Board Games

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by gi

Played Battlestar Galactica without expansions for the first time. Excellent game and look forward to the next time my group plays it.

Hoping the expansions don't make it take too much longer though.

Anyone played with both expansions? Did it enhance gameplay?

I've only played with one of the expansions. If anything, the one we played with - probably the first one - seems to have made it much harder for the humans to win.

[tarcone]

I bought Game fo Thrones board game 2nd edition. I played it at the Geekway to the West con. Fun game.
Im waiting to get some guys together to really dig into it. I really like the game. A real fun time.

Im looking forward to the re-release of Kings of Tokyo. This is a pretty simple, quick game. You can play it easily with children. The best part, is both Children and Adults will love it.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by tarcone

I bought Game fo Thrones board game 2nd edition. I played it at the Geekway to the West con. Fun game.
Im waiting to get some guys together to really dig into it. I really like the game. A real fun time.

This, Lords of Waterdeep, and BSG are three games I want to play, but not enough to buy them yet.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by Matthean

Nice interaction going on and it was fun to have Wil's wife playing. Hilarious random moment as well.



Indepth(37 minute) review of Tammany Hall

Saw this mentioned as part of another topic in the Steam thread, but Steam is now offering Ticket to Ride on their service for $10. Can be played "offline" solo or online with friends.

[tarcone]

Ticket to Ride pocket was free for your phone. May still be. i got a couple days ago.

[Matthean]

The one downside to the Kindle Fire, an absolute lack of decent games.

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

Saw this mentioned as part of another topic in the Steam thread, but Steam is now offering Ticket to Ride on their service for $10. Can be played "offline" solo or online with friends.

From looking at the Steam page of the game think it's part of the same network for online play as people who play online and on the app, so there is a good sized player base and you'll be able play with friends on other platforms.

EDIT: Looks like this is the case from the Days of Wonder website.

http://blog.daysofwonder.com/2012/05...rldwide-today/

Integration with the Steam platform is seamless with an installer-less setup and a zero-click signup at first launch. Ticket to Ride players on Steam will find plenty of online competition as they’ll join the same network that hosts tens of thousands of games from Mac, iPad and other Ticket to Ride Online players.

[Matthean]

Next time somebody is selling a hardly played complete set of Summoner Wars on eBay I need to not get cute with my bidding and just bid with what I'm willing to pay. Kind of depressing to think about how that kind of deal won't come around for awhile.

[Danny]

Originally Posted by Matthean

Next time somebody is selling a hardly played complete set of Summoner Wars on eBay I need to not get cute with my bidding and just bid with what I'm willing to pay. Kind of depressing to think about how that kind of deal won't come around for awhile.

One of my top 5 favorite games in my collection (out of about 200). Awesome game and each faction is unique and well, awesome!

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Danny

One of my top 5 favorite games in my collection (out of about 200). Awesome game and each faction is unique and well, awesome!

The only thing holding me back is my OCD "catch them all" mentality. Actually, my quick guesstimate was off so I don't feel so bad about missing out on the eBay deal. It still would have been better to get it there, but I guess the older edition stuff has different quality and sizes for cards and those are getting reprinted in roughly a July time frame. Everything new via Amazon is still roughly $180. That's...a lot even if it is awesome. With Mice and Mystics also coming from Plaid Hat games, I'm kind of hoping they are switching focus more towards that game now. The sheer number of factions is astounding for SW already.

[Danny]

Originally Posted by Matthean

The only thing holding me back is my OCD "catch them all" mentality. Actually, my quick guesstimate was off so I don't feel so bad about missing out on the eBay deal. It still would have been better to get it there, but I guess the older edition stuff has different quality and sizes for cards and those are getting reprinted in roughly a July time frame. Everything new via Amazon is still roughly $180. That's...a lot even if it is awesome. With Mice and Mystics also coming from Plaid Hat games, I'm kind of hoping they are switching focus more towards that game now. The sheer number of factions is astounding for SW already.

Give in to the OCD! I have all factions, all reinforcements and even all the faction dice available lol.

[Danny]

Also, I believe the plan is that there will be no new factions for summoner wars. I do believe that plan to release alternate summoners at some point though

[Danny]

Also, I got them just because I didnt want to regret it in case they went out of print, but you dont need the reinforcements for a long while.

