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BomberMouse
Member
AstroLad said:
I was planning inviting some friends and playing it today with 3 or 4 but it'll have to wait until next weekend. I got the flu and I'm quite sick :/
And yes, it's not heavy on it's mechanics but it's very D&D nerdy which is not everyone cup of tea. There are even some official variants on BGG which convert the game into a dungeon crawling sort of.
platypotamus
Member
My favorite 2 games for 7 are Citadels (kinda almost Fantasy themed, a bit more with the expansion) and Bang! (Cowboy themed).
I don't think either of them support 8 (maybe with expansion?)
I don't think either of them support 8 (maybe with expansion?)
Played some Runewars with some friends last week. Really enjoying this game the more I play it (Have only been able to play it 3 or 4 times so far)
There's tons of strategic depth. It really feels like each turn you take matters in the game, and things change so much when you play each of the different factions.
Highly recommended if you can put together a group of 4 who aren't intimidated by complicated games.
There's tons of strategic depth. It really feels like each turn you take matters in the game, and things change so much when you play each of the different factions.
Highly recommended if you can put together a group of 4 who aren't intimidated by complicated games.
Captain_Spanky
Member
ToddG15 said:
It's brilliant. It's like Diablo as a boardgame. Kill monsters, get loot, avoid traps. One player gets to play all the monsters and try his hardest to kill everyone. So if you have one play that tends to dominate games then it's a good one because everyone gets to gang up against them. The base set is slightly skewered in the heroes favour in terms of difficulty(at least if you have a full set of players) but the add-on packs let the Overlord (the bad guy) customise his monsters and traps. It takes a while to play but it's damn fun.
This write up got me in to it.
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39250
On a side note: I've never seen what is so difficult about Arkham Horror. The rules are fairly simple. Doesn't matter if you change them though, the creator fully endorses (and even suggests a few) house rules if it makes the experience more fun/atmospheric/hard/whatever.
Captain_Spanky
Member
ultron87 said:
Nope, it's just different. More videogamey and less roleplayey. There is an expansion to allow proper character growth, monster growth and an overworld but I've not tried it. But you have to go in realising it's not a story telling adventure device like D'n'D though, but a full blooded competitive bloodfest.
Anyone ever played Dixit? Going to see family for a couple of days during our vacation and there'll be about 6 of us, so looking for new party games to bring in. Only problem is I don't really have anything to round out a $100 order until Prosperity, Gric+, and the like come out :/.
BattleMonkey
Member
ultron87 said:
Well it's much simpler than DnD. Have had players not like it because they love DnD and prefer the roleplay aspects and the more complex rules. Descent is much more streamlined game of dungeon hacking fun, not meant to have a ton of rulebooks and options. You have a premade character, a preset dungeon along with random monster spawning enemies and traps etc due to cards.
Some people are fine with both, I play both games, but have had people go to me "why would I want to play this, I rather just do DnD".
ToddG15 said:
Been playing Descent for a long time, and ran campaign for almost a year, the game has varied based on expansions. Heroes did have advantage in the base set basically because once they got ahold of some good loot, it often made them overpowered. For example in one game with the base set the heroes made it to the final room, things were close and one player opened a chest and got some uber hammer which he quickly tossed to another player who in one go jumped over a pit and one hit killed the boss, all in one turn. Without that hammer the battle could have gone either way.
Now the expansions largely added new options for the DM to use which made the game much harder for the players. Lot more monster spawns, new tougher creature types, more traps, etc. The last stand alone expansion was 'Tomb of Ice' and it put in some new card mechanics that did give the heroes a little help as many players found the DM to have gotten too powerful in the expansions.
The game is largely random and requires heavy teamwork for the heroes to win if your playing with the expansions, and in a way a more enjoyable game. Base set would often feel like a cake walk once players got far enough into the dungeon.
'Road to Legend' & 'Sea of Blood' are not stand alone expansions and you should only get those sets if your interested in doing a campaign as they are meant to take weeks to months of multiple connected dungeon runs in a RPG like set up. Instead of a single dungeon you have multiples and gain xp and build up characters while you travel the world and fight against the one evil player whose trying to destroy the kingdom.
platypotamus
Member
BattleMonkey said:
This is the first time in the history of the universe that Descent has ever been described as streamlined.
Seriously, I enjoyed the hell out of my plays of Descent, but it takes about an hour for the Overlord to set up, and the rules/box brazenly lie about the game's playtime. It takes ages. Also, more fiddly bits than any other game.
Totally bummed that the Overlord moved to Boston before we got too far in the campaign we were playing though.
BattleMonkey
Member
platypotamus said:
As I was comparing it to D&D, yes it is a very streamlined game system. It's set up is about as complex as any other FFG big box games which all have long set ups with way too many pieces, but the game itself is basically rpg hack and slash simplified.
