For Impact City Roller Derby, they put the rules up in PDF Format.. (it'll still be a few days before my UPS package arrives)

http://www.gamesalute.com/Springboar...erby-Rules.pdf

Played a short session of Formula D tonight for the first time. It's a racing game that uses dice exclusively to move. The game is so much more than just dice though...

At the beginning of your turn, you are in one of 6 gears. You may choose to shift up (one gear per turn), shift down (one gear for free, multiple gears at a cost of some wear on your car) or remain in the same gear. Each gear has a die associated with it. The gears:

1st: 1-2
2nd: 2-4
3rd: 4-8
4th: 7-12
5th: 11-20
6th: 21-30 (-ish)

The trick is that at each turn on the racetrack, you must 'stop' at least once. By 'stop' we mean your turn must end - your car does not have to come to a halt. Some of the tougher turns require two or even three stops within to safely navigate them. If you overshoot the turn, your car's tires take damage. Take enough damage, and you can find yourself out of the race! There are advanced rules that bring weather and different tire styles into the game, as well as pit stops and custom car modification. We haven't gotten into all that yet.

The game is simple in concept, but navigating the turns elegantly is not simple. If done correctly, it's extremely rewarding to fly out of a turn and hit the straightaway in 5th gear. Incorrectly...let's just say it sucks to spin out and have to start your next turn creeping along in 1st gear.

Unfortunately, the game has many places where an AP prone player could easily bog down the game. Each turn you are counting spaces moved and trying to determine the ideal maneuver for your status/situation, and that can lead to paralysis by analysis quickly. And that's AFTER determining which gear you should be in.

We actually had the most fun with the time trials. As an alternative to simply rolling the dice to see who goes first, you set one player up on the racetrack, and start the timer when he rolls his first die. The driver plays by normal rules, and his goal is to get around the track in as few dice rolls as possible. All the while time is being kept, and the contestant adds a single 'roll' to his total for each minute that passes by. Likewise, any overshot turns result in an added roll to the count for each space the turn is overshot by.

All in all, a lot of fun. It would be crazy fun to try a 10 person game, but I don't know if it would be palatable with all the analyzing that 10 people would have for each move.

There's a Formula D/De online game I tried a while back

Yep, Formula De is a great game. Have several tracks. If you can get a group of players together and play an 8 track season with points, it's a ton of fun. Have done that on a couple of occasions.

Lady H_B and I fired up Pandemic after dinner last night. After playing it probably seven or eight times, I finally won a game.

Looks like Amazon oversold their preorders for the Lords of Waterdeep expansion as a bunch of us are getting e-mails about needing to confirm our order since they can't seem to fulfill it with no given data of delivery, or it is merely delayed by "x" amount of time.

EDIT: Rumor is they got 3 of the 10 trucks in for their order.

So, an update - the girlfriend and I played a few games of Ticket to Ride and Pandemic (2 of TtR and 1 of Pandemic) and loved both games! Ticket to Ride was really easy to deal with and understand, while Pandemic look a little longer to figure out, but both were winners for 2 player games.

The wife and I are finding our groove with Dominion + Prosperity expansion. We had two really good games last night. I feel that the Prosperity expansion makes a lot of changes that add to the fun.

We used a 30 second timer for Formula De, start timer, select gear, roll, and move. If you did not do it in 30 secs, the player behind you moved you. We had to use it once. Kept the game moving, 8 player 3 lap races in roughly 2.5 hrs.

I really enjoy Formula D. I have played the basic rules w/o the drivers. Nice light racing game.
Still waiting on Storm the Castle. Should be here any day. Im like a kid at Christmas time. When I get home, I check the front stoop to see if a box is there.
And Im waiting for my pre-order of 1775: Rebellion. This game looks to be a winner. Watched a review and the reviewer called it his game of the year. It can be played solo up to 4 players. There are scenarios, also.

Come on mail people! Get me my games! :)

Someone's made a VASSAL module for Formula De

Module:Formula De - VASSAL

This discussion convinced me to put Formula D into my Amazon wish list…which is now up to 19 games. Might like Christmas for a change this year. :D

One other thing on the Formula D front - get extra sets of dice, it speeds the game up considerably to have each player (or two players) have their own set of dice.

