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[Board Games] Cardboard Action at a Distance

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  • Mai-KeroMai-Kero Registered User regular
    I picked up Gloomhaven and the wooden box organizer for it at gencon and just spent like four hours putting it together and I'm still not finished. I knew this game was big but not this big. I'm in some real fucking trouble here. I feel like this will take a year for my group to go through

  • VyolynceVyolynce Registered User regular
    Mai-Kero wrote: »
    I picked up Gloomhaven and the wooden box organizer for it at gencon and just spent like four hours putting it together and I'm still not finished. I knew this game was big but not this big. I'm in some real fucking trouble here. I feel like this will take a year for my group to go through

    Don't be ridiculous!

    My group is currently at a year and a half.

    Playing nearly every week.

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    AC:NH Chris from Glosta SW-5173-3598-2899 DA-4749-1014-4697 @vyolynce@mastodon.social
  • JustTeeJustTee Registered User regular
    Vyolynce wrote: »
    Mai-Kero wrote: »
    I picked up Gloomhaven and the wooden box organizer for it at gencon and just spent like four hours putting it together and I'm still not finished. I knew this game was big but not this big. I'm in some real fucking trouble here. I feel like this will take a year for my group to go through

    Don't be ridiculous!

    My group is currently at a year and a half.

    Playing nearly every week.

    My group is coming up on 10 months of playing roughly every other week.

    We are....~20% of the way through the game? Maybe?

    Diagnosed with AML on 6/1/12. Read about it: www.effleukemia.com
  • GnizmoGnizmo Registered User regular
    Vyolynce wrote: »
    Mai-Kero wrote: »
    I picked up Gloomhaven and the wooden box organizer for it at gencon and just spent like four hours putting it together and I'm still not finished. I knew this game was big but not this big. I'm in some real fucking trouble here. I feel like this will take a year for my group to go through

    Don't be ridiculous!

    My group is currently at a year and a half.

    Playing nearly every week.

    Then after you finish the game you can go buy the expansion.

  • CaptainPeacockCaptainPeacock Board Game Hoarder Top o' the LakeRegistered User regular
    Got Century: New World to the table last night. My partner pegs it as perhaps the best of the 3 and I can see why. It has swapped out the cards/deck building of Spice Road and the islands/area control of Eastern Wonders for worker placement. But not old-school WP where you lock players out. You can go where I go, except you'll be giving me back my workers AND you'll be using one more worker than I did. Balance this out with a limited starting number of spaces that expands as the game progresses and unlocks new move options. Oh, and the point cards also each include some kind of bonus for you, like getting extra cubes when you do a certain action.

    Pros:
    - Plays very quickly. I think it's the fastest one of the three.
    - Bonuses from point cards allow combo creation
    - Theoretically, all actions are available to you at any given time

    Cons:
    - More fiddle. The meeples are stupidly teeny. This did not need to be.
    - Lots of tokens. Way more than Spice Road.
    - End game scoring is entirely more complex than previous, what with point cards AND bonus titles. Doesn't include a score pad to tabulate.

    Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
  • initiatefailureinitiatefailure Registered User regular
    Ooh all workers are the sumo worker from viticulture? I like this.

    I just played spice road the other week for the first time and have been interested to try the others

  • CaptainPeacockCaptainPeacock Board Game Hoarder Top o' the LakeRegistered User regular
    Give them all a try. I think they are nicely different from each other to offer a unique spin. I'll be trying to get the combo games together at some point. I've heard 1& 3 is pretty good, so likely start with that.

    Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
  • HamHamJHamHamJ Registered User regular
    Darric wrote: »
    City of the Big Shoulders - Heavy Euro that's designed to be a bridge to the 18xx genre, which to date I've never tried. Because it's scary. This seemed like something I'd really enjoy playing though.

    I kickstarted this after getting to play it at PAX Unplugged. I just got the email that US copies should be shipping soon and I am super excited!

    While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
  • KetarKetar Come on upstairs we're having a partyRegistered User regular
    The name City of the Big Shoulders irrationally irritates me. Yes, I know that is how it's written in the Carl Sandburg poem, but growing up in and around Chicago I only ever heard people who used it as a nickname phrase it as "the city of big shoulders" not "city of the big shoulders." I've never actually heard anyone phrase it like the poem until this game.

