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Played Memoir 44 again, with a new opponent. This time I was the Axis and we setup the same first scenario that I was unimpressed by before.... but this time I enjoyed it! Really looking forward to scenes with armor and artillery and the expansions. I think they'll really add the meat I need to this game.

I found a copy of Robo Rally on ebay for 25 bucks(!!!!)! It....really needs to hurry up and get here.

That collection picture has a lot of stuff I own, and want to owe. Our tastes are eerily simple. I like the table/wall art too.
 
I could be way off base on this, but aren't you a relatively new board game player too AstroLad? I want to say I remember you posting when you first started getting into it, but I might be imagining it. Impressive collection regardless, you've got mine beat.

Also, the top 3 I'd recommend that I don't see in your collection are Tigris & Euphrates, Caylus, and Blokus (for something a bit less complex).
 
platypotamus said:
I could be way off base on this, but aren't you a relatively new board game player too AstroLad? I want to say I remember you posting when you first started getting into it, but I might be imagining it. Impressive collection regardless, you've got mine beat.

Also, the top 3 I'd recommend that I don't see in your collection are Tigris & Euphrates, Caylus, and Blokus (for something a bit less complex).
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I'm a relatively new boardgamer as well (maybe 2 years at most), but my collection saw the most rapid growth in the first 6-8 months. It seems to be a common thing that happens to people who get newly hooked.

I haven't picked up a game since Through the Ages (which I have yet to try), but my next pickups will likely be Red November and Power Grid.
 
platypotamus said:
I could be way off base on this, but aren't you a relatively new board game player too AstroLad? I want to say I remember you posting when you first started getting into it, but I might be imagining it. Impressive collection regardless, you've got mine beat.

Also, the top 3 I'd recommend that I don't see in your collection are Tigris & Euphrates, Caylus, and Blokus (for something a bit less complex).
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Most (80%?) have been acquired in the last three years or so. About two years ago I definitely went on a binge, just buying and playing a new game every week. Less so recently, but I am really excited to play Formula D and PitchCar, which I just picked up this week.

The great thing about going on a boardgaming binge is that the games are still just as great years later, unlike most video games.
 
AstroLad said:
The great thing about going on a boardgaming binge is that the games are still just as great years later, unlike most video games.
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This is totally true. I've been really itching to play El Capitan lately, which I haven't played in literally 3 years. Looking at my collection, the vast majority of it I would gladly play, right now. Definitely not so with the video games.
 
I got really lucky falling in with these guys here in Minneapolis. More than a couple of them have really big game collections. I've only bought Yspahan, Thurn & Taxis and Agricola. I'm going to really need to put together a collection when I move back to California.
 
spikydavid said:
It's not really a boardgame, but here goes

Ways to paint - spray the minis first with a primer (you can get some from Games Workshop, or most hobby shops). I (almost) always use black. Pick a small selection of colours, and go at it. Neatness is good. There's some fantastic stuff called 'Army Painter' (http://thearmypainter.com/) which is easy to use and gives good results for a large range of armies

Other things to buy - more Orks! The Assault on Black Reach set comes with Space Marines and Orks, but there are way more Space Marines than Orks (in terms of points) so you'll need some more Orks to balance the sides. I'd get a wartrukk, and more boyz. The ork battleforce comes with a trukk, some more boyz, and some bikes - pretty good value. You also need the Space Marine and Ork codexes (army lists)

Other stuff to know - plenty, too much to write here. Check out http://www.warhammer.org.uk and http://www.warseer.com for a couple of pretty active and reasonable forums (both quite UK-centric), and, um, have fun!
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its not a boardgame i guess, but its really similar !! :P thanks for the info and links though ! :D
 
AstroLad said:
as promisedish
http://i41.tinypic.com/24zx9ie.jpg[img][/QUOTE]

The only one I have out of that is "Last Night on Earth" ... my Carcasonne got ruined. :(
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Sounds like tonight will be the debut of Race to the Galaxy amongst my gaming group. I'm excited after all the praise it's gotten from this thread. To be honest though, even after about 8 games straight of Agricola, I could still go for another few games before switching it up.
 
If you don't like Race I propose just packing your shit and moving out of this thread!








I kid. I hope you like it, but I surely don't hate on other opinions.








