Whoa, whoa, whoa ... are you telling me that people have preferences?
Eh, more that theirs haven't been aligning with that of my group as much lately. Which is fine!
The only thing that ultimately matters with a review is how useful it is to making a purchase decision or not. Their gushing reviews have been so consistently tepid with me, that I take them being in total love with a game as a red flag from now on. That ends up being more useful than a reviewer who's on the money half the time and wrong the other half.
No need to get snippy about it, Mr Lancer.
ArcSyn is correct that I'm poking fun. Surely you must not have forgotten my talking down their excitement at War Of Whispers. And that I had to laugh at Matt's review of Cerebria, since it's a game I quite enjoy.
Topically as fuck, their review of Bunny Kingdom just went up and is speaking directly to us. XD
Brown and pink are really good. I'm not convinced stormcrow is bad, because it directly benefits you in that it robs your opponents of a source of points, so it's a nerf to everyone not you. It seems like it hurts them more if there are fewer players, just theorycrafting? So that's weird.
I think you are overvaluing character abilities, probably, yeah - the heart of the game is being someone who wins a lot of shield points. I don't actually know how to affect that, though? It seems like it relies on nobody knowing you have a ton of that houses shield and tanking the value. So maybe that means we should try to keep track of who gets which shields, and announce it to the table so nobody sneaks 30 points past everyone?
The brown player who almost won very much prioritized getting shields and the three houses he had the most from all ended up at 3 points.
Before this game we'd been playing it wrongly I think, where houses got a minus every time they lost a battle. But checking the rules the other day as far as I understood it only crushing defeats (15 points against on the battle track) will give a minus, and the also advance the winner 2 spaces instead of the normal 1.
Which seems to make shields more worthwhile and less risky than we thought. And also means there's not a huge disincentive to just getting a bunch of different shields, since you can pretty well ensure they'll at least be worth 1, maybe more.
Yeah but at least one color will be worth a lot. Crazy that yellow managed to win it brown had three colors of 3 point shields, yellow must have played very well
Brown messed up his last turn somewhat and didn't have soldier cards for all his captains. Think he only had like, three footmen.
Edit: also, it was the brown player's first time playing the game, everyone else had played at least once.
That makes perfect sense. I declare brown co-winner
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Board Games Thread, cross your fingers for me. My local game store is part of a regional chain, and while the store itself is out of King's Dilemma, it's website showed available to order, with a discount! I snagged one and now I hope it actually ships.
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
I heard about the Asmodee stuff yesterday.
One retailer has asked Asmodee how they should calculate wages for their employees handling ANA's bullshit so that they can invoice ANA for the time it takes to handle the returns.
If you haven't heard yet, today FFG's upcoming site broke a little and revealed the last announced Marvel Champions character pack. It is indeed going to be Hulk.
This makes me think it is VERY likely the first campaign box is going to be Avengers related, as the only on-screen main Avenger without a pack now is Hawkeye.
And in other Marvel news...
I think it was in jest. We've covered the topic again and again of trying to find a reviewer who can determine, either through a positive correlation, or a negative one, how you might feel about a game.
And again and again he drops in with his snipes and it gets tiresome. Nobody is personally attacking the SU&SD people, but nobody says "It's almost as if..." without an implicit personal swipe at the person they're addressing.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
edited February 2020
Biggest shrug
I guess it shouldn't be surprising that among board gamers there are people who want to take things personally, but I'm surprised you're one of them.
[edit]
To be less dismissive, the reason I'm surprised is that I feel like you and I have a very similar habit of posting opinions and subjective observation in a factual manner. I recognize this of myself and am absolutely willing to critique and make fun of it. There's definitely no "holier-than-thou" element to any of what I've said.
Article says the rules are going to be a bit different from Disney Villainous, so it is unlikely they will be cross-compatible. But I can hope.
The base game is going to be 5 villains (compared to Disney's 6).
Announced is Hela, Ultron, and Thanos.
Reading the description there are clear differences that will make cross-compatibility a nightmare.
In the Marvel version, everyone uses the same Fate deck because in the Marvel universe your plans can be disrupted by ANYONE not just your specific antagonists. Also there are Event cards that straight-up don't exist in the Disney version.
I've held off on the Disney Villians thing because of that element. But I like the idea of the Fate deck being a tool to screw over all the villians, and not just players targeting other players. Of course, I play with kids, so those types of mechanics where someone feels directly targeted by another player can sometimes end up in what me and my wife call a "baby hulk" moment for one of the kids. :biggrin:
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Yeah.. due to the poor layout of the article website, I missed like 2/3 of the article that talked about all the unique stuff to the set.
CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
So the Oregon Trail card game is hot diarrhea, but it looks like a different company put out an actual Oregon Trail board game. Anyone had a chance to scope that one out?
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
FFG keeps playing with my heart. While I wasn't enamored with the Fallout board game, I think that was mostly a combination of who I played it with and the competitive nature.
A co-op upgrade pack for Fallout and the Fallout: New California expansion. Co-op versions of every scenario in the game, and other modifier decks and the like.
Not bad for a $15 upgrade!
I kinda thought they were done with the Fallout board game, to be frank.
Anyway, I was reading about MOBA-like games such as Cloudspire, and one comment mentioned Aristeia. It's a 1v1 arena/skirmish game where you build a team of four characters and fight over objectives. It very much reminds me of Overwatch. However, they did not include any kind of colored bases for use with the figures. This is downright criminal and I want to scream. Aside from that, I'm tempted to go down a deep well and start gobbling up additional character expansions and token upgrades.
Xbox Live, PSN & Origin: Vacorsis 3DS: 2638-0037-166
Anyway, I was reading about MOBA-like games such as Cloudspire, and one comment mentioned Aristeia. It's a 1v1 arena/skirmish game where you build a team of four characters and fight over objectives. It very much reminds me of Overwatch. However, they did not include any kind of colored bases for use with the figures. This is downright criminal and I want to scream. Aside from that, I'm tempted to go down a deep well and start gobbling up additional character expansions and token upgrades.
I went down this rabbit whole a bit back and ended backing the Godtear and Super Fantasy Brawl Kickstarters. God Tear has been pretty fun so far, SFB hasn't arrived yet tho it seems a lot more casual random fun.
Playing Paladins of the West Kingdom tonight. I'm intimidated! It's a worker placement (ish) Euro with a smattering of drafting and a lot of interconnected systems. From reading the rulebook I've just about got a handle what you can do in terms of available actions, but as to how you form that in to some kind of strategy I've no idea. I'm sure it'll all become clear in play...
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I got to play my friend's copy of Empyreal: Spells and Steam, which looked very intimidating (not that I mind intimidating games) but was actually quite an elegant design. Definitely not a multiplayer solitaire game, as you're all competing for very limited resources and have a variety of tools that can fuck with your opponent's positions while improving your own. We played relatively peacefully (relatively) but I can see it getting real nasty with experienced players.
There was a ton of variety in starting faction and abilities that you gain, so I doubt replayability is a problem. We also didn't play with a bunch of the "expansion" content. Unsurprisingly from a L99 game, the component design was excellent, and while the huge box is very huge it means all the components are in storage inserts that double as play containers.
I got to play my friend's copy of Empyreal: Spells and Steam, which looked very intimidating (not that I mind intimidating games) but was actually quite an elegant design. Definitely not a multiplayer solitaire game, as you're all competing for very limited resources and have a variety of tools that can fuck with your opponent's positions while improving your own. We played relatively peacefully (relatively) but I can see it getting real nasty with experienced players.
There was a ton of variety in starting faction and abilities that you gain, so I doubt replayability is a problem. We also didn't play with a bunch of the "expansion" content. Unsurprisingly from a L99 game, the component design was excellent, and while the huge box is very huge it means all the components are in storage inserts that double as play containers.
When I read the name I was hoping it was a train game, but figured it was just going to end up being some steampunk magitech game, but nope it IS a train game. Now there’s 90 dollars in my wallets trying to escape.
Playing Paladins of the West Kingdom tonight. I'm intimidated! It's a worker placement (ish) Euro with a smattering of drafting and a lot of interconnected systems. From reading the rulebook I've just about got a handle what you can do in terms of available actions, but as to how you form that in to some kind of strategy I've no idea. I'm sure it'll all become clear in play...
I lost horribly! It's a real Euro puzzler. I kept planning strings of three or four actions and then getting to the final move and going 'Shit! Not enough food!' or similar. Looking forward to giving it a second go now I've got a better feel for it.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Oh hey, Boardgame thread, was gonna ask.
Yesterday at Target, after being shocked at seeing some kind of Warhammer 40K product IN TARGET, I looked through all the nostalgia bait board games that are out there.
Did you know there's a Top Gun board game?
Did you know it is bathed in 80s synth coloring that in no way matches anything about the movie?
Did you know it has two phases?
Did you know one of those phases is the volleyball phase, and the other is flight school?
Part of me is actually intrigued by how that would even WORK.