    That said, the game looked good. I'd never get a 4 player game that long to table enough to make it worthwhile though.

  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    I am catching up with the Marvel Champions LCG news and hmmm I am immediately frowning at the visual impact. Re-using actual Marvel art is not my first choice for a cohesive feel to the thing, but the look of the cards feels way below the gorgeous work they've done on Netrunner, Lot5R and the Arkham Horror LCG.

  • SageinaRageSageinaRage Registered User regular
    Not a new game, but new to me - last night I played Dojo-Kun. Each player is running their own dojo, training athletes to take place in yearly tournaments. It's worker placement until the tournament, when it becomes a dice chucker. It was pretty fun! You have to balance out training individual fighters versus expanding the dojo, and going through the tournament is pretty neat, especially since it breaks up the worker placement planning, and the other players get points for correctly picking the winner of a fight. The only downside is whether you like or dislike the randomness of the tournament and the upsets. But if you go into the game expecting it, I think it works pretty well. I got this on clearance a month or two ago, so it's probably pretty cheap at this point.

    I also recently got to play QE, the auction game about playing as central banks. This is the one where you have unlimited money and write your bids on little whiteboards, but winning bids are secret, and at the end whoever spent the most money loses. I'm the one who went bust at the end, though I at least had the most points outside of that. It's pretty interesting to try to gauge how much you need to spend based on the opening bid and the trajectory of the previous rounds. It's the kind of game where you're more playing the other players than the mechanics, which I find interesting but am kind of bad at. I'm pretty curious to see how differently the game goes with another group, the people I was playing with were pretty cautious.

    sig.gif
  • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    I really wish I'd backed QE as it seems to be unobtainable now

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • VyolynceVyolynce Registered User regular
    Mojo_Jojo wrote: »
    I really wish I'd backed QE as it seems to be unobtainable now

    Where are you looking? I'm not sure it exists anywhere but boardgametables.com.

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    AC:NH Chris from Glosta SW-5173-3598-2899 DA-4749-1014-4697 @vyolynce@mastodon.social
  • ChaosHatChaosHat Hop, hop, hop, HA! Trick of the lightRegistered User regular
    edited August 2019
    Bogart wrote: »
    I am catching up with the Marvel Champions LCG news and hmmm I am immediately frowning at the visual impact. Re-using actual Marvel art is not my first choice for a cohesive feel to the thing, but the look of the cards feels way below the gorgeous work they've done on Netrunner, Lot5R and the Arkham Horror LCG.

    I really agree with this. The art style and release pattern are maybe my biggest issues with the game. I don't know a whole lot about it but initially I was thinking a reskin Arkham LCG but it doesn't seem campaign based and the art is just blehhhh.

    If it looked like the box cover I would be all over that shit.

    On the plus side, they're doing away with buying multiple cores so that's nice.

    ChaosHat on
  • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    Vyolynce wrote: »
    Mojo_Jojo wrote: »
    I really wish I'd backed QE as it seems to be unobtainable now

    Where are you looking? I'm not sure it exists anywhere but boardgametables.com.

    That would probably explain why it only seems to show up elsewhere at a crazy markup

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • FryFry Registered User regular
    ChaosHat wrote: »
    Bogart wrote: »
    I am catching up with the Marvel Champions LCG news and hmmm I am immediately frowning at the visual impact. Re-using actual Marvel art is not my first choice for a cohesive feel to the thing, but the look of the cards feels way below the gorgeous work they've done on Netrunner, Lot5R and the Arkham Horror LCG.

    I really agree with this. The art style and release pattern are maybe my biggest issues with the game. I don't know a whole lot about it but initially I was thinking a reskin Arkham LCG but it doesn't seem campaign based and the art is just blehhhh.

    If it looked like the box cover I would be all over that shit.

    On the plus side, they're doing away with buying multiple cores so that's nice.