Thanks for the info, specifically about the 2 expansions being campaigns, as I had no clue. My friends and I are going to try to demo Descent at GenCon next week. Assuming we like it, what expansion(s) would you recommend starting with? And do most people just mix in all expansions they have with the base game or only play an expansion or two at a time?BattleMonkey said:
AstroLad said:
Dixit is a fine game. It depends heavily on the creativity, willingness of your group. I think its good for casuals who lean towards being social. The art on the cards really is lovely -- and the images are broad and offbeat enough that they really do allow for quite a bit of interpretation. I'd say buy.
BattleMonkey
Member
ToddG15 said:
Mixing them all together is fine. Each one just adds more options to the game. Playing with the base game is probably best to start and learn. The expansions work stand alone or you can mix and match as you please. Each expansion has it's own set of unique scenarios tailored for use with the contents added in the expansion, but all the expansions are retrograde and will mesh into the base game and each other without problem. The three expansions, no one really is more essential than the other. Perhaps try adding one at a time.
platypotamus
Member
Neverfade said:
wha wha WHAT?!?!?!
That snuck up on me. Shit, I've only played with my Alchemy expansion once!
Interesting; it seems like every time they set a firm date for a Dominion expansion it gets pushed back by two weeks. But maybe this one will hold. Won't be getting it in time for my west-coast trip in any event, but I'll throw it in with Agricola: The Goodies and maybe one other big-box game to round things out.
I've put in about six games with Alchemy and I am more than ready to move on and forget about the particular expansion.
I've put in about six games with Alchemy and I am more than ready to move on and forget about the particular expansion.
Light gaming weekend for us, but did play Campaign Manager 2008 today. For those of you familiar with Twilight Struggle or 1960, it's from the same designers and roughly a Lite version of those where you just compete for four random battleground states at a time rather than fight over a big fiddly map. We played with the recommended starter cards and states, but what I'm excited to try next time is the drafting mechanism that the regular game uses, where you get three cards, pick one, and so forth until you have your 15-card deck. Game is light but a good excuse to visit the halcyon days of 2008!
Going to play Summoner Wars tomorrow; just learned it tonight.
Going to play Summoner Wars tomorrow; just learned it tonight.
Had our first game of Battlestar Galactica last night. It was lots of fun even though we only got halfway through the game. We really need to start reading the instructions beforehand. lol combat rules were a little confusing but overall a really fun game. We figured out who the cylon was real early but hopefully that won't happen every time.
BattleMonkey
Member
Played some Starcraft board game Friday since everyone been busy with SCII and was in the mood. Great game, just a pain in the ass with it's crazy amount of components to setup and pick up afterwards.
It's always best to have someone read the rules completely before a game night who can quickly go over the rules. Big board games like those made by Fantasy Flight especially usually require prep time and have lot of rules compared to many other company offerings.
It's also important that everyone be given the cards that tell if your human or cylon in secret if possible to prevent any slips of knowledge. Have seen in the past the whole thing getting spoiled at start be someone making mistakes like reading the card carefully in front of others, while the human cards don't really have anything to read.
hoverX said:
It's always best to have someone read the rules completely before a game night who can quickly go over the rules. Big board games like those made by Fantasy Flight especially usually require prep time and have lot of rules compared to many other company offerings.
It's also important that everyone be given the cards that tell if your human or cylon in secret if possible to prevent any slips of knowledge. Have seen in the past the whole thing getting spoiled at start be someone making mistakes like reading the card carefully in front of others, while the human cards don't really have anything to read.
platypotamus
Member
Finally get to try Galaxy Trucker tomorrow night. The world has been conspiring against me, had it for over a month, but every gathering since has had too many people.
BomberMouse
Member
I finally got to play Catacombs this weekend (we played with 4), everyone was a little off due to the theme but in the end everyone had a great time, in fact I was quite surprised when before a big fight everyone on the heroes team were discussing different plans to take on the enemies.
The game is lot of fun (it's quite easy to miss even the easiest flicks :lol ) but there are some issues, the basic structure of the game is the following:
Level 0 fight -> Level 1 fight -> Merchant -> Level 1 fight -> Level 1 fight -> Healer -> Level 2 fight -> Overlord fight
I'd say most of the fights are not all that difficult for the heroes with the exception of the overlord which is easily 10 times harder than any other encounter, the whole game feels like one big build up to that battle. That'd fine if not for the fact the merchant comes too early in the game so anything between him and the overlord feels somewhat like a filler since the heroes can't grow anymore.