(Also there was a Trapper Keeper game but that's just no.)
Yesterday at Target, after being shocked at seeing some kind of Warhammer 40K product IN TARGET, I looked through all the nostalgia bait board games that are out there.
Did you know there's a Top Gun board game?
Did you know it is bathed in 80s synth coloring that in no way matches anything about the movie?
Did you know it has two phases?
Did you know one of those phases is the volleyball phase, and the other is flight school?
Part of me is actually intrigued by how that would even WORK.
(Also there was a Trapper Keeper game but that's just no.)
I haven't played Top Gun, but from what I've heard the volleyball part is pretty fun by itself. Flight school isn't bad, but the parts are a little fiddly.
I've played the Trapper Keeper game (a friend bought it). For what it is, it's actually kinda enjoyable. I mean, it's not one I'd pick to pull out and play myself, but every once in a while it wouldn't be a horrible light game to play. Basically I wouldn't necessarily recommend picking it up unless you have some big connection to the nostalgia it's going for, but there are also a lot of worse games you could play instead.
Anyway, I was reading about MOBA-like games such as Cloudspire, and one comment mentioned Aristeia. It's a 1v1 arena/skirmish game where you build a team of four characters and fight over objectives. It very much reminds me of Overwatch. However, they did not include any kind of colored bases for use with the figures. This is downright criminal and I want to scream. Aside from that, I'm tempted to go down a deep well and start gobbling up additional character expansions and token upgrades.
As an aside, I've always considered Overwatch as part of the natural progression of MOBAs continuing to ditch all the fussy RPG elements: first it was last hitting, then gold and items, finally any kind of leveling and now it's a FPS!
I got to play my friend's copy of Empyreal: Spells and Steam, which looked very intimidating (not that I mind intimidating games) but was actually quite an elegant design. Definitely not a multiplayer solitaire game, as you're all competing for very limited resources and have a variety of tools that can fuck with your opponent's positions while improving your own. We played relatively peacefully (relatively) but I can see it getting real nasty with experienced players.
There was a ton of variety in starting faction and abilities that you gain, so I doubt replayability is a problem. We also didn't play with a bunch of the "expansion" content. Unsurprisingly from a L99 game, the component design was excellent, and while the huge box is very huge it means all the components are in storage inserts that double as play containers.
The expansion As Above, So Below also has a second captain for all the Companies so there’s even more variety.
I think my favorite so far is still the Caterpillar Conveyance Consortium if just because of the idea that it’s run by forward-thinking druids that decided to try to do a end-round around all the others and made a eco-friendly alternative.
Even if it involves giant caterpillars with train cars on their backs that eat everything in front of them.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I got to play my friend's copy of Empyreal: Spells and Steam, which looked very intimidating (not that I mind intimidating games) but was actually quite an elegant design. Definitely not a multiplayer solitaire game, as you're all competing for very limited resources and have a variety of tools that can fuck with your opponent's positions while improving your own. We played relatively peacefully (relatively) but I can see it getting real nasty with experienced players.
There was a ton of variety in starting faction and abilities that you gain, so I doubt replayability is a problem. We also didn't play with a bunch of the "expansion" content. Unsurprisingly from a L99 game, the component design was excellent, and while the huge box is very huge it means all the components are in storage inserts that double as play containers.
The expansion As Above, So Below also has a second captain for all the Companies so there’s even more variety.
I think my favorite so far is still the Caterpillar Conveyance Consortium if just because of the idea that it’s run by forward-thinking druids that decided to try to do a end-round around all the others and made a eco-friendly alternative.
Even if it involves giant caterpillars with train cars on their backs that eat everything in front of them.
We played with that expansion, though most of us picked semi-randomly. I played the fascist vampire lady that could hoard goals and she seemed really strong.
Yesterday at Target, after being shocked at seeing some kind of Warhammer 40K product IN TARGET, I looked through all the nostalgia bait board games that are out there.
Did you know there's a Top Gun board game?
Did you know it is bathed in 80s synth coloring that in no way matches anything about the movie?
Did you know it has two phases?
Did you know one of those phases is the volleyball phase, and the other is flight school?
Part of me is actually intrigued by how that would even WORK.
(Also there was a Trapper Keeper game but that's just no.)
I haven't played Top Gun, but from what I've heard the volleyball part is pretty fun by itself. Flight school isn't bad, but the parts are a little fiddly.