[Matthean]

Since I decided to see what the total cost was and they were in my shopping cart anyway.... I got just the newer edition ones, and I'll wait for the reprints of the others. The sad thing is, my CCG days still cost me way more than the eventual complete set of Summoner Wars. We played Magic mostly, but once we got into L5R, that was our preferred crack of choice. It was standard for us to buy a starter for each edition, split "x" number of cases of boosters, and then buy singles as needed. Why now must LCGs be out years after the fact? (shakes fist)

[Fidatelo]

Originally Posted by Matthean

Since I decided to see what the total cost was and they were in my shopping cart anyway.... I got just the newer edition ones, and I'll wait for the reprints of the others. The sad thing is, my CCG days still cost me way more than the eventual complete set of Summoner Wars. We played Magic mostly, but once we got into L5R, that was our preferred crack of choice. It was standard for us to buy a starter for each edition, split "x" number of cases of boosters, and then buy singles as needed. Why now must LCGs be out years after the fact? (shakes fist)

I would hate to total up how much money I put into L5R. Although I don't regret it at all, I loved that game.

[Vince, Pt. II]

So my buddies and I have finally sat down for a few rounds of Risk: Legacy. I'm absolutely loving the game. We've gotten four games finished through two sessions of a few hours each, with a different winner each game.

The idea behind the game is that you are playing a campaign of 15 different games. While you play, you change the board, adding stickers and writing things on the board as you go. These change different territories to give them bonuses or penalties.

One of the major changes is the addition of cities, both major and minor. A city adds population to the faction that controls it, so it's as if you control an extra country in terms of determining reinforcements at the beginning of your turn. There are major and minor cities, major adding 2 population and minor adding 1. At the end of each game, all the players are given a list of options that they can take to change the game board: the winner gets a major change, factions that weren't completely eliminated get a minor change, and factions who were eliminated get nothing.

The single biggest change to the base game of Risk is that not all the countries begin occupied. At the start of the game, each faction takes turns picking their starting location, and that is all. On your turn, you may expand freely, as long as you leave one troop in each of your territories. Taking an unoccupied territory is free. Taking a territory with a city costs you the same number of troops as the population of the city. This might not seem like all that big a change, but the balance of expansion and consolidating your borders is huge. Once a few games have finished and the board has numerous changes on it, initial placement and expansion strategies are completely different.

There are a number of different pockets and packages in the game box that are labeled "Open when XXX". We've only managed to open one of them so far, and it has changed the game pretty drastically. We're really looking forward to opening more of them.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Fidatelo

I would hate to total up how much money I put into L5R. Although I don't regret it at all, I loved that game.

It's one of those times when you see a game and you wonder why more people don't play it instead. Our group pretty much said there was zero reason to play Magic after we got into L5R.

The beginning horde of Summoner Wars cards came in. I'm kind of bummed the ice based race isn't more fleshed out in that direction and got a decent amount of stuff dealing with dice rolls instead. Outside of that, there's a lot to like. I'm a fan of being able to go under, over, and through other characters.

[Matthean]

Engineer SMASH! I did a test run of Summoner Wars. I somewhat randomly grabbed two races and did a play-through. I initially thought it was interesting that both sides didn't have the same number of characters to start, but the Phoenix Elves had 4 range on their archers and went first. Later, I found out how the whole wall aspect plays out. Eight points of damage in a turn via event cards and an Engineer. The elves had a second wall, but both were nailed from an event card and soon they were without any walls. No walls = no more summoning. It was merely clean up after that. I actually think the elves would have won if a wall came out, but they weren't getting one for a number of rounds.

Overall I liked it. You can seriously learn the fundamentals within a game. I would put it around Ticket to Ride in terms of ease in picking it up.

[Ragone]

carcassonne is 20 bucks on amazon right now.. i've been wanting to get into something more in depth board game wise since my wife loves... monopoly and i wanna get her away from that cursed game....

[Danny]

Yes summoner wars is simple but highly tactical. It also becomes strategic of you are more familiar with your faction amd the faction you are against.

[tarcone]

Guys, if you want good deals on games got to minaturemarket.com

They have great deals. The store is about 35 minutes from my house. They have a ding and dent section. Great deals on games.

But at the site, they prices are great. I went to B&N and priced Dominion for $45. It is $27 on minature market.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Ragone

carcassonne is 20 bucks on amazon right now.. i've been wanting to get into something more in depth board game wise since my wife loves... monopoly and i wanna get her away from that cursed game....

If you want a similar themed game to Monopoly, you might want to look at Acquire. Some games come with a 2-player variant as it normally plays 3-6. If you are looking for a 2-player trading game, Jaipur would also work. A bit up in price, but Finca might work as well since it has fruit meeples.