But seriously, like it.
 
I liked it so much I tried to talk an eight-month-pregnant sister-in-law into staying up late for a second round :) (mission failed, btw)

I read the instructions, along with my brother-in-law, but when we tried to explain it to the wives, they weren't getting it, so we declared a "first game doesn't count and is just a learning/practice game". It still was remarkably tight between the top 3 (37, 36, 33)... my wife had a rough start she never quite recovered from (19), though she was probably gaining points the fastest towards the end, oddly.... she had a great consumption/production pipeline going, whereas most of our points game from planets/developments. I believe she ended the game with only 5 or 6? cards on the table (our game ended because of 12 cards, not VPs running out).

It was pretty interesting watching the different play styles. One player had a focus nearly exclusively on "rare" goods, because of some card synergy there. I had kind of a focus on "gene" goods, but it was a much softer focus. I actually was having a rough time making consumption useful, as I couldn't get cards that had a consumption action on them. My wife actually seemed to be having the same trouble. So I did a "trade" action once with all my bonuses for "genes" and it netted me 8 cards (!!!). That helped quite a bit.

Anyway, I'm kind of hoping we'll squeeze a game in tomorrow night too, we'll see.
 
Yeah one of the great things about Race is that the cards lend themselves so nicely to little strategies. Obvious but not too obvious, and usually everyone has a different strategy going (and chances are if someone has the same strategy going as you, you're both in trouble, unless you're both just generally doing consume/produce to squeeze out a military scrub).

It definitely is a game where you have to play five or so to even get a feel for things. Some people outright dislike it until they've digested all the cards and strategies, then they love it.
 
When we first started playing, Rare goods setups dominated. It was the silent brown killer. I'll never forget the first game where things aligned and a blue setup (at which point we'd all considered pretty weak) won me a landslide game. Some military tactics got me a pirate world out, and by the end I was loading up three windfalls per production. In addition to a combo letting me draw an ungodly amount of cards on a trade, It was a short run in tossing out those 6-cost Devs that sent my VPs through the roof.


Good times, good times.
 
Played PitchCar and Formula D tonight just to try them out. General feeling on both is that they probably would have been better with more than the three we had. PitchCar was actually pretty damn fun -- the cars move really nicely on the track. I just have a bias against dexterity-based games, especially as a Rules stickler (most dexterity-based are so loose on rules, and this one is no exception).

Formula D -- there just wasn't much there there. Again, I'm biased against roll-and-move and while it was great to be able to teach this in five minues, there seems to be a bit of a lack of depth. Seems perfect for five or six though, which is what I'll try it with next time. Game itself is also very pretty.

Which gets me to thinking, some games scale great ~2-6. Others not so much, you need the sweet-spot number.
 
Neverfade said:
When we first started playing, Rare goods setups dominated. It was the silent brown killer. I'll never forget the first game where things aligned and a blue setup (at which point we'd all considered pretty weak) won me a landslide game. Some military tactics got me a pirate world out, and by the end I was loading up three windfalls per production. In addition to a combo letting me draw an ungodly amount of cards on a trade, It was a short run in tossing out those 6-cost Devs that sent my VPs through the roof.


Good times, good times.
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It was a rare goods setup that won last night, but as you can see from the scores, not a domination by any means.

PS. Mission accomplished, we are playing again tonight :)
 
Neverfade said:
When we first started playing, Rare goods setups dominated. It was the silent brown killer. I'll never forget the first game where things aligned and a blue setup (at which point we'd all considered pretty weak) won me a landslide game. Some military tactics got me a pirate world out, and by the end I was loading up three windfalls per production. In addition to a combo letting me draw an ungodly amount of cards on a trade, It was a short run in tossing out those 6-cost Devs that sent my VPs through the roof.
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Heh. We started out thinking Military was the best strategy. Then we moved on to Produce/Consumex2 with Blue, then Brown. Now we're more eclectic, with our latest thing being to do a lot of Consume-Trades.
 
Tonight I was going with blues + consume/trades (I could get 5-6 cards for a blue, which was pretty stellar). I managed to get the Rebel Homeworld (7 VPs) and Seti (worth 9 VPs for me!), but still lost by a few points. I needed another turn or two to play the development/planet in my hand, damn it. This is a problem I consistently have with any of these games of variable length (this, Dominion, Puerto Rico, Caylus...). I always fail to time my transition from mid-game to late-game strategy. Always looking just a few more turns down the road than I should be (since those turns don't ever happen).
 