I've played the Trapper Keeper game (a friend bought it). For what it is, it's actually kinda enjoyable. I mean, it's not one I'd pick to pull out and play myself, but every once in a while it wouldn't be a horrible light game to play. Basically I wouldn't necessarily recommend picking it up unless you have some big connection to the nostalgia it's going for, but there are also a lot of worse games you could play instead.
In Top Gun: Plot Twist Party Game, you play as your favorite pilots from the movie as you do your best to maneuver and insult your way to be the winner of the Top Gun Trophy!
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
edited February 2020
Apparently Dragon Dice still exists!?
There's a new Kickstarter for an Amazon army. Oh man, I loved that game. I'm 95% sure I didn't even come close to ever playing it correctly as I'm fairly sure my parents bought my brother and I booster packs rather than actual starter sets.
I am super tempted.
Mojo_Jojo on
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Got to play Quoridor and Onitama today for the first time. I'm sure our strategy was terrible (playing my two sons), but definitely a lot of room for mastering the strategy and enjoy some great games with them. Really glad to have them in my library.
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NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
There's a new Kickstarter for an Amazon army. Oh man, I loved that game. I'm 95% sure I didn't even come close to ever playing it correctly as I'm fairly sure mum parents bought my brother and I booster packs rather than actual starter sets.
I am super tempted.
Oh, wow. I just happened to unearth my old box of Dragon Dice stuff yesterday. Coincidences be coinciding! Nice to see they've passed their (very modest) funding goal.
I'm glad to see SFR is still kicking around and supporting the game. One of my fonder memories of early high school is chucking a bunch of Dragon Dice with my friends after discovering it at Gen Con.
Nips on
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38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
Some impressions of games I've played recently.
Underwater Cities:
There is a bit of setup time, and the fact that the two types of domes are clearly half pokeballs is somewhat distracting. This game is a bit of a worker placement/engine building hybrid. You have your own personal board to develop by building cities, tunnels, science labs, farms, and desalinization plants. All of the things you build on your board provide you with passive income each era (three eras in the game), but they all only work if they are attached to a city and cities require food as upkeep. Building in certain places designated on the board give you various one time bonuses.
The main board is where you get to place your three workers. There are five slots of each of three colors that you can claim. When you claim a spot you play a card. If the card is the same color as the spot, then you can also do whatever the card says. Maybe its a one time bonus, maybe its a permanent bonus, and sometimes it is an A card, which provides one time bonuses up to once per "era". Also you can only have 4 of them and if you get a 5th one you have to discard one. You can only activate A cards if you land on one of the three A spaces though.
If your card color doesn't match then your card is wasted ( unless you previously played a card that gives you stuff for wasting your cards). So you have to decide between playing in sub-optimal spaces and wasting your cards. It is fun to try and build up your city infrastructure as well. Putting matching substructures on a city gives a large income bonus, but for end game scoring you want one of each on every city.
With all of the above combined it makes for a game of interesting choices. I've heard it compared to Terraforming Mars and I found this game to be much more engaging than that one. You don't have to worry about take-thats from other players, but you do need to move fast to get the good spaces and there is a limited supply of advanced cities (we ran out in a 3 player game). The game was the only game of the night with 3 and teaching time. 4 might be too long.
Age of Steam:
This game is a bear right from the start. First you issue stock. If you don't issue stock you have no money and can't play. You are underwater for the first half of the game, everything you do permanently increases your expenses and they will outweigh your income for at least the first 2-4 turns. You get player eliminated if you can't cover your expenses.
The main flow of the game is bid on turn order 3rd place and beyond only pay half their bid. Then in turn order select a special power. There are a few good ones which you won't get without a good spot in turn order. Then you can build some track. Then you can deliver goods.
Delivering goods is pretty silly. You move cubes down links that the players build. You need to have a locomotive level >= the amount of links you use. For each link you use the owner of the link gains one income. Here's the silly part. Cubes have to go to the city of their color, and you can't move a blue cube through a blue city to get to a further away and more profitable blue city. You can deliver a blue cube that starts on a blue city to a different blue city though.
Anyways, delivering goods is your only way to increase your income. Everyone gets to deliver twice. You can also pass or raise your locomotive level. Then income "pays out" Income-stock issued-locomotive level = some negative number. Then your income is reduced. If you are between 10-19 income you lose 2 income. 20-29 lose 4 income. 30-39 lose *8* income!
I ended up enjoying this a lot more than Irish Gauge or Chicago Express. There are a lot of interesting choices to make here and I would play again.
I think I am just terrible at bidding for turn order. I never want to "waste my money on it" and when I do I end up in roughly the same order but with less money. I love bidding games; Ra is a favorite, but turn order I can not get the hang of.