The game is lot of fun (it's quite easy to miss even the easiest flicks :lol ) but there are some issues, the basic structure of the game is the following:
Level 0 fight -> Level 1 fight -> Merchant -> Level 1 fight -> Level 1 fight -> Healer -> Level 2 fight -> Overlord fight
I'd say most of the fights are not all that difficult for the heroes with the exception of the overlord which is easily 10 times harder than any other encounter, the whole game feels like one big build up to that battle. That'd fine if not for the fact the merchant comes too early in the game so anything between him and the overlord feels somewhat like a filler since the heroes can't grow anymore.
First two Prosperity cards:
Contraband: TREASURE / cost: 5.
Provides (3). +1 Buy. When you play this card, the player to your left names a card. You can't buy that card this turn.
Counting House: ACTION / cost: 5.
Look through your discard pile, reveal any number of Copper cards from it, and put them into your hand.
Do want.
Contraband: TREASURE / cost: 5.
Provides (3). +1 Buy. When you play this card, the player to your left names a card. You can't buy that card this turn.
Counting House: ACTION / cost: 5.
Look through your discard pile, reveal any number of Copper cards from it, and put them into your hand.
Do want.
Summoner Wars was a mild dud. Couple things going against it in terms of my vs. wife:
-Poor aesthetics. imo the cards feel really cardboardy and cheap, the board is a fold out piece of rough paper that will forever have tons of creases in it, and everything looks very samey. You'd think the different sides' cards would be more distinguishable from each other, but they all just look unreal-engine brown. Guess it's easy to be spoiled by Magic and, far more, FFG, and they clearly are going for the affordable-gaming audience, but it won't win any points in our book.
-Fantasy. Always negative points for us. Blue Moon City was able to overcome this but not Summoner Wars.
Anyway, like Pandemic guess it will just have to be a game that the BGG hivemind and I disagree on!
Also played Campaign Manager again this time using regular rules (drafting). Pretty fun. Gimmicky game and it almost feels abstract (much more so than 1960 or Twilight Struggle) but we'll bust it out occasionally.
-Poor aesthetics. imo the cards feel really cardboardy and cheap, the board is a fold out piece of rough paper that will forever have tons of creases in it, and everything looks very samey. You'd think the different sides' cards would be more distinguishable from each other, but they all just look unreal-engine brown. Guess it's easy to be spoiled by Magic and, far more, FFG, and they clearly are going for the affordable-gaming audience, but it won't win any points in our book.
-Fantasy. Always negative points for us. Blue Moon City was able to overcome this but not Summoner Wars.
Anyway, like Pandemic guess it will just have to be a game that the BGG hivemind and I disagree on!
Also played Campaign Manager again this time using regular rules (drafting). Pretty fun. Gimmicky game and it almost feels abstract (much more so than 1960 or Twilight Struggle) but we'll bust it out occasionally.
Who you play with makes much more of a difference than in other games. I think you really need to get into the idea of your characters and not just try to massage the system. I've only had a chance to play twice, once with family and once with game group. Family was more fun, but I think that also had to do with only 4 people playing at the game group.hoverX said:
With that said, I'm bringing it again this week and won't put it on the table unless at least 5 people want to play.
I also picked up the Pegasus Expansion, but I'm wary of trying to introduce it with just the second play, even though I think it will add some interesting elements.
MichaelBD said:
Do yourself a favor: Steal the plastic basestars out of the box and just sell it on ebay.
Horrible expansion to a game I'm nuts over. Over complicates everything and even worse, flat out changes the rules instead of building on them. It's a bookkeeping nightmare and I regret the purchase.
Steve Youngblood
Member
I have Age of Empires, but I only played it one night. All in all, I thought it was fairly enjoyable, but it seemed somewhat derivative of various Euro style "Victory Point" games, and it doesn't come out of the box with good packaging for division of components. But all in all, I had a good enough time with it.AstroLad said:
Mind you, I don't have a wealth of experience playing a ton of board games, so my "review" doesn't carry a lot of weight to it.
Gatekeeper
Member
Hey all,
With GenCon this week, I thought I'd put this out there as this year I actually have the means and time to do it.
If there is any information people are looking for out of the con on any new games in general or something specific you may have heard about, let me know that here in the thread and I'll post up what info I gather.
Also...
One of the large draws every year is the GenCon auction. 3 days of bargain hunting for any and all gaming items, many which are hard to get. The board game section of the auction is always well-stocked with treasures and most are usually complete and sometimes unpunched. There is also a collector's section with rare and 1st printing editions of many games, also usually in fantastic shape
If there is anything that you are looking for, from a game from your childhood, to replacement parts for your beat up copy of Axis and Allies, to your 1st copy of Settlers, let me know what it is and the max price + shipping you are willing to pay, and I will bid and pay for you if a copy comes up. There is on-site UPS shipping, and I will hold it for you until you are able to pay. Obviously I would prefer to be reimbursed before Sunday so I don't have to ship twice (which yes, you would have to pay for but it will be inexpensive as I'll be shipping a ton of stuff home anyways), but I understand how things go. I can accept Visa/MC, Paypal, and check or money order.