AstroLad said:
...
Which gets me to thinking, some games scale great ~2-6. Others not so much, you need the sweet-spot number.
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Absolutely

Some games play better with different numbers of players, and I keep different games for different group sizes. Citadels only works if there are at least five of you. Puerto Rico is absolutely best at 3 or 4. It does play reasonably with 5, but it's a different game. Settlers at six players is slow - it can work, but you need the right group. Carcassonne works better with more, not fewer, players

Four players is my sweet spot for games - there are very few games (Citadels, again) which aren't good with four players

All of the above is ignoring purposefully two-player games, of course (Battlelore, Atlanteon)

PS - I think you're being a bit harsh on Formula D. I've been playing Formula De (the original version) for about ten years, and I think it's fantastic, and it does scale pretty well (with fewer players, use two cars each)
 
Yeah, I'm definitely going to give Formula D more chances, probably implement weather rules and the like as well. I'm sure it gets much more interesting when you have 5 or so too.
 
So, a quick session report - played today with one old boardgaming friend, and two new ones

Started with a quick round of Ticket To Ride: Marklin. We've all played this before, and despite some blatant cheating with the passengers ("We forgot, we haven't played in so long") that was allowed to let go, I came second in this one. Did all of my starter tickets, but was worried about the game ending, so finished on my terms, which meant I didn't get my passengers going properly.

Next up was Puerto Rico, which I've played lots of, and the others not much. Long, long rules explanation (one person just didn't get the roles thing) and quite a slow game, but went over very well in the end. Second again, to one of the new players (who had been asking the most questions)

After a brief pause, and a partial game of Kingdoms, finished with a second round of Puerto Rico. I got my money strategy sorted and working early on, and ran away a clear winner, which was nice to finish with.

Three different people each won a game, which was nice. Definitely hard to balance the new games/already known games balance. I wanted to play something different for a third game, but couldn't face explaining another game.
 
AstroLad said:
Yeah, I'm definitely going to give Formula D more chances, probably implement weather rules and the like as well. I'm sure it gets much more interesting when you have 5 or so too.
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Formula De (and D as well I'm assuming) can become as deep as you want it to be. Using advanced rules as well as any house rules you think can make it feel better goes a long way. Debating whether to stay in a high gear with a double turn coming and risk using up tires and brakes and potentially having to pit comes up a lot in a heated race. Aggressive driving usually ends up in car wrecks - but when you pull off the near-impossible (last corner turn in the last lap when in top gear needing a certain number to make it without crashing due to having no brake or tire points left) it makes for a memorable moment.
 
Yeah, 3 players under the standard advanced rules sans optional rules I think must have been maybe the worst setup possible.
 
AstroLad said:
Yeah, 3 players under the standard advanced rules sans optional rules I think must have been maybe the worst setup possible.
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With that many people, you should consider two cars a person - score for both individual placing and overall team placing.
 
Yeah it was on the borderline, and I did consider that but tbh just didn't have the time to spare, and in retrospect it was probably better since I wouldn't have had the time to learn/teach/play with optional rules anyway.

So what optional rules are best? Just weather?
 
AstroLad said:
Yeah it was on the borderline, and I did consider that but tbh just didn't have the time to spare, and in retrospect it was probably better since I wouldn't have had the time to learn/teach/play with optional rules anyway.

So what optional rules are best? Just weather?
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Weather and tire options for sure. Qualifying laps are nice if you have time for it, as randomly rolling for initial placement always felt lame to me. We like using the drafting rules as well. A house rule we also use are expending a fuel point to add +1 to your roll.

As always, BGG has a number of various rulesets people have come up with.
 
Going once again back to your collection, Astro....With the similar tastes and whatnot, I'd be interested in a short Hannibal impression if not too much trouble.
 
It's a really fun light wargame--the mechanics are great, and as discussed above it's quite pretty too (for a wargame, faint praise I know). On that point, it's not really that much of a true wargame per se (good thing, from my perspective), but more of a nicely themed CDG (someone on BGG called it area control, which isn't too far off). Even though it's mechanically "light," it's still one that bears learning well ahead of play imo. What I like most about it is that it gives you a lot of strategic options without bogging you down in wargaminess, and the sides play quite differently (theme is well integrated).

