion or get the Party version as well if you don't have it already.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/northstargames/vegas-wits-and-wagers

On the one hand it's cool if you want even more variable gambling in w&w party.

On the other hand I think the reason to get w&w party is to reduce the fiddlyness of having to math out how much everyone wins.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Awesome, the Miniature Market FedEx shipping (not SmartPost, one step up) is getting here a day early! I'm super excited about Great Western Trail and hope to go over the rules in the next day or so.
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
2 core boxes stored in Plano and all put together, wave 2 of one of the basic pledge levels and some add-ons like derelict ship and shaman. I even forget what they are supposed to send me.

If you have Facebook, there's a Shadows of Brimstone group. You can list it for sale in their commerce thread.

That said, I'd be interested in some of your non-core set heroes if you're looking to dump them.

You'll want to understand the rules well yourself first, of course. The good news is that solo and multiplayer are identical besides remembering to check for the new starting player, and besides leaving meeples on the board.

I'd say it's not the easiest to teach a bunch of new players, and 3 new players will probably take like 2.5 hours. However, you can pretty intuitively go through the game phases other than the action phase in order. You can explain filling in the 8 surrounding squares to get a bonus when you explain the bonus phase, and you can explain the income covering rules to get income when you explain the income phase.

Lastly for the action phase you can either talk about the general categories or just dive in and accept that your first few turns won't be optimal. It's pretty unlikely someone can memorize all the actions, and people will start having their eyes glaze over. So instead if you dive in, just encourage people to try spaces and/or ask what they do before trying them. Then they can change their mind if they don't like it, and other players will learn by example what the symbols mean. Before long it becomes intuitive.

Definitely keep the reference rules out for the occupation cards though. The symbology is reasonable, but some cards may have edge cases that aren't spelled out on the card. It's easiest to just let someone look their card up when they draw a new one.


Final note, to make setup and teardown easier I use a tiny plano box with like 12 spaces. Most everything besides the big cardboard pieces and the special tiles fits in there. Make sure you use the trays in the recommended layout because it's logical AND certain occupations depend on the layout being that way. It also makes it much faster to just grab for the right spot once you learn the layout.

Thanks. I will definitely do a few solo games before I even think about getting people involved at this point.
 
Plague inc board game quick impressions

I like it, it's clever. Very little setup, you can be playing within a few minutes. There is a lot of strategic choice on whether to evolve your disease in lethality versus infection and when to play the event cards that start turning up. Kids can play and enjoy it and adults will still have fun. It can be a little difficult to know exactly who is winning towards the end because of the bonus point system. After a couple of games I have a stronger desire to play it again than lords of water deep, or pandemic or several other big name accessible games, which is a good sign.
 

Kaibutsu

Member
I've been going back and forth and finding it difficult to pull the trigger on the Dark Souls BG boss expansions. I really want Kalameet, the Gaping Dragon and Vordt but can't bring myself to drop another $115 or so when I already have the Dark Root expansion already on order. Gah, one day left to decide
 
Awesome, the Miniature Market FedEx shipping (not SmartPost, one step up) is getting here a day early! I'm super excited about Great Western Trail and hope to go over the rules in the next day or so.

Lucky you. GWT is one of the games I really want to try. Pfister previous game Mombasa is amazing and many people told me they enjoyed GWT even more.
 
I almost forgot to mention that I was in the demo for Steamforged's RE2 board game and it was really great. Felt way better than Dark Souls and everyone in my group really enjoyed it.
 

Chorazin

Member
They don't need to remove GenCon from Indy, just lighten some of the demand with cons hosted in other parts of the country. This is why I'm excited for PAX Unplugged, though I'm not expecting toooo much from the first year.

From everything I've read (one of the staff is on the BGG cons forum a lot) it'll be closer to the Origins experience than the GenCon experience, but EVERYTHING will be free once you're inside. No tickets for events (unless the exhibitor charges, like Magic or whatever), or to use the library, which is awesome.

I feel like PAX has run enough massive events know to be able to get this right. I'm hyped for it!
 

-tetsuo-

Unlimited Capacity
Didn't get to play Cthulhu Wars at the meetup last night :(. We played Terraforming Mars and it took just long enough to where we couldn't start another game.
 

