Anyone have an opinion on the Ghost Stories: Black Secret expansion?
We would love a chance to do competitive Ghost Stories with a villain player, but reading some reviews and looking at a summary, it does look like they went overboard with adding too many things that it looks overly busy. Is that wrong?
With all the frosthaven talk i gotta say in more excited about Jaws of the Lion. A cheap version of gloomhaven that you play directly in the scenario book instead of having to set up maps sounds directly targeted at me.
Anyone have an opinion on the Ghost Stories: Black Secret expansion?
We would love a chance to do competitive Ghost Stories with a villain player, but reading some reviews and looking at a summary, it does look like they went overboard with adding too many things that it looks overly busy. Is that wrong?
it's awful. just super super boring to play the ghost king or whatever he's called
Anyone have an opinion on the Ghost Stories: Black Secret expansion?
We would love a chance to do competitive Ghost Stories with a villain player, but reading some reviews and looking at a summary, it does look like they went overboard with adding too many things that it looks overly busy. Is that wrong?
I would say yeah it does feel a bit like they went overboard adding things so that the bad guy player would have a game to play. He's involved in every player's turn. I can't say how fun he is from personal experience, but the guy in our group who got to play him was having fun. I'd say ultimately it was a neat novelty that we might pull out occasionally, or if we have 5 players and everyone really wants to play Ghost Stories, but it's not going to be standard play for us from now on or anything.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Got my copy of King of Tokyo: Dark.
This is gorgeous. I know it's a light game of dice chucking, but up till now I haven't owned a copy. The tray is well done (and supports sleeving!) and it sounds like it was designed that if you want to chuck in the expansions, you can.
I considered getting that for my kids, but we already have Tokyo and new york and it didn't seem like it would be worth the cost for us. Looks great though and glad they improved the insert. I need to make a new one to fit expansions.
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38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
Thanks for posting the target sale
I bought Jaws which my friend has been raving about. Worst case scenario I have a reasonable excuse to say we are going to need a bigger boat.
I bought Imhotep which was described as a slightly more interesting Splendor, but Splendor is my wife's favorite game so slightly more interesting should hopefully work.
And then I got their poker chip set because they have a nice weight and its a good deal.
Thanks for posting the target sale
I bought Jaws which my friend has been raving about. Worst case scenario I have a reasonable excuse to say we are going to need a bigger boat.
I bought Imhotep which was described as a slightly more interesting Splendor, but Splendor is my wife's favorite game so slightly more interesting should hopefully work.
And then I got their poker chip set because they have a nice weight and its a good deal.
Jaws is great as a fun love letter to the movie in board game form. Like Horrified, it's themey, a bit silly, but really genuine-feeling in its nostalgia, and does well to lighten up mechanics from more nerdy, advanced games so you can bring it to the table with people who may not otherwise be interested.
+1
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
I considered getting that for my kids, but we already have Tokyo and new york and it didn't seem like it would be worth the cost for us. Looks great though and glad they improved the insert. I need to make a new one to fit expansions.
A bit of browsing on BGG implies it's basically an updated CE of the original King of Tokyo. I do like the wickedness tracker idea, to help you get a boost if your dice rolling sucks. Supposedly it can be combined with other sets, but the card backs are very unique so I don't know if that is a good idea - plus some specifically reference the wickedness track.
I have been debating picking up King of Tokyo or King of New York for a while. I don't know what is unique about all of them. I do know the stand-alone transforming kitty seems right up my alley, given my collections.
This is the box as it first came. The wickedness trackers go in their own spots in the middle, and are actually plastic pieces with some thickness so I don't think they will move around. The wickedness tiles, meanwhile, go in the center-left well where the wickedness trackers currently are, and the punchout counters for smoke, shrink ray and acid spit go in the upper-right tray.
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
Now that we've payed it, I know it was touched on earlier in the thread when people were first getting it, but Oceans is definitely a 100% better, really nice Evolution improvement. The deep deck is exactly what the game's structure needed, allowing otherwise similar species to find a niche and flourish. The reef + ocean is also much better than the watering hole or whatever it was, as it creates a better overall dynamic for feeding.