The real kicker is the battle system from We The People (I actually picked up Hannibal and For The People because WePeo was just too pricey), which I will crib from BGG:
The deck consists of a number of cards split across 5 types of battle manoeuvre (Frontal Assault, Flank Left, Flank Right, Probe, Double Envelopment) in differing quantities.

There are also a small number of very valuable reserve cards that act as wild cards.

Both players draw a certain number of battle cards before the battle, determined by the board situation that led up to the fight. Factors taken into account include the size of the armies, the opposing generals’ strategy rating, and the number of provinces you control in the region in which the battle is being fought.

Each battle is executed in rounds. In each round the lead player (starts with the attacker) plays a card, which the second player tries to match. If he doesn't, the lead player wins the fight. If the second player is able to match it, he then rolls a die against his general’s battle rating to see if he wrests the initiative from the current lead player (or alternatively, he can dice against his general’s battle rating again to withdraw from the fight if he thinks it is running away from him).

Whoever has the initiative in the next round lays a card which the other player tries to match, and so on...

Both players lose combat units determined by a die roll and the number of rounds fought (losses will generally be larger the longer the battle lasted), and the loser suffers additional losses based on his army size and a die roll. Finally, the loser must retreat to a friendly space within 4 spaces.
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If that sounds fun to you, have at it (I quite like it, but then again I love a reasonable measure of luck in all my games).

The biggest problem I run into with Hannibal is that most people find the theme kind of uninteresting. Crazy right! I've played it maybe about five times myself. Usually Twilight Struggle wins out in a 2p setting, but Hannibal is a close second.

Random aside: I was just checking out the BGG Top 10, and man is Dominion too high (and I like Dominion too).
 
Sounds like good times. It's on the wishlist, but unfortunately (?) I still have things like Arkham (and its expansions) and Memoir Xpacks to spend a fortune on first.
 
Neverfade said:
Sounds like good times. It's on the wishlist, but unfortunately (?) I still have things like Arkham (and its expansions) and Memoir Xpacks to spend a fortune on first.
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Totally go with AH (as you can see above, I quite like AH).

Since moving the most I've done with boardgames is trading them, I only get to play like once a month, pretty sad.
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Yeah I was looking for some Formula D tracks and noticed that you (or someone with that username) are selling a bunch of games on BGG.
 
I FINALLY got to play a game of 1960.

I enjoyed it. I particularly like the fact that it can SEEM like one player is dominating the entire game, but it can still end up as a relatively close race. I won as Kennedy by a fair margin, but probably only because my opponent didn't really grasp the idea of saving cards for the debate/election strategy until it was too late.
 
Holy shit I can post again.

I just wanted to say that Formula De, at least the old version, shines when you get a number of people (7-8) to commit to doing a racing circuit and accumulate points based on your finish. It becomes a ton of fun.
 
I love playing strategy games based on a medieval/fantasy setting, and I've heard nothing but great things about War of the Ring. Can someone who's played it tell me some more about it, or perhaps recommend a similar board game?
 
The creators of War of the Ring also made Age of Conan (no relation to the MMO). AOC borrows a few mechanics including the "fate dice" (Roll 7 dice relating to various ways to spend your turn, then players have to choose from the ever dwindling pile of possible actions). Other than that, I hear its a touch more simplistic than WotR, and thus may be a good place to start. I highly recommend reading the .pdf of the rules on Fantasy Flight's website about 902803982 times, they're a bit confusing and I don't like the way they're arranged, but I do enjoy the game.
 
Neverfade said:
The creators of War of the Ring also made Age of Conan (no relation to the MMO). AOC borrows a few mechanics including the "fate dice" (Roll 7 dice relating to various ways to spend your turn, then players have to choose from the ever dwindling pile of possible actions). Other than that, I hear its a touch more simplistic than WotR, and thus may be a good place to start. I highly recommend reading the .pdf of the rules on Fantasy Flight's website about 902803982 times, they're a bit confusing and I don't like the way they're arranged, but I do enjoy the game.
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That's funny, because I'm a fan of REH's work, so I'll definitely be looking for this bad boy at some point this week. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
Picked up some new games in preparation for a nice long vacation meetup with friends where we'll likely be doing nothing but playing games for four straight days. Beefed up my 5+ players collection.
-Power Grid
-Citadels
-For Sale
-Thebes
-Formula D Sebring/Chicago

We might have 6-7 so I had to fully prepare for that.