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
They sold out this year, so they can't really grow anymore. Personally would have liked to see them cap the event at a lower attendance and if need be just increase badge prices slightly to compensate a bit, but they obviously want to go for the convention capacity which is what it reached this year.

The biggest issue with Gencon capacity problems is lack of places to stay. The area could use some more close by hotels, would make things so much easier.

The stadium apparently helped a good bit, from what folks have told me, it sounds like they could have maybe put more stuff in the stadium to entice more people there, as most people still were in the main convention hall, while the Lucas stadium stuff was more of extra content expansion. Perhaps but more actual exhibitors at the stadium, less game tables, as there is already tons of open game tables at the main convention center.

Still think they could also optimize event space, with so many rooms occupied by events all day that have very few attendees, while other events fill to capacity too quick.

As a vendor, I would be super unhappy if they started splitting vendors. The vendor hall needs to stay as the central hub. If FFG or Asmodee was moved to another hall it would really hurt our sales.

The hotel problem is real, but unless you move to a city like Orlando or Vegas that lives on hotel capacity or a large city like Chicago or NYC it's not going to get much better. And in all of those cities they are not going to move heaven and earth to make room rates affordable or free up 100% of downtown capacity for a single event.

The other issue is GenCon has to be in the midwest because that is where all of our product lives. Almost all warehouses for games are located in the triangle between St. Louis, Philly and Atlanta. Indiana is the epicenter, and if shipping got *more* expensive to get product you will see less new releases or at least fewer copies brought and that would harm attendance.

I think GenCon is managing the situation, and shuttle busses from outlying hotels are helping.
 
As a vendor, I would be super unhappy if they started splitting vendors. The vendor hall needs to stay as the central hub. If FFG or Asmodee was moved to another hall it would really hurt our sales.

The hotel problem is real, but unless you move to a city like Orlando or Vegas that lives on hotel capacity or a large city like Chicago or NYC it's not going to get much better. And in all of those cities they are not going to move heaven and earth to make room rates affordable or free up 100% of downtown capacity for a single event.

The other issue is GenCon has to be in the midwest because that is where all of our product lives. Almost all warehouses for games are located in the triangle between St. Louis, Philly and Atlanta. Indiana is the epicenter, and if shipping got *more* expensive to get product you will see less new releases or at least fewer copies brought and that would harm attendance.

I think GenCon is managing the situation, and shuttle busses from outlying hotels are helping.

How would you feel about making it two weekends or a biannual thing?
 

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area
outside of the mad rush of the first morning (which is going to happen no matter what.. literally no matter what...), the convention was fine. Never to the point where I couldn't move.. and the stuff that was sold out, booked, etc.. will continue to be so, even cutting passes by 10K.

The only thing they NEED TO FIX is pre-registration. People adding events to carts on Sunday at getting "preference" (well, at least checked out before) over people who had the event in their waitlist for weeks.. is bullshit. hitting submit at 12:00:00 and the page not coming back for 5 minutes when you are now 6000 place in line is bullshit. I get that last one is really tough to manage given demand.. but the waitlist issue completely sours me. as it stands, there is only a disadvantage to using it. You are better off having windows open for every event you want and just managing it that way. and the worst part is, as companies like FFG work hard to tie THEIR big events to cons, it just exacerbates the issue.

How would you feel about making it two weekends or a biannual thing?
two weekends won't solve much. the companies that truly bring the demand are still going to shoot for that opening weekend and we are still going to face the same problems.

bi-annual... I mean that's sort of what's being talked about here. We just need to recognize more cons. Origins, PAX Unplugged, BGGCon, DragonCon, etc
 
Could you elaborate a bit more, how it plays etc ?

I'll admit that I'm not super great at describing mechanics but I'll give it a shot.

Here's a quick pic:

74RmARM.jpg

The demo they had us play was a short scenario, 2 players one Leon and one Claire. We were trying to get a key and get out of the building we started in. They said the map was based on the original RE2 demo. It's going to be scenario based, so the booklet told us where to place zombies on the board and where to place Berkin. One thing they emphasized a lot was that running was just as valid an option as fighting and encouraged us to not try to kill everything because you'd run out of ammo fast.