This isn't a game I personally would buy at this point in my board game lifetime, but I would have loved it as an early purchase. It offers variety, but a very controlled variety with a solid foundation. It offers conflict, but a very restrained conflict that doesn't generally feel personal or devastating. It's just a solid, approachable game that I would have no problem recommending to people.
Anyone have an opinion on the Ghost Stories: Black Secret expansion?
We would love a chance to do competitive Ghost Stories with a villain player, but reading some reviews and looking at a summary, it does look like they went overboard with adding too many things that it looks overly busy. Is that wrong?
I would say yeah it does feel a bit like they went overboard adding things so that the bad guy player would have a game to play. He's involved in every player's turn. I can't say how fun he is from personal experience, but the guy in our group who got to play him was having fun. I'd say ultimately it was a neat novelty that we might pull out occasionally, or if we have 5 players and everyone really wants to play Ghost Stories, but it's not going to be standard play for us from now on or anything.
Hmmmm...my concerns was a review saying that it's the Wu player's turn for 80% of the game (essentially taking 2 turns at every player's Yin phase) and the monk players felt left out. That there's an overproduced side board with plastic demon minis and all they do is search through tiles without interacting with anything?
Right now the price is listed as more expensive than the base game. o_O
I bought Imhotep which was described as a slightly more interesting Splendor
I'm struggling to figure out what that comparison is based on, besides the general complexity level. They are extremely different games. Imhotep is a mean game where what you do is often at the expense of other players' plans. This does happen some in Splendor but is uncommon; Splendor is more of a race to points.
Imhotep is a great game, though, don't get me wrong.
Anyone have an opinion on the Ghost Stories: Black Secret expansion?
We would love a chance to do competitive Ghost Stories with a villain player, but reading some reviews and looking at a summary, it does look like they went overboard with adding too many things that it looks overly busy. Is that wrong?
I would say yeah it does feel a bit like they went overboard adding things so that the bad guy player would have a game to play. He's involved in every player's turn. I can't say how fun he is from personal experience, but the guy in our group who got to play him was having fun. I'd say ultimately it was a neat novelty that we might pull out occasionally, or if we have 5 players and everyone really wants to play Ghost Stories, but it's not going to be standard play for us from now on or anything.
Hmmmm...my concerns was a review saying that it's the Wu player's turn for 80% of the game (essentially taking 2 turns at every player's Yin phase) and the monk players felt left out. That there's an overproduced side board with plastic demon minis and all they do is search through tiles without interacting with anything?
Right now the price is listed as more expensive than the base game. o_O
Yeah those are pretty accurate criticisms, all told. The minis aren't that much too much compared to the other minis that the game already came with; the haunting ghosts don't really need to be plastic figures for their part in the game, but there they are. Wu Feng does get a weird amount of playtime in the game, considering he's doing stuff during each other player's turn, but at least in my group's experience, I don't think anyone felt totally left out.
I dunno. It's a strange expansion, with strange design decisions, but honestly that's probably why I'll keep it and pull it out occasionally. Like I said, it's an interesting novelty. There are actually some things I like in there, too, like the skeleton tokens (essentially easy to defeat but fairly numerous fodder enemies) and the ability for the Taoists to purchase powerups and special abilities with slowly accruing currency from a menu that's part of Wu Feng's board. It's an important addition to help balance out giving human control to the opposition in an already tough co-op game, but it's also just sort of a neat new decision making space that feels good.
I'm in for $140 on Frosthaven, no hesitation. Gloomhaven has easily been the best tabletop value for my play group, and still holds our interest after we beat the main scenario and started working through the expansion. I've found the box "good enough" to not need the broken token insert; instead we put all the enemy tokens and cards in baggies and store them in a separate box.
I'm on the fence about the extra $1 to smash a slime in my name. I really hate those things.
What do you think about the expansion? I'm suddenly hearing LOTS of bad stuff about it.