Also, the game lends itself well to a turn timer - hey its racing! You've got 30 seconds to figure out what gear your in or you stay in the same gear.

Tabletop does Lords of Waterdeep:

Lords of Waterdeep: Felicia Day, Pat Rothfuss, and Brandon Laatsch Join Wil on TableTop SE2E10 - YouTube

Just got Storm the Castle. Signed box #437. I havent really dug into it yet. That will be this weekend I think.
But the art work is great. The components are average from what Ive felt.
The mini expansions I got for KSing it were loose in the package box. That was a little disappointing, but nothing damaged or lost.
It looks like Im missing the DVD that came with my KS. I will have to look again.

I love new games.

I love opening a new box, smelling inside, caressing the punch board and slowly punching each one out. Taking the dice and rubbing them on my face and then taking the miniatures and personally introducing myself to each character. Occasionally one of them will flirt with me.

While the episode was entertaining, it reconfirms my last play of it. I'm finding I like games where people are going, "Oh look at what they got" less and less.

Well, dug into Storm the Castle.
Kind of disappointed in the quality of components. It felt like the game board front was going to peel on the open fold.
The cards were stuck together and have a bow in them lengthwise.
It was also missing the DVD that was supposed to be sent with my KS level.

Havent got into the rules (though the book is long). Im not a great rule book reader, so Im kind of intimidated. But I will plug away and see if I can understand all the rules. Hoping to play over Labor day weekend.

I hope it plays really well. That would make up for the quality. Jeez, I spent $85 on it.

Game day last Sunday.

5 of us got together. It was supposed to be 6, but one guys wife said 'No". :eek:

We started of the day playing Kemet. This was really cool with 5. Almost all the power up techs were gone. Lots of conflict, with different people. And a close game the entire way. I really like this game.

Then we got into the card games. A quick game of Cards Against Humanity. Always good for a laugh.
Then a game of Smash Up. This game is ok. There are some balance issues, IMO. But those might get resolved as we get better at it.
Finally, a game of Munchkin. I like Munchkin. A fun, light game. I added Dungeons and steeds and Hireliungs to the game. Makes for a more interesting game.

Played from about 1 to 9. Good times.

So a buddy of ours picked up Ascension and the Lords of Waterdeep expansion Scoundrels of Skullport at PAX. We haven't had a chance to dive into Scoundrels, but we've played four games of Ascension and I'm extremely impressed. It's a deck builder, sort of a combination of Dominion and Legendary. The turns are incredibly quick and there is a lot of synergy between cards. There seems to be a tremendous variety in winning strategies. I think what makes it great is that you only ever have 6 cards to look at at any one time. There's no separate villain/hero deck like Legendary, and there aren't 16 different cards you have to choose between buying like in Dominion. Also, since the game works off one single deck, clean up and set up are practically nonexistent.

I worry that the game may get a bit dull after repeated plays because of the static nature of the deck you play, but that doesn't make me any less excited to keep playing it. And there are always expansions to buy...

Game Night.

Short night as we had a new player so we took things slow. My previous assessment of the building lord is back to where it is. I had figured out how to get my highest score ever and still got beat decently. The new player scored as high as I had ever seen a new player score so we tried to emphasize that to her so she wouldn't have been turned off by having the lowest score. Still, the person playing the building lord gets the lord at a freakish rate and has the strategy down to where it's really difficult to counter her when there are fewer players.

Played Suburbia. I scored 149. The scoring track goes to 150. It just ended up being to where whenever the other person could finally afford something, I grabbed it before them and just ran away because of it. I had the Casino, PR Firm, both public goals, and my own secret one. Yeah, I kind of felt sorry for them. This was my own first real negative play of it even though I completely rocked.

I really need to get some new games played within that group though. I bring new stuff, and it always gets shot down. I like my games, but I have more of them. :lol:

Lords of Water Deep? If so, every game I've played where someone has had the building lord, they've won. It's hard to block them out.