    I agree that the art and card templating are pretty bad. I think the release pattern looks good though - new characters are just in a pack by themselves, so if you have a favorite character you can just get that one pack rather than needing to get on the treadmill and buy every pack that comes out. The product page also mentions story packs with multiple linked scenarios. No mention of upgrading a deck over the course, but IMO that's fine.

    Seems like a contender to replace Sentinels of the Multiverse. And absolutely destroys Legendary IMO.

  • Mr. GMr. G Registered User regular
    It looks much more in the Destiny design vein than their other card games

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  • ChaosHatChaosHat Hop, hop, hop, HA! Trick of the lightRegistered User regular
    Fry wrote: »
    ChaosHat wrote: »
    Bogart wrote: »
    I am catching up with the Marvel Champions LCG news and hmmm I am immediately frowning at the visual impact. Re-using actual Marvel art is not my first choice for a cohesive feel to the thing, but the look of the cards feels way below the gorgeous work they've done on Netrunner, Lot5R and the Arkham Horror LCG.

    I really agree with this. The art style and release pattern are maybe my biggest issues with the game. I don't know a whole lot about it but initially I was thinking a reskin Arkham LCG but it doesn't seem campaign based and the art is just blehhhh.

    If it looked like the box cover I would be all over that shit.

    On the plus side, they're doing away with buying multiple cores so that's nice.

    I agree that the art and card templating are pretty bad. I think the release pattern looks good though - new characters are just in a pack by themselves, so if you have a favorite character you can just get that one pack rather than needing to get on the treadmill and buy every pack that comes out. The product page also mentions story packs with multiple linked scenarios. No mention of upgrading a deck over the course, but IMO that's fine.

    Seems like a contender to replace Sentinels of the Multiverse. And absolutely destroys Legendary IMO.

    I really like the upgrades and the longer campaigns though! A big draw is the rpg lite experience for me. Probably doesn't make a ton of sense in the setting since heroes aren't usually leveling up their punches or web shooters mid fight.

  • captainkcaptaink TexasRegistered User regular
    I think Legendary will continue to be a better pick up and play experience. Having played the Game of Thrones LCG, you're either using someone else's prebuilt deck or trying to build one for a game you've never played. Sounds good if you can get a group together to play regularly, but if it's just sporadic, it's tough on new/lapsed players.

  • PMAversPMAvers Registered User regular
    If memory serves, the person who was demoing Champions to me at GenCon mentioned the first Deluxe expansion (about six months out from release) would have a campaign system with branching paths and choices.

    But all the stand-alone villain packs would be a stand-alone scenario on their own.

    Also I kind of love that the hero packs with new characters come as a pre-built deck which you can use right out of the gate.

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  • FryFry Registered User regular
    captaink wrote: »
    I think Legendary will continue to be a better pick up and play experience. Having played the Game of Thrones LCG, you're either using someone else's prebuilt deck or trying to build one for a game you've never played. Sounds good if you can get a group together to play regularly, but if it's just sporadic, it's tough on new/lapsed players.

    There's a huge difference between playing someone else's deck for a cooperative game and playing someone else's deck for a competitive game. I expect most people who own the new game will have prebuilt decks for all of the characters and it'll work fine, just like it does for Sentinels of the Multiverse. And if you have that one friend who always plays Spiderman and wants to tweak the deck, they can do that (which you can't in Sentinels).

    Legendary continues to be a huge miss for me just due to the large amount of abstraction. I'm not playing as Spiderman, I'm a person playing a game that gets to deploy the occasional card with Spiderman on it if I am able to purchase Spiderman cards from the market.

  • AthenorAthenor Battle Hardened Optimist The Skies of HiigaraRegistered User regular
    Just got to play Just One.

    That was some good stuff. Wow.

    We played with 6 players (plus a young player helping out her dad). It was TOUGH on many of the clues that you'd think would be obvious!

    We bailed on trying to do Pimento, which is good because apparently none of us had the right definition for it!
    But the alternate, Jedi? We didn't get it with the clues "Kenobi, Lightsaber, Gray, Bantha, and Sith."