We are not far into it, but the biggest complaint I have is that there's too much moving bits of the board around. They do a lot of moving board tiles or terrain tokens, and at times it feels like the designer wanted to make a video game instead. They have spread out mission descriptions throughout the book, making it more time consuming to set up the board in advance. I know that will be a plus to many fans, but I hate the long pause in the middle of the turn when we open a door and have to put the next room together.
But it's still more Gloomhaven, and we're still having a ball. Lots of creative stuff, the new class is weird, and I'm getting to learn more about the game world.
Played our first game of Clank Legacy and it one of the better family game nights we've ever had. I do think we should have done a 'practice' game first though, there was some occasional saltiness about game decisions (I had said that once you pick up an artifact, the general idea is to get back to HQ; one player took that too literally and beelined straight back passing up a lot of points, stuff like that) that wouldn't have even come up without more familiarity. I read on BGG a suggestion to do a practice run without using any of the legacy elements and that probably would have been perfect for us.
Played our first game of Clank Legacy and it one of the better family game nights we've ever had. I do think we should have done a 'practice' game first though, there was some occasional saltiness about game decisions (I had said that once you pick up an artifact, the general idea is to get back to HQ; one player took that too literally and beelined straight back passing up a lot of points, stuff like that) that wouldn't have even come up without more familiarity. I read on BGG a suggestion to do a practice run without using any of the legacy elements and that probably would have been perfect for us.
We finished Clank Legacy tonight and absolutely loved it. It's one of the few board games I've gotten the fiance to really dive into, because there was something new to discover each game. I'm going to miss it.
So now I want to find a campaign and/or legacy replacement. I could bring out Gloomhaven or 7th Continent. Journeys in Middle-Earth kind of bored her. I'll take any other suggestions.
Xbox Live, PSN & Origin: Vacorsis 3DS: 2638-0037-166
We finished Clank Legacy tonight and absolutely loved it. It's one of the few board games I've gotten the fiance to really dive into, because there was something new to discover each game. I'm going to miss it.
So now I want to find a campaign and/or legacy replacement. I could bring out Gloomhaven or 7th Continent. Journeys in Middle-Earth kind of bored her. I'll take any other suggestions.
Charterstone might work, there's a lot of 'ooh what did we get this time' in it. My son and I played it together for a bit; I liked it well enough but he lost interest in it, I'm considering buying the reset pack and starting over with more of us playing to see if it clicks.
We finished Clank Legacy tonight and absolutely loved it. It's one of the few board games I've gotten the fiance to really dive into, because there was something new to discover each game. I'm going to miss it.
So now I want to find a campaign and/or legacy replacement. I could bring out Gloomhaven or 7th Continent. Journeys in Middle-Earth kind of bored her. I'll take any other suggestions.
Aeons End Legacy is a cooperative deck builder. AE is my favorite game that I've found any time recently, and the legacy version is an incredible introduction to the system. Then if you enjoy it there are a bunch more boxes offering more stuff that all integrates together.
We finished Clank Legacy tonight and absolutely loved it. It's one of the few board games I've gotten the fiance to really dive into, because there was something new to discover each game. I'm going to miss it.
So now I want to find a campaign and/or legacy replacement. I could bring out Gloomhaven or 7th Continent. Journeys in Middle-Earth kind of bored her. I'll take any other suggestions.
Aeons End Legacy is a cooperative deck builder. AE is my favorite game that I've found any time recently, and the legacy version is an incredible introduction to the system. Then if you enjoy it there are a bunch more boxes offering more stuff that all integrates together.
Clank Legacy is at the moment my favorite legacy/campaign standalone game, Aeon's End is not far below it.
But if you're willing to deckbuild the Arkham Horror LCG is by far my favorite campaign based game. I'll go as far as saying that outside of tabletop RPGs it's my favorite campaign style gaming experience.
AHLCG is really great it's true. 2 big caveats being the deck building aspect (a lot of people just don't have any interest in this. You can build decks off arkhamdb and go but you're missing a lot of the game if you do) and the huuuge buy in and continuing money sink if you get into it.