I should mention that this game has such minimalist art it is noteworthy. The map isn't as beige as older games but wow, there's not much going on either.
The wife and I have been enjoying playing Wingspan as a duo. We play it a few times a week, more that we've ever gamed together in our 17+ year relationship. We're pretty evenly matched most of the time, which makes it extra fun.
Anyway, we've been playing enough that I decided to pick up the European expansion. While I was on Amazon, I saw My Little Scythe was on sale, so I thought, "Why the heck not? Maybe the kids will enjoy it."
One for me. One for them. I only think it's fair.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
edited February 2020
Got in two board games today with a good friend!
I'm gonna tell you about them in reverse order.
First, New Frontiers: The Race For the Galaxy Boardgame:
So how does a board game, based on a card game, based on another board game play?
REALLY WELL!
The game played much quicker than I was expecting, as we were whipping through turns fairly quickly once we knew what we wanted to do. Because a lot more information is public, and because the developments are a known quantity, it is really easy to build the engine you are looking for (compared to Race and Roll). In the end, I won 72 to 67, I believe - much closer than we thought, with my opponent building a massive world conquering empire and me going with Alien and Uplift production.
I don't know how it would scale to more players. Most of the actions can be simultaneous, and with 2 players I was able to leverage my two actions in a known outcome. But there isn't much downtime, which is very nice. Also we decided to jump in the deep end and play with goals, which were more or less a wash for both of us. Well, sorta - I got 8 points from one goal that my opponent didn't, so maybe that put me over the edge.
I love how this game handles exploring - it goes in player order and starts with 7 worlds. So we ended up with 3 (plus additional powers). But in a larger game, the drafting of worlds takes on much more importance.
Really, the worst part of this game is its box art and it's high price for what you get. I think they could've saved some money by not giving the resource cubes, which are fun to play with but not exactly necessary. I know the box is oversized because they were planning for expansions, which is appreciated. But really, the artwork on the box is just... no. It doesn't convey the game or how it plays in any way.
Second, AFTERMATH:
Image may contain spoilers from the first mission, so just to be safe...
So. The humans disappeared. Small rodents have gained intelligence. And your nest needs protecting. Sounds fun, yes?
This is a campaign game, using the Adventure Book system from Stuffed Fables. Only you are trying to survive with limited resources in a world where all sorts of artifacts were left behind by humans. My initial feelings were that it reminded me of Kingdom Death: Monster, but with much less stat tracking and a lot more possibilities. The games are designed so that you go out on missions, and can swap out players, characters, etc. between missions. But at the end, you have to perform upkeep... and hope your nest survives.
Oh, and one of the player characters is a gerbil of the class "big" who wields a chef's knife and chucks other players or heavy objects around. And the "Dragon" of the game is a cat. And the minis are GORGEOUS.
I can't 100% say we played the initial mission right. There were definitely some edge cases I felt we ran into, but I think we played them right. And the story that's being told is just charming and ridiculous. The initial mission is a journey to the temple of Enjo, which I can't wait to make again.
Oh, and because it's an adventure book where the maps are part of the book, every area is really well detailed and feels thematic without taking up a ton of table space.
.... I really think I want to buy this game just to have it in my collection. Holy fuck I haven't wanted to play a game again this bad in a while.
Played our first two games of King's Dilemma today.
It was excellent, and really captured the feeling of making difficult political decisions. The fact that you have to balance your one-game objective against your long-term objectives, but also consider the arc of the narrative you're deciding on, makes it very challenging.
One small issue is that I am finding it hard to actually convince people to sway their votes. First of all, everyone has pretty clear objectives and clear means of pursuing them, so it's sometimes hard to convince them to go against their clear interests. Second of all, successful votes cost power, which is a very precious resource that is hard to regain (your gathering power can always be diluted by others doing it). It takes a lot to convince someone to spend that power. Plus it's worth VP at the end.
I think we realized how crucial it is to actually guide the various storylines in the right direction, tonight, so that might change — unknown results can be a strong factor, and the decisions branch quite a bit. We opened a number of envelopes tonight, which changed the story for sure.
First, New Horizons: The Race For the Galaxy Boardgame:
I assume you meant New Frontiers. I'm also not sure how to feel about goals since we found the information didn't stay hidden for long though maybe that's because we were at 5p.
Posts
Topically as fuck, their review of Bunny Kingdom just went up and is speaking directly to us. XD
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
That makes perfect sense. I declare brown co-winner
Was thinking too of getting some good luck coins to replace the cardboard tokens and use in some other games as well. Has anyone ever used them before? How do they hold up or feel?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07Y8CM87Q/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?smid=ARM5JG1QBG2C7&psc=1
Amazon has 260 for $12, which I think is pretty good for metal coins?