    He/Him | "A boat is always safest in the harbor, but that’s not why we build boats." | "If you run, you gain one. If you move forward, you gain two." - Suletta Mercury, G-Witch
  • GnizmoGnizmo Registered User regular
    captaink wrote: »
    I think Legendary will continue to be a better pick up and play experience. Having played the Game of Thrones LCG, you're either using someone else's prebuilt deck or trying to build one for a game you've never played. Sounds good if you can get a group together to play regularly, but if it's just sporadic, it's tough on new/lapsed players.

    Maybe, but pre-built decks for every hero really reduces that barrier. There won't be the same need to understand the specialized strategy the player who built it was going for. You can just have a generically good deck that does good things.

    Legendary as a pick up and play seems like a much worse option to me. I haven't played a ton of the game because my game group doesn't care for it so I will admit off the bat I might be missing something. That said, the game seems to get very difficult at high counts and has some counter intuitive mechanics. In our experience if two people are trying to build a similar deck that either one ends up garbage, or both do. It becomes paramount you not get good cards because it will hurt everyone at the table which can then lead you to having nothing to draft for you. This also means you have to invent a strategy that veteran players don't want while ignoring what they do.

    Every game ends the same for us. One person pulls off their super combo and then proceeds to do all the work of winning the game. Everyone else can either try to keep up or just end their turns quickly so the game can be over. Either way has the same result. It seems to work great as a solitaire game, but with other players the game just becomes incredibly flawed.

  • Evil MultifariousEvil Multifarious Registered User regular
    Due to shipping delays, it looks like Seasons of Inis won't be available in Canada until the end of the year, according to Matagot

    So I decided to eat the extra $20ish and just order it from the US. It's already been years!

  • BursarBursar Hee Noooo! PDX areaRegistered User regular
    My Bargain Quest Kickstarter came in today, along with loads of expansions.

    A shame that I moved away from my old group since then, but my fiancee might not take much convincing. BQ is published by Renegade, who did Clank!, which I may have mentioned here is her favorite game at the moment.

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  • CaptainPeacockCaptainPeacock Board Game Hoarder Top o' the LakeRegistered User regular
    Just played Bargain Quest last night with my 9 y.o. She got it no sweat. In fact, she beat me by 4 points.

    It's pretty damned good. Easy to access, flows well, delivers what it promises. Like a nice, fresh bowl of popcorn

    Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
  • AmarylAmaryl Registered User regular
    I played a couple of games of Raiders of the Northsea, and its not the worst worker placement game I've ever played - I like the elegance of the actions, of putting down a meeple, and picking up a meeple in the same action.It always seems like you just can't get the ball rolling just right, you're always missing one element. Which means; do you take another turn in the village or do you raid sub-optimally. And that's the main tension in the game - and i'm not sure if i'm into that. There's not enough ways to interact with your opponents boards either which is always a bummer for us.

    I didn't dislike playing the game though, There's just better options out there.

  • Jam WarriorJam Warrior Registered User regular
    EXPERT HELP REQUIRED

    As a going away celebration for a gaming club member we have a game of Twilight Imperium planned. We haven't played for years and it was fairly few and far between then so people are almost, but not quite, starting from scratch on game knowledge.

    We have 3rd ed. plus the Shattered Empires expansion.

    Please can the TI pros suggest a game setup for us? Especially in terms of strategy card pool but also any other options you think we should have on or off?

    Cheers

    MhCw7nZ.gif
  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    Everyone should read the rules beforehand, someone should take responsibility for reading them a lot and practising a rules explanation.

    Dump Imperial from the base game and replace it with Imperial II from the expansion. Tech II is better as well, I think. Warfare II and Diplomacy II are also maybe better, but YMMV.

    Playing the variant that turns over all the VP cards at the start until you get to the game over can speed things up as it means people can score VPs more consistently (because they have more ways of doing it).

    Leave the details of combat rules until people are close to fighting. It's enough to just go through the basics (ships have different to hit rolls, some can take two hits, ground combat is different, etc).

    You can do a pre-set galaxy from examples online that are pretty fair, saving you the job of building it yourself and saving on set up time.

    Also get everything set up beforehand in terms of decks, tech cards, etc. Not having to unbag everything is a real time saver.

  • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    I echo what Bogart says, but also don't play with Leaders, Mercenaries or Distant Suns

    Do play with racial techs and flagships

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    Oh, and use Artifacts as well. They're an incentive to grab and invade planets and an extra three or four VPs on the board anyone can snap up or steal.

  • wonderpugwonderpug Registered User regular
    Bogart wrote: »
    Everyone should read the rules beforehand, someone should take responsibility for reading them a lot and practising a rules explanation.

    Alternately, find a video tutorial you like and tell everyone they need to watch it before game night. At least in my game group, people are more likely to watch a youtube video link than to download and read a rulebook PDF.

  • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    wonderpug wrote: »
    Bogart wrote: »
    Everyone should read the rules beforehand, someone should take responsibility for reading them a lot and practising a rules explanation.

    Alternately, find a video tutorial you like and tell everyone they need to watch it before game night. At least in my game group, people are more likely to watch a youtube video link than to download and read a rulebook PDF.

    Damn kids

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • crimsoncoyotecrimsoncoyote Registered User regular
    I picked up Just One yesterday based on reports here. Can't wait to try it out!

  • Mr. GMr. G Registered User regular
    The most surprising thing from the 3 hours I was at Gen Con is that Dune is a) only 50 dollars and b) in a shockingly small box for what I hear of that game's length and complexity

    6F32U1X.png
  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    edited August 2019
    Mr. G wrote: »
    The most surprising thing from the 3 hours I was at Gen Con is that Dune is a) only 50 dollars and b) in a shockingly small box for what I hear of that game's length and complexity

    It’s actually not that bad, it’s also an old game from before the days of component and production bloat, I feel like.

    It’s like 12 pages of actual rules. It’s a game where all the complexity comes from the player interactions, and where the whole game goes sideways because people just don’t respect the power of the Emperor’s auction power and so on.

    It’s why I like it. The core game is relatively simple. It’s all just about how the asymmetric powers interact.

    Inquisitor on
  • initiatefailureinitiatefailure Registered User regular
    Amaryl wrote: »
    I played a couple of games of Raiders of the Northsea, and its not the worst worker placement game I've ever played - I like the elegance of the actions, of putting down a meeple, and picking up a meeple in the same action.It always seems like you just can't get the ball rolling just right, you're always missing one element. Which means; do you take another turn in the village or do you raid sub-optimally. And that's the main tension in the game - and i'm not sure if i'm into that. There's not enough ways to interact with your opponents boards either which is always a bummer for us.

    I didn't dislike playing the game though, There's just better options out there.

    I think what you described is my main selling point on the game. That aspect combined with the elegant worker placing action are really what has elevated it above most of that genre to me. the basic thing you need to do has dramatically different impact if you can do it as your first action or your second action and I love everything about that. If it's not something that hits with you though, I can't fault your preferences.

  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    Do they have a new edition of Dune that fixes whatever caused the team imbalance of TI:Rex?

    sig.gif
  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    edited August 2019
    Do they have a new edition of Dune that fixes whatever caused the team imbalance of TI:Rex?

    TI:Rex is modified from the original Dune rules so I can’t really answer that question without more information about what you are referring to for Rex.

    Edit: also somewhat depends what version of Dune they are going for and how many advanced rules they are cooking in.

    Also finally grabbed myself a copy of Battleline, such a glorious, elegant little game. Now my debate is to bring it to work for games at lunch or keep it for myself.

    Speaking of, best boardgames for an hour long work lunch break? What do you all like?

    Edit 2: skimming the leaked dune rules it looks like a mix of the original rules, some of the advance rules, and some of the recommended balance changes from tournament players.

    For example default rules put max alliance size at 2 instead of 3 now.

    Inquisitor on
  • Kristmas KthulhuKristmas Kthulhu Currently Kultist Kthulhu Registered User regular
    My Kickstarter for Zombicide Invader came in Thursday, but I just got around to opening it today.

    It's... so much stuff. There's some fun characters in the Kickstarter bonus, too, like Deckard, Pris, and Roy from Bladerunner, Doc Brown and Marty McFly, Emily Blunt's character from Live Die Repeat, and of course Rick and Morty.

    They're all off brand and renamed, but it's incredibly obvious who they're supposed to be. I'll put some pictures up later.

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