We finished Clank Legacy tonight and absolutely loved it. It's one of the few board games I've gotten the fiance to really dive into, because there was something new to discover each game. I'm going to miss it.
So now I want to find a campaign and/or legacy replacement. I could bring out Gloomhaven or 7th Continent. Journeys in Middle-Earth kind of bored her. I'll take any other suggestions.
Aeons End Legacy is a cooperative deck builder. AE is my favorite game that I've found any time recently, and the legacy version is an incredible introduction to the system. Then if you enjoy it there are a bunch more boxes offering more stuff that all integrates together.
My wife and I are veeerrrrry slowly making our way through AE: Legacy.
Chapter 1 was good.
I feel like Chapter 2 kind of threw a lot at you in a relatively short time period? Not that it was difficult stuff, it was just a lot of flipping back and forth through the rulebook adding new stickers and stuff:
You stopped partway into the fight to add the Evolve mechanic, which then resulted in several cards evolving, necessitating going back into the Evolve deck multiple times.
One of the cards smacked you pretty hard, and then evolved into an upgraded version that would double-extra-hit-you-hard when it affects the same character in a future game, so you had to write on that card.
And then one of the Evolve cards added your 4th Breach (opened; +1 to Damage), so more stickers.
Then you get your special abilities at the end, so 2 more stickers on the cards and coming up with an ability name and I think next time we play we have more supply changes to do.
Still, each fight has basically come down to the wire, with us winning Chapter 1 by the flip of a turn card and Chapter 2 with a win when we finally stopped some ongoing damage to the town and just started throwing down with the badguy - it was, basically, the scene in any Voltron-esque anime when the heroes are getting just pounded and then they FORM THE SWORD and go to town. Fuckin' ruled.
Just Chapter 2 took a long time to mechanically play through.
I don't remember it being onerous tbh but also we had all played a lot of AE before playing Legacy so that probably sped up all the choices and whatnot a lot, as the early missions are largely introducing stuff that already exists in the regular games ie
Of Clank Legacy and Betrayal Legacy, do either work/work better with 3? I know the one is 4 and the other 5 and, in my experience at least, legacy games seem built to be played with whatever the max player count is but would either be decent experiences with 3?
Of Clank Legacy and Betrayal Legacy, do either work/work better with 3? I know the one is 4 and the other 5 and, in my experience at least, legacy games seem built to be played with whatever the max player count is but would either be decent experiences with 3?
I think after there was a lot of demand for the game post-KS, they did this as a way to produce a smaller stand-alone product that was financially viable.
I ended up selling my KS locally, but have been considering this smaller box version to play at home.
Any opinions on the Bang the Dice Game expansions Undead or Alive Expansion & The Old Saloon?
The Old Saloon is generally excellent. The Coward and Loudmouth dice provide an interesting choice at the beginning of each player turn, without introducing much rules overhead. Tee extra characters are welcome. The "ghost" module for making early elimination less painful works well, if you want to take the time to explain it. I usually do not use the Chief's Arrow, since the interest it adds doesn't seem with the extra complexity.
I've played Undead or Alive once, but don't own it. I decided to pass since it seemed to fall on the other side of that line: lots of new rules to figure out without a huge payoff. It also makes games quite a bit longer, which works against one of the big selling points of the game to begin with. It would be worth it if you're getting bored of the game and need some new variety, but I'd pass until that time comes.
Tried it last night and the Arkham LCG Tabletop Simulator module is excellent. Watched a tutorial on youtube, and everything was really smooth. Allowed us to finish the Dream-eaters campaign since the 8th and final scenario was delayed until June, but there are enough copies out in the wild that it is already implemented in the module.
If you want to give the game a try and can't because of social distancing, or are hesitant because of cost concerns, I recommend giving it a try on TTS.
Tried it last night and the Arkham LCG Tabletop Simulator module is excellent. Watched a tutorial on youtube, and everything was really smooth. Allowed us to finish the Dream-eaters campaign since the 8th and final scenario was delayed until June, but there are enough copies out in the wild that it is already implemented in the module.