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
One retailer has asked Asmodee how they should calculate wages for their employees handling ANA's bullshit so that they can invoice ANA for the time it takes to handle the returns.
If you haven't heard yet, today FFG's upcoming site broke a little and revealed the last announced Marvel Champions character pack. It is indeed going to be Hulk.
This makes me think it is VERY likely the first campaign box is going to be Avengers related, as the only on-screen main Avenger without a pack now is Hawkeye.
And in other Marvel news...
MARVEL VILLAINOUS!
https://io9.gizmodo.com/marvels-baddies-are-getting-their-own-disney-villainous-1841702456?rev=1582124031398&utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow&utm_source=io9_facebook&fbclid=IwAR17kBoLeVQ5QdaDmeYjj_92QjsgwiFutS68VJnrvXOly1S71B177H-uoWA
Article says the rules are going to be a bit different from Disney Villainous, so it is unlikely they will be cross-compatible. But I can hope.
The base game is going to be 5 villains (compared to Disney's 6).
Announced is Hela, Ultron, and Thanos.
And again and again he drops in with his snipes and it gets tiresome. Nobody is personally attacking the SU&SD people, but nobody says "It's almost as if..." without an implicit personal swipe at the person they're addressing.
I guess it shouldn't be surprising that among board gamers there are people who want to take things personally, but I'm surprised you're one of them.
[edit]
To be less dismissive, the reason I'm surprised is that I feel like you and I have a very similar habit of posting opinions and subjective observation in a factual manner. I recognize this of myself and am absolutely willing to critique and make fun of it. There's definitely no "holier-than-thou" element to any of what I've said.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Reading the description there are clear differences that will make cross-compatibility a nightmare.
In the Marvel version, everyone uses the same Fate deck because in the Marvel universe your plans can be disrupted by ANYONE not just your specific antagonists. Also there are Event cards that straight-up don't exist in the Disney version.
Sounds awesome.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Whelp...
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2020/2/20/atomic-bonds/
A co-op upgrade pack for Fallout and the Fallout: New California expansion. Co-op versions of every scenario in the game, and other modifier decks and the like.
Not bad for a $15 upgrade!
I kinda thought they were done with the Fallout board game, to be frank.
Oh yea for sure. Already have the group set up to play it. Hopefully we can get something going in the next few weeks.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Anyway, I was reading about MOBA-like games such as Cloudspire, and one comment mentioned Aristeia. It's a 1v1 arena/skirmish game where you build a team of four characters and fight over objectives. It very much reminds me of Overwatch. However, they did not include any kind of colored bases for use with the figures. This is downright criminal and I want to scream. Aside from that, I'm tempted to go down a deep well and start gobbling up additional character expansions and token upgrades.
I went down this rabbit whole a bit back and ended backing the Godtear and Super Fantasy Brawl Kickstarters. God Tear has been pretty fun so far, SFB hasn't arrived yet tho it seems a lot more casual random fun.
There was a ton of variety in starting faction and abilities that you gain, so I doubt replayability is a problem. We also didn't play with a bunch of the "expansion" content. Unsurprisingly from a L99 game, the component design was excellent, and while the huge box is very huge it means all the components are in storage inserts that double as play containers.
When I read the name I was hoping it was a train game, but figured it was just going to end up being some steampunk magitech game, but nope it IS a train game. Now there’s 90 dollars in my wallets trying to escape.
I'd pay a bounty if someone else could find a copy of War of Whispers. costs, shipping, bonus!
e: Amazon Warehouse has King's Dilemma as a used copy for 49.95. I can't imagine that's a good thing.
Selling Board Games for Medical Bills
I lost horribly! It's a real Euro puzzler. I kept planning strings of three or four actions and then getting to the final move and going 'Shit! Not enough food!' or similar. Looking forward to giving it a second go now I've got a better feel for it.
Yesterday at Target, after being shocked at seeing some kind of Warhammer 40K product IN TARGET, I looked through all the nostalgia bait board games that are out there.
Did you know there's a Top Gun board game?
Did you know it is bathed in 80s synth coloring that in no way matches anything about the movie?
Did you know it has two phases?
Did you know one of those phases is the volleyball phase, and the other is flight school?
Part of me is actually intrigued by how that would even WORK.
(Also there was a Trapper Keeper game but that's just no.)