This is my current plan of attack; I am excluding some games purely on suitcase considerations (especially heavy ones like PitchCar), so card games get a triple bonus:
For 2
Twilight Struggle (brilliant, small)
Race for the Galaxy (also for 4, small)

For 3-4
San Juan (lead-in to RftG)
Puerto Rico
Thebes (depends on space available)

For 5+
Formula D (most looking forward to this with 7 of us, so bringing in spite of hugeness)
Power Grid (maybe going to work through it myself again since it's been a while)
For Sale (small)
Citadels (small)

Big games that I'd love to bring like Ticket to Ride and Robo Rally probably lose out.
 
It really is a heartbreaker--it's not just the size though it's also that the box is seriously fucked up. As much as I love the game itself, the AH edition is super shoddy.
 
I think this was discussed earlier, but your friends are terrible people. I've never met anyone who didn't fall in love with Robo Rally at first play.
 
Only issues with Robo Rally to me are:
-Runaway Leader: Especially if you are only playing with 3 or even 4. Lasers mitigate this somewhat on certain maps, but on others where the paths don't really cross it can become a bit of a victory lap for whoever gets out the quickest. Especially when places 2-4 are just beating each other up constantly and 1 hasn't even taken a single damage.
-Analysis Paralysis: Not a problem if you use the timer. I don't, because my friends are much less prone to analysis paralysis than I am and just wind up going "oh fuck it, I'll try this and see what happens," which is quite fun.

I love it because it takes literally five minutes to teach, but yet isn't so simply that someone can just grasp the game without diving in, and there are tons of really fun permutations (e.g., teams).
 
This is gonna be just a crazy two months of boardgaming, including what I bought in the past few weeks. Getting next month:

Definite
Race for the Galaxy: Rebel vs Imperium
Dominion: Intrigue

Maybe
Small World (don't own Vinci so whoo)
Steam (don't own Age of Steam so whoo)
Pandemic: On the Brink
 
AstroLad said:
I think this was discussed earlier, but your friends are terrible people. I've never met anyone who didn't fall in love with Robo Rally at first play.
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My wife and her sister HATE it, so I never get to play it either. :(


Also, I want 4 days of non stop board gaming
 
platypotamus said:
Also, I want 4 days of non stop board gaming
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Ohhh, there will also be Rock Band and poker. We will keep it sensible and varied.

Neverfade--Haven't played AoS myself, just familiar with the title. Looks like this is a pretty hardcore breakdown of Steam:
If you already own AoS
There are a few reasons to spend $50 or so on the 3rd edition. You’ll get plastic trains (a personal preference one way or the other), a snazzier looking board (again, a personal preference), mounted charts (which are still butt-ugly), and much nicer looking tiles (this is just a fact…even though I am admittedly biased). And you’ll have replacement pieces like cubes in case you lose anything. Finally, if you didn’t buy it elsewhere, you’ll have a nice 1 and 2 player expansion.

Steam might be a valuable purchase as well because the rules changes are very appealing to some AoS players. Expansions you already own will work with the new system (though publishers/designers must provide updated rules…this has already been done for Bezier Games maps). I suggest playing a few games of Steam before you buy.

I don’t think many players will opt to play both regularly, but instead will pick one over the other as their main base game. It’s actually a little hard to keep the rules changes in mind as you move between the different base games. Add to that the rule changes for the different expansions, and it could be frustrating to play both regularly.
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http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/381942

PS WHHHHHHHHY do people keep doing this?
To make matters worse, the rules are presented as if the Base Game is the “regular” way to play, with the Standard Game rules “differences” presented at the end of the rules, so players who want to play the Standard Game must read the Basic Game rules and then un-learn some of those rules to play the Standard Game.
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One rules section, with suggested variants at the end. All I'm asking for. None of this "here is the normal version (watered down for no apparent reason in a way that doesn't make the game any more accessible), and now here is the normal+ version (real game)" stuff.
 
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