On our turn you we had 4 actions to move, shoot, open doors, close doors, grab items, etc. You spend 1-3 ammo to roll 1-3 dice if you're attacking. Better guns like a shotgun let you roll better dice that have a higher chance of getting a success. All you need is one success to kill zombies (a headshot) but your roll might also just push them back a space if you don't roll a success. If you shoot a gun the spawned zombies within earshot (i.e. in the room you're in and any attached room that isn't behind a closed door) all move towards the sound as a reaction. At the end of your turn you draw from the tension deck, which can spawn additional monsters, add new complications, etc.

After that the zombies move towards the closest or last active player (I forget which), and if they start on the same square as you, you have to roll to avoid getting bit. If you want to move off the same space as an enemy you have to roll to evade them, and if there are more zombies on your space you get less dice to roll. If you can get to a door and close it behind you the zombies won't follow you, so running away worked more often than it didn't.

Whenever you enter a new room or zone (marked on the scenario booklet) you get random spawns off a table. When we walked into one room we rolled badly and found two zombies and two zombie dogs, which can move and attack in the same turn.

The thing my friends and I really liked was that zombies were dumb and their reactions were predictable, so we were able to juggle their aggro pretty effectively if there was just one or two of them, but you can get swarmed quickly if there are more coming down a hallway or something. It really felt like a good representation of RE gameplay in board game form, a far better translation than dark souls.

Billy Berkin was a boss monster that had some special moves and rules for his attacks. One of us distracted him by dumping shotgun rounds into him while the other slipped behind, unlocked the door and escaped.

I really liked it. They said they're kickstarting it this fall, are going to try to include as many scenarios from RE2 as they can as well as some fan service characters, stretch goals, etc. I enjoyed it a lot more than Dark Souls, it was more straightforward and felt like it was translated better, even in it's early form.

Also keep in mind this is a super early version of their ruleset and game pieces - you can tell that the board was hand cut and the models were still really early. They didn't even tell anyone it was Resident Evil 2 until right before the Con, the original event was under a pseudonym with a few coy hints about what it was.

I hope that answers your question! Sorry if I'm bad at describing things.
 

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
How would you feel about making it two weekends or a biannual thing?

It would dilute the show and make it no better than most of the major-regional shows.

It works because it is timed perfectly for Xmas releases to be air freighted in early. 50% of our sales happened on day 1. So, it's likely going to increase our cost while not increasing our revenue. And if you required us to hold back inventory for week 2 attendees it would just spread our profits across two weekends.

I think it probably is what it is and you'll see other major-regionals (BGG Con, Pax Unplugged, Geekway, etc) take up slack and become bigger and bigger shows.
 

Chorazin

Member
The only thing they NEED TO FIX is pre-registration. People adding events to carts on Sunday at getting "preference" (well, at least checked out before) over people who had the event in their waitlist for weeks.. is bullshit. hitting submit at 12:00:00 and the page not coming back for 5 minutes when you are now 6000 place in line is bullshit. I get that last one is really tough to manage given demand.. but the waitlist issue completely sours me. as it stands, there is only a disadvantage to using it. You are better off having windows open for every event you want and just managing it that way. and the worst part is, as companies like FFG work hard to tie THEIR big events to cons, it just exacerbates the issue.

THIS. A MILLION TIMES THIS.

I got into two events and I tried to register using my dozen event long wishlist the second it went live.
 

Mr E.

Member
I'll admit that I'm not super great at describing mechanics but I'll give it a shot.

Here's a quick pic:



The demo they had us play was a short scenario, 2 players one Leon and one Claire. We were trying to get a key and get out of the building we started in. They said the map was based on the original RE2 demo. It's going to be scenario based, so the booklet told us where to place zombies on the board and where to place Berkin. One thing they emphasized a lot was that running was just as valid an option as fighting and encouraged us to not try to kill everything because you'd run out of ammo fast.

On our turn you we had 4 actions to move, shoot, open doors, close doors, grab items, etc. You spend 1-3 ammo to roll 1-3 dice if you're attacking. Better guns like a shotgun let you roll better dice that have a higher chance of getting a success. All you need is one success to kill zombies (a headshot) but your roll might also just push them back a space if you don't roll a success. If you shoot a gun the spawned zombies within earshot (i.e. in the room you're in and any attached room that isn't behind a closed door) all move towards the sound as a reaction. At the end of your turn you draw from the tension deck, which can spawn additional monsters, add new complications, etc.