I haven't played Top Gun, but from what I've heard the volleyball part is pretty fun by itself. Flight school isn't bad, but the parts are a little fiddly.
I've played the Trapper Keeper game (a friend bought it). For what it is, it's actually kinda enjoyable. I mean, it's not one I'd pick to pull out and play myself, but every once in a while it wouldn't be a horrible light game to play. Basically I wouldn't necessarily recommend picking it up unless you have some big connection to the nostalgia it's going for, but there are also a lot of worse games you could play instead.
Steam ID
As an aside, I've always considered Overwatch as part of the natural progression of MOBAs continuing to ditch all the fussy RPG elements: first it was last hitting, then gold and items, finally any kind of leveling and now it's a FPS!
Anything to help me convince euro playing strangers it's fun...
The expansion As Above, So Below also has a second captain for all the Companies so there’s even more variety.
I think my favorite so far is still the Caterpillar Conveyance Consortium if just because of the idea that it’s run by forward-thinking druids that decided to try to do a end-round around all the others and made a eco-friendly alternative.
Even if it involves giant caterpillars with train cars on their backs that eat everything in front of them.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
We played with that expansion, though most of us picked semi-randomly. I played the fascist vampire lady that could hoard goals and she seemed really strong.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
In Top Gun: Plot Twist Party Game, you play as your favorite pilots from the movie as you do your best to maneuver and insult your way to be the winner of the Top Gun Trophy!
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/216072/top-gun-plot-twist-party-game
There's a new Kickstarter for an Amazon army. Oh man, I loved that game. I'm 95% sure I didn't even come close to ever playing it correctly as I'm fairly sure my parents bought my brother and I booster packs rather than actual starter sets.
I am super tempted.
Oh, wow. I just happened to unearth my old box of Dragon Dice stuff yesterday. Coincidences be coinciding! Nice to see they've passed their (very modest) funding goal.
I'm glad to see SFR is still kicking around and supporting the game. One of my fonder memories of early high school is chucking a bunch of Dragon Dice with my friends after discovering it at Gen Con.
Underwater Cities:
There is a bit of setup time, and the fact that the two types of domes are clearly half pokeballs is somewhat distracting. This game is a bit of a worker placement/engine building hybrid. You have your own personal board to develop by building cities, tunnels, science labs, farms, and desalinization plants. All of the things you build on your board provide you with passive income each era (three eras in the game), but they all only work if they are attached to a city and cities require food as upkeep. Building in certain places designated on the board give you various one time bonuses.
The main board is where you get to place your three workers. There are five slots of each of three colors that you can claim. When you claim a spot you play a card. If the card is the same color as the spot, then you can also do whatever the card says. Maybe its a one time bonus, maybe its a permanent bonus, and sometimes it is an A card, which provides one time bonuses up to once per "era". Also you can only have 4 of them and if you get a 5th one you have to discard one. You can only activate A cards if you land on one of the three A spaces though.
If your card color doesn't match then your card is wasted ( unless you previously played a card that gives you stuff for wasting your cards). So you have to decide between playing in sub-optimal spaces and wasting your cards. It is fun to try and build up your city infrastructure as well. Putting matching substructures on a city gives a large income bonus, but for end game scoring you want one of each on every city.
With all of the above combined it makes for a game of interesting choices. I've heard it compared to Terraforming Mars and I found this game to be much more engaging than that one. You don't have to worry about take-thats from other players, but you do need to move fast to get the good spaces and there is a limited supply of advanced cities (we ran out in a 3 player game). The game was the only game of the night with 3 and teaching time. 4 might be too long.
Age of Steam:
This game is a bear right from the start. First you issue stock. If you don't issue stock you have no money and can't play. You are underwater for the first half of the game, everything you do permanently increases your expenses and they will outweigh your income for at least the first 2-4 turns. You get player eliminated if you can't cover your expenses.
The main flow of the game is bid on turn order 3rd place and beyond only pay half their bid. Then in turn order select a special power. There are a few good ones which you won't get without a good spot in turn order. Then you can build some track. Then you can deliver goods.
Delivering goods is pretty silly. You move cubes down links that the players build. You need to have a locomotive level >= the amount of links you use. For each link you use the owner of the link gains one income. Here's the silly part. Cubes have to go to the city of their color, and you can't move a blue cube through a blue city to get to a further away and more profitable blue city. You can deliver a blue cube that starts on a blue city to a different blue city though.