[Danny]

I'm not sure I would recommend Carcassonne as your starter game. It's a good game and I own it, but it's really just a dry, boring looking tile laying game. I think something along the lines of Ticket to Ride would be better. It's much more colorful, interactive and a better gateway game in my opinion.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by Danny

I'm not sure I would recommend Carcassonne as your starter game. It's a good game and I own it, but it's really just a dry, boring looking tile laying game. I think something along the lines of Ticket to Ride would be better. It's much more colorful, interactive and a better gateway game in my opinion.

I can't agree more. This is the game that was the gateway into getting my wife away from traditional American games.

[Danny]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

I can't agree more. This is the game that was the gateway into getting my wife away from traditional American games.

Further on my recommendation, but if you are playing with only two players, I can't recommend the India / Switzerland map expansion enough, both fantastic with 2 or 3. USA, other than for beginning purposes really needs 4 or 5.

Personally I own the base USA game and that map expansion, gives me a good map to play with anywhere from 2-5.

[tarcone]

Setting up a game night. Playing Game of Thrones 2nd ed.
I have 5 lined up. Waiting on a 6th. Hoping to get the 6th. I have 3 seasoned board gamers. 1 risk guy. and 1 American style board gamer. He will get his intro into real board gaming. Hoping the 6th comes through.
Pretty excited. I am really looking forward to playing this game. The first taste wasnt enough.

If my 6th falls through and there are any St louis gamers in this thread, I will be looking for a 6th. PM me now if interested. I should know by this afternoon. Game night is Tuesday the 5th.

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II

So my buddies and I have finally sat down for a few rounds of Risk: Legacy. I'm absolutely loving the game. We've gotten four games finished through two sessions of a few hours each, with a different winner each game.

The idea behind the game is that you are playing a campaign of 15 different games. While you play, you change the board, adding stickers and writing things on the board as you go. These change different territories to give them bonuses or penalties.

One of the major changes is the addition of cities, both major and minor. A city adds population to the faction that controls it, so it's as if you control an extra country in terms of determining reinforcements at the beginning of your turn. There are major and minor cities, major adding 2 population and minor adding 1. At the end of each game, all the players are given a list of options that they can take to change the game board: the winner gets a major change, factions that weren't completely eliminated get a minor change, and factions who were eliminated get nothing.

The single biggest change to the base game of Risk is that not all the countries begin occupied. At the start of the game, each faction takes turns picking their starting location, and that is all. On your turn, you may expand freely, as long as you leave one troop in each of your territories. Taking an unoccupied territory is free. Taking a territory with a city costs you the same number of troops as the population of the city. This might not seem like all that big a change, but the balance of expansion and consolidating your borders is huge. Once a few games have finished and the board has numerous changes on it, initial placement and expansion strategies are completely different.

There are a number of different pockets and packages in the game box that are labeled "Open when XXX". We've only managed to open one of them so far, and it has changed the game pretty drastically. We're really looking forward to opening more of them.

My group played two games so far. We were hoping to play it with 5, but after waiting on the 5th person we went ahead with just 4. We haven't opened anything yet, but are really looking forward to finally being able to. Neither of our games have been very long, our first the winner was on his second turn (I backstabbed another player in hopes of putting myself in good position but it turned out very poorly) and in the second I won it on my fifth turn (thank you faction ability that lets you get cards without conquering a territory).

We did do one change from the rules, we decided that we would always play the same faction rather than picking a new one each game for our first 15, thinking it would be more fun to go with one throughout.

[ColtCrazy]

Couple of things today:

My superintendent was visiting our building on the last day of school. We were having our end of the year party and I was playing Conquest of the Empire with some kids. Our super actually recognized the game and remembered enough details about the original that made him sound like a player. Guessing I got some geek brownie points today.

Second, on my trip to England, can anyone recommend a good travel, solitaire game to play? Anything with strategy. Dug out my old Statis Pro Basketball game and want something else. Figured I'd go this route rather than spend $300+ on a Vita and games.

[tarcone]

Played Pandemic with my family tonight. Wow. We got squashed by the plague. The outbreraks we faced killed us. The epidemics were cruel.
We may take on eof the epidemic cards out for the next game.

Quick question as I type. And I will look it up in the rules. But does it count as one outbreak if you get the 4 diseases on one city. then it spreads to another with 3 diseases which makes that spread again? Or is that 2 outbreaks?

[Flasch186]

We played pandemic tonight as well however it was an abject failure as my partner's wife was totally disinterested (which is usual with any 'smart' games) and about halfway through we just simply couldnt wait for it to be over.

[Fidatelo]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Played Pandemic with my family tonight. Wow. We got squashed by the plague. The outbreraks we faced killed us. The epidemics were cruel.
We may take on eof the epidemic cards out for the next game.

Quick question as I type. And I will look it up in the rules. But does it count as one outbreak if you get the 4