If you want to give the game a try and can't because of social distancing, or are hesitant because of cost concerns, I recommend giving it a try on TTS.
I've been wanting to do a campaign of that on TTS. I've only played the base campaign and Carnival.
I'm interested in mystery and stories the games tell, but that only lasts one play through. And I said nuts to paying $400+ for scenarios I'm only going to play once.
The only thing I've found tricky about TTS is the hidden hand area you drop cards into so no one else can see.
Posts
While I agree wholeheartedly, but it was posted by the head designer’s wife, so I figured it was fine. My bad.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
We would love a chance to do competitive Ghost Stories with a villain player, but reading some reviews and looking at a summary, it does look like they went overboard with adding too many things that it looks overly busy. Is that wrong?
She's technically in charge of Five24 iirc. He is a designer, but she handles all the business stuff, PR, Kickstarters and conventions, etc.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
it's awful. just super super boring to play the ghost king or whatever he's called
I would say yeah it does feel a bit like they went overboard adding things so that the bad guy player would have a game to play. He's involved in every player's turn. I can't say how fun he is from personal experience, but the guy in our group who got to play him was having fun. I'd say ultimately it was a neat novelty that we might pull out occasionally, or if we have 5 players and everyone really wants to play Ghost Stories, but it's not going to be standard play for us from now on or anything.
This is gorgeous. I know it's a light game of dice chucking, but up till now I haven't owned a copy. The tray is well done (and supports sleeving!) and it sounds like it was designed that if you want to chuck in the expansions, you can.
I bought Jaws which my friend has been raving about. Worst case scenario I have a reasonable excuse to say we are going to need a bigger boat.
I bought Imhotep which was described as a slightly more interesting Splendor, but Splendor is my wife's favorite game so slightly more interesting should hopefully work.
And then I got their poker chip set because they have a nice weight and its a good deal.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Jaws is great as a fun love letter to the movie in board game form. Like Horrified, it's themey, a bit silly, but really genuine-feeling in its nostalgia, and does well to lighten up mechanics from more nerdy, advanced games so you can bring it to the table with people who may not otherwise be interested.
A bit of browsing on BGG implies it's basically an updated CE of the original King of Tokyo. I do like the wickedness tracker idea, to help you get a boost if your dice rolling sucks. Supposedly it can be combined with other sets, but the card backs are very unique so I don't know if that is a good idea - plus some specifically reference the wickedness track.
I have been debating picking up King of Tokyo or King of New York for a while. I don't know what is unique about all of them. I do know the stand-alone transforming kitty seems right up my alley, given my collections.
This is the box as it first came. The wickedness trackers go in their own spots in the middle, and are actually plastic pieces with some thickness so I don't think they will move around. The wickedness tiles, meanwhile, go in the center-left well where the wickedness trackers currently are, and the punchout counters for smoke, shrink ray and acid spit go in the upper-right tray.
This isn't a game I personally would buy at this point in my board game lifetime, but I would have loved it as an early purchase. It offers variety, but a very controlled variety with a solid foundation. It offers conflict, but a very restrained conflict that doesn't generally feel personal or devastating. It's just a solid, approachable game that I would have no problem recommending to people.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Hmmmm...my concerns was a review saying that it's the Wu player's turn for 80% of the game (essentially taking 2 turns at every player's Yin phase) and the monk players felt left out. That there's an overproduced side board with plastic demon minis and all they do is search through tiles without interacting with anything?
Right now the price is listed as more expensive than the base game. o_O
Imhotep is a great game, though, don't get me wrong.
Yeah those are pretty accurate criticisms, all told. The minis aren't that much too much compared to the other minis that the game already came with; the haunting ghosts don't really need to be plastic figures for their part in the game, but there they are. Wu Feng does get a weird amount of playtime in the game, considering he's doing stuff during each other player's turn, but at least in my group's experience, I don't think anyone felt totally left out.