Anyways, delivering goods is your only way to increase your income. Everyone gets to deliver twice. You can also pass or raise your locomotive level. Then income "pays out" Income-stock issued-locomotive level = some negative number. Then your income is reduced. If you are between 10-19 income you lose 2 income. 20-29 lose 4 income. 30-39 lose *8* income!
I ended up enjoying this a lot more than Irish Gauge or Chicago Express. There are a lot of interesting choices to make here and I would play again.
I think I am just terrible at bidding for turn order. I never want to "waste my money on it" and when I do I end up in roughly the same order but with less money. I love bidding games; Ra is a favorite, but turn order I can not get the hang of.
I should mention that this game has such minimalist art it is noteworthy. The map isn't as beige as older games but wow, there's not much going on either.
Anyway, we've been playing enough that I decided to pick up the European expansion. While I was on Amazon, I saw My Little Scythe was on sale, so I thought, "Why the heck not? Maybe the kids will enjoy it."
One for me. One for them. I only think it's fair.
I'm gonna tell you about them in reverse order.
First, New Frontiers: The Race For the Galaxy Boardgame:
So how does a board game, based on a card game, based on another board game play?
REALLY WELL!
The game played much quicker than I was expecting, as we were whipping through turns fairly quickly once we knew what we wanted to do. Because a lot more information is public, and because the developments are a known quantity, it is really easy to build the engine you are looking for (compared to Race and Roll). In the end, I won 72 to 67, I believe - much closer than we thought, with my opponent building a massive world conquering empire and me going with Alien and Uplift production.
I don't know how it would scale to more players. Most of the actions can be simultaneous, and with 2 players I was able to leverage my two actions in a known outcome. But there isn't much downtime, which is very nice. Also we decided to jump in the deep end and play with goals, which were more or less a wash for both of us. Well, sorta - I got 8 points from one goal that my opponent didn't, so maybe that put me over the edge.
I love how this game handles exploring - it goes in player order and starts with 7 worlds. So we ended up with 3 (plus additional powers). But in a larger game, the drafting of worlds takes on much more importance.
Really, the worst part of this game is its box art and it's high price for what you get. I think they could've saved some money by not giving the resource cubes, which are fun to play with but not exactly necessary. I know the box is oversized because they were planning for expansions, which is appreciated. But really, the artwork on the box is just... no. It doesn't convey the game or how it plays in any way.
Second, AFTERMATH:
Image may contain spoilers from the first mission, so just to be safe...
So. The humans disappeared. Small rodents have gained intelligence. And your nest needs protecting. Sounds fun, yes?
This is a campaign game, using the Adventure Book system from Stuffed Fables. Only you are trying to survive with limited resources in a world where all sorts of artifacts were left behind by humans. My initial feelings were that it reminded me of Kingdom Death: Monster, but with much less stat tracking and a lot more possibilities. The games are designed so that you go out on missions, and can swap out players, characters, etc. between missions. But at the end, you have to perform upkeep... and hope your nest survives.
Oh, and one of the player characters is a gerbil of the class "big" who wields a chef's knife and chucks other players or heavy objects around. And the "Dragon" of the game is a cat. And the minis are GORGEOUS.
I can't 100% say we played the initial mission right. There were definitely some edge cases I felt we ran into, but I think we played them right. And the story that's being told is just charming and ridiculous. The initial mission is a journey to the temple of Enjo, which I can't wait to make again.
Oh, and because it's an adventure book where the maps are part of the book, every area is really well detailed and feels thematic without taking up a ton of table space.
.... I really think I want to buy this game just to have it in my collection. Holy fuck I haven't wanted to play a game again this bad in a while.
NGL a part of me was really hoping the conclusion here was "it plays like Puerto Rico IN SPAAAAAACE".
It was excellent, and really captured the feeling of making difficult political decisions. The fact that you have to balance your one-game objective against your long-term objectives, but also consider the arc of the narrative you're deciding on, makes it very challenging.
One small issue is that I am finding it hard to actually convince people to sway their votes. First of all, everyone has pretty clear objectives and clear means of pursuing them, so it's sometimes hard to convince them to go against their clear interests. Second of all, successful votes cost power, which is a very precious resource that is hard to regain (your gathering power can always be diluted by others doing it). It takes a lot to convince someone to spend that power. Plus it's worth VP at the end.
I think we realized how crucial it is to actually guide the various storylines in the right direction, tonight, so that might change — unknown results can be a strong factor, and the decisions branch quite a bit. We opened a number of envelopes tonight, which changed the story for sure.
I assume you meant New Frontiers. I'm also not sure how to feel about goals since we found the information didn't stay hidden for long though maybe that's because we were at 5p.