After that the zombies move towards the closest or last active player (I forget which), and if they start on the same square as you, you have to roll to avoid getting bit. If you want to move off the same space as an enemy you have to roll to evade them, and if there are more zombies on your space you get less dice to roll. If you can get to a door and close it behind you the zombies won't follow you, so running away worked more often than it didn't.

Whenever you enter a new room or zone (marked on the scenario booklet) you get random spawns off a table. When we walked into one room we rolled badly and found two zombies and two zombie dogs, which can move and attack in the same turn.

The thing my friends and I really liked was that zombies were dumb and their reactions were predictable, so we were able to juggle their aggro pretty effectively if there was just one or two of them, but you can get swarmed quickly if there are more coming down a hallway or something. It really felt like a good representation of RE gameplay in board game form, a far better translation than dark souls.

Billy Berkin was a boss monster that had some special moves and rules for his attacks. One of us distracted him by dumping shotgun rounds into him while the other slipped behind, unlocked the door and escaped.

I really liked it. They said they're kickstarting it this fall, are going to try to include as many scenarios from RE2 as they can as well as some fan service characters, stretch goals, etc. I enjoyed it a lot more than Dark Souls, it was more straightforward and felt like it was translated better, even in it's early form.

Also keep in mind this is a super early version of their ruleset and game pieces - you can tell that the board was hand cut and the models were still really early. They didn't even tell anyone it was Resident Evil 2 until right before the Con, the original event was under a pseudonym with a few coy hints about what it was.

I hope that answers your question! Sorry if I'm bad at describing things.

Thank you very much for that. I think you described the mechanics very well. I wonder why they went with Resi 2? Possibly the variable scenarios are better than Resi 1.
 
Thank you very much for that. I think you described the mechanics very well. I wonder why they went with Resi 2? Possibly the variable scenarios are better than Resi 1.

RE2 being set in Racoon City enables a larger variety of scenarios then RE1 which was primarily set in one location. RE2 also has a greater variety of iconic boss monsters like Birkin and Mr X. It would also be easier to do an re3 expansion then if you started with re1 since outside of the lab you can't really reuse any re1 map pieces in re2/3 scenarios and have it make sense.
 
As a vendor, I would be super unhappy if they started splitting vendors. The vendor hall needs to stay as the central hub. If FFG or Asmodee was moved to another hall it would really hurt our sales.

And because of this things will always be crazy busy. Point is that the stadium was used for pretty much an extra experience, and they could use it to spread things out even more. The stadium was apparently never heavy on the traffic compared to the rest of the con, and they got ton of space to use there, it would be in there best interest to try and split people up more to relieve some of the congestion. Get more events and games over to the stadium if need be, make it more attractive. Some vendors being in another location is not gonna stop anyone going to Gencon, from going to the main hall.... seriously who would do such a thing? Most vendors will want the main hall no matter what, those who can't afford it or dont make the cut can get a space in the expansion wing

As for other venues not catering to gencon, that is nonsense. A con of that size, the big event cities live for that, and is reason why around the major convention centers they have horde of hotels and accommodations. Big show comes to town, every hotel is tossing out con special rates to attract business cause of the high availability of rooms. Gencon INDY hotels are not doing anyone major favors, and the price of hotel rooms near Gencon are ridiculous. Gencon is one of the pricier cons to attend when it comes to lodging. The hotels all sell out, they have no incentive to lower rates, unlike in CA, FL, NV, where the hotels are competing to give good price.

Is Gencon gonna move? Of course not, and people dont want it too.

But this is why other cons are growing around the country, and new ones will rise. It's exactly what happened with comic book convention scene, people not being able to make it to the big NYCC, SDCC, Dragoncon, so regional events have all grown and keep growing. Origins is seeing gains in popularity, PAX is making their move too. It's win win for us fans.

As a vendor, I can imagine more big shows around the country does not sound like fun, and becomes a strain on resources and time.
 
It does no good now, since you can't get one in time, but Cajon bags such as this one are recommended on BGG a lot. I think that one is supposed to be a good one, but it at least serves as an example of what to look for. They are a lot cheaper than those $100+ bags sold as being "Board Game Bags" that pop up on Kickstarter and do the exact same thing: hold your games in transport. I'm not saying to get the one in that link, probably better to do your own research, but I'll probably pick one of those up soon.

I have Cajon bag and used it for short period. My problem with it once you load it up the bag get pretty heavy. I would recommend a hand truck with it if you going lug it around to Meetup.
 
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