Please PM me if there is anything you want me to look for so we don't clutter up the thread too badly.
With GenCon this week, I thought I'd put this out there as this year I actually have the means and time to do it.
If there is any information people are looking for out of the con on any new games in general or something specific you may have heard about, let me know that here in the thread and I'll post up what info I gather.
Also...
One of the large draws every year is the GenCon auction. 3 days of bargain hunting for any and all gaming items, many which are hard to get. The board game section of the auction is always well-stocked with treasures and most are usually complete and sometimes unpunched. There is also a collector's section with rare and 1st printing editions of many games, also usually in fantastic shape
If there is anything that you are looking for, from a game from your childhood, to replacement parts for your beat up copy of Axis and Allies, to your 1st copy of Settlers, let me know what it is and the max price + shipping you are willing to pay, and I will bid and pay for you if a copy comes up. There is on-site UPS shipping, and I will hold it for you until you are able to pay. Obviously I would prefer to be reimbursed before Sunday so I don't have to ship twice (which yes, you would have to pay for but it will be inexpensive as I'll be shipping a ton of stuff home anyways), but I understand how things go. I can accept Visa/MC, Paypal, and check or money order.
Please PM me if there is anything you want me to look for so we don't clutter up the thread too badly.
Related to Gatekeeper's post about the Gencon auction, you can check out the Live Game Auctions website for details on how the auction process works at Gencon.
And here is a downloadable excel file of last year's items that were entered into the auction/store for reference. It shows whether it sold or not, price it sold at, condition, etc.
http://www.livegameauctions.com/cons/Indy2009Files/AuctionItems.xls
And here is a downloadable excel file of last year's items that were entered into the auction/store for reference. It shows whether it sold or not, price it sold at, condition, etc.
http://www.livegameauctions.com/cons/Indy2009Files/AuctionItems.xls
Gatekeeper
Member
Thanks Todd!
Ugh. Really?Neverfade said:
Not even the new characters are worth it? At least I'm glad it was only $25 off of amazon.
I thought the Pegasus board looked interesting too. And though I'm not thrilled at the idea of extending the game in any way, I have to admit the New Caprica phase sparked my curiosity.
But let's be honest, I doubt it will ever get to the table enough to warrant introducing the expansion anyway. I'm probably better off just dealing with my expansion-addiction.
The new characters aren't horrible. The problem with a few of them is their special abilities use or refer to some of the new rules, which gets tricky, since it can be a slippery slope. I.e. John picks x character which refers to y rule which needs z component to work. It even goes so far to change the cyclon icons on the crisis cards and when they activate in certain phases. Gah, it's a hot mess and it hurts my brain tryin to explain.MichaelBD said:
Using the characters, the Pegasus board and the new skill cards ONLY is somewhat passable, but I still prefer the base game.
First post in this thread but I have been playing Carc recently (mostly with wife but sometimes with friends). We have the River II and Inns expansion. Is it worth picking up Traders? Any other expansions worth getting? Half the time we just play the base game to keep it quick.
Also what games are good for 2 players but also work well for 4? Looking for casual games that last an hour or less. I've seen Ticket to Ride mentioned in this thread so thinking of picking it up.
Also what games are good for 2 players but also work well for 4? Looking for casual games that last an hour or less. I've seen Ticket to Ride mentioned in this thread so thinking of picking it up.
Yes, traders is the best expansion. Makes the game a touch more complex a just a little fiddly but I can no longer play Carc without Inns and Traders (except on iPhone).Porthos said:
Lots of games fit the bill but aren't truly casual. San Juan is a quick and 2-4p card game. TTR is an excellent casual 3-4p game but basic TTR I don't find too fun with just 2.
Neverfade said:
I'm hoping the experience this week is a little better than the first with the game group. The first time we played it was 4 of us (3 never having played), and the Cylon player revealed too early. Also, he had unwittingly outed himself as the Cylon to me when the Loyalty cards were initially handed out (he asked a question that tipped me off). Since it was everyone else's first game I just let it slide and played like I didn't know. He did, however, make a mistake when throwing cards into a skill check that another player caught. The other player didn't know it was him, but he was able to deduce that something was amiss. As it happened, I hadn't thrown into that skill check so he also figured I couldn't be the Cylon. So there was a glimmer of hope that the group could have fun.
The issue came from the Cylon player revealing too early (before the first jump) so our turns became a skill card toss to try and keep the bad stuff from happening and it dragged on too long. Still, the game came down to a die roll on the last jump which was exciting.
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