You actively have to take the building spot or the money one and grab the first player token. It is easier with multiple people, but it is hard to deal with when you have fewer players. I thought I had it figured out but then the player who gets it so often changed their strategy to get even more points than usual. In that situation, the game has to be a lower scoring game since you are taking away from doing your quest and blocking the building lord. I really do like the game but the one player has pulled the house lord 3-4 times out of the 7 times we have played it, and I'm tired of it.

Im really interested in picking up Navajo Wars. This looks like a very interesting game.

Navajo Wars | Board Game | BoardGameGeek

That takes a lot of effort and you end up not falling behind because you're not focusing on your own tasks. Also, you have to worry about certain bonuses and that one building that allows you to place an agent even at a location where another player's agent already is. It's tough.

Have you considered just pulling her card from the game so that she's not an option? I thought about that.

It works if other players join in. I actually abused two new players into having them counter the building lord player while I went and freely worked on what I wanted to do. I'm just waiting for the expansion as more lords means it less likely getting pulled. I don't know the odds of a specific lord getting pulled, but it seems to be rather high so far. I know it will work out in the end.

Pre-ordered Blood & Roses tonight. Still looking for a copy of Men of Iron. The entire series looks compelling. Navajo Wars is gaining interest as well.

Picked up Bioshock: Infinite on Friday but didn't get an opportunity to play it over the weekend. Looks like it should be pretty fun, though.

What we did play was a bunch of Resistance and Cards Against Humanity. Super fun.

Its almost here. 1775: Rebellion. It is supposed to arrive at CSI on Wednesday. I figure, if thats true, I should get it in a week after that.
I keep reading about it at BGG and I am hearing nothing but great things about it.
I cannot wait to get this game. I may even call in sick when it gets here and spend a day learning it and playing it. :)

Btw, Lords of Waterdeep is $29.99 on Amazon today. I picked up a copy myself.

edit: silly me, forgot the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Lords-Waterdee...dp/0786959916/

Thanks, Isiddiqui, I might have to grab it at that price.

I have a problem - I buy way too many games!!! I watch a video of a game - if I like it, I "have" to own it!

Please tell me I'm not the only one on here with this problem ;)

The fact I have a 5% discount at Coolstuffinc should tell you my answer

Okay ;)

I have a 4% discount and only started this hobby in November. I like that I spend the extra 3.99 to ship today and they don't even charge me the expedite fee. What a perk!! Lol

Jeez. I told myself I was done buying games this year. Well until Christmas. But I have a $100 order in my shopping cart at CSI. I know I will break down and go through with the purchase. And the said thing is I had to buy a Anakin Skywalker Jedi Fighter to get me over $100. Like I need that for anything.

Well, you always have to get that free shipping!

I told myself that too, but have already broken it. Thankfully my wife let me break my promise with the caveat that I am spending my christmas money.

Pathfinder adventure game looked too good to pass up. I got a few others as well. The one area I am doing better at is kickstarter as I only did one small expansions once since Cthulhu wars ended.

I haven't even looked at kick starting games. I hope I never do ;)

I havent had much luck with KS. I doubt I back another game unless it is by a proven publisher and/or designer. This last one I got Im none too happy with. The one Im waiting on will probably be a year late.

I have had nothing but positive experiences and have actually turned quite a bit of a profit on some of my kickstarters. Which ones did you back?

The high of watching the total go up and up and reaching stretch goal after stretch goal is addicting. I will say however that if you are smart about what you kickstart, there is little risk as you can make a good profit on them if you end up not liking the game

Storm the Castle and Lost Valley.

Storm the Castles components were not what I was hoping for.
Lost Valley just finished the rule book and had a release date of April. This is a re-print by Pandasaurus.

I like to look, but I will wait until they are mass released, like I did with 1775: Rebellion. From what i heard the stretch goals are ok, but nothing spectacular.

But I do admit that I have a few KS projects bookmarked and I subscribe to the KS thread at BGG. I imagine I will back another one someday.

Do you guys have accounts on BGG? My name over there is DanKD in case anyone wants to geek buddy me.

My BGG username is Broth32. I could not figure out how to add buddies so feel free to add me ;)

My BGG name is Tarc. And Im in the same boat. Not sure how to add.

search for someones name. In their avatar area, there is a down arrow. Click that and select add geekbuddy

I added both of you

I always thought that was a heart. :)