I dunno. It's a strange expansion, with strange design decisions, but honestly that's probably why I'll keep it and pull it out occasionally. Like I said, it's an interesting novelty. There are actually some things I like in there, too, like the skeleton tokens (essentially easy to defeat but fairly numerous fodder enemies) and the ability for the Taoists to purchase powerups and special abilities with slowly accruing currency from a menu that's part of Wu Feng's board. It's an important addition to help balance out giving human control to the opposition in an already tough co-op game, but it's also just sort of a neat new decision making space that feels good.
But it's still more Gloomhaven, and we're still having a ball. Lots of creative stuff, the new class is weird, and I'm getting to learn more about the game world.
But does it have STICKERS????!
So now I want to find a campaign and/or legacy replacement. I could bring out Gloomhaven or 7th Continent. Journeys in Middle-Earth kind of bored her. I'll take any other suggestions.
Charterstone might work, there's a lot of 'ooh what did we get this time' in it. My son and I played it together for a bit; I liked it well enough but he lost interest in it, I'm considering buying the reset pack and starting over with more of us playing to see if it clicks.
Aeons End Legacy is a cooperative deck builder. AE is my favorite game that I've found any time recently, and the legacy version is an incredible introduction to the system. Then if you enjoy it there are a bunch more boxes offering more stuff that all integrates together.
Clank Legacy is at the moment my favorite legacy/campaign standalone game, Aeon's End is not far below it.
But if you're willing to deckbuild the Arkham Horror LCG is by far my favorite campaign based game. I'll go as far as saying that outside of tabletop RPGs it's my favorite campaign style gaming experience.
My wife and I are veeerrrrry slowly making our way through AE: Legacy.
Chapter 1 was good.
I feel like Chapter 2 kind of threw a lot at you in a relatively short time period? Not that it was difficult stuff, it was just a lot of flipping back and forth through the rulebook adding new stickers and stuff:
One of the cards smacked you pretty hard, and then evolved into an upgraded version that would double-extra-hit-you-hard when it affects the same character in a future game, so you had to write on that card.
And then one of the Evolve cards added your 4th Breach (opened; +1 to Damage), so more stickers.
Then you get your special abilities at the end, so 2 more stickers on the cards and coming up with an ability name and I think next time we play we have more supply changes to do.
Still, each fight has basically come down to the wire, with us winning Chapter 1 by the flip of a turn card and Chapter 2 with a win when we finally stopped some ongoing damage to the town and just started throwing down with the badguy - it was, basically, the scene in any Voltron-esque anime when the heroes are getting just pounded and then they FORM THE SWORD and go to town. Fuckin' ruled.
Just Chapter 2 took a long time to mechanically play through.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I don't remember it being onerous tbh but also we had all played a lot of AE before playing Legacy so that probably sped up all the choices and whatnot a lot, as the early missions are largely introducing stuff that already exists in the regular games ie
Ooh! Good idea. Need to do that tomorrow.
BL works best with 4 or 5
Was this always a thing?
Is it really limited compared to the other ones I know about?
Worth grabbing?
https://shop.seriouspoulp.com/us/home/78-core-box-english-3760212172618.html?fbclid=IwAR3gwyNtGI_1L3ADl8KfGyyNDa1jecZZxttk3QJdVXexUL9J-LfMQRS0Z9w
I think after there was a lot of demand for the game post-KS, they did this as a way to produce a smaller stand-alone product that was financially viable.
I ended up selling my KS locally, but have been considering this smaller box version to play at home.
I've played Undead or Alive once, but don't own it. I decided to pass since it seemed to fall on the other side of that line: lots of new rules to figure out without a huge payoff. It also makes games quite a bit longer, which works against one of the big selling points of the game to begin with. It would be worth it if you're getting bored of the game and need some new variety, but I'd pass until that time comes.
If you want to give the game a try and can't because of social distancing, or are hesitant because of cost concerns, I recommend giving it a try on TTS.
I've been wanting to do a campaign of that on TTS. I've only played the base campaign and Carnival.
I'm interested in mystery and stories the games tell, but that only lasts one play through. And I said nuts to paying $400+ for scenarios I'm only going to play once.
The only thing I've found tricky about TTS is the hidden hand area you drop cards into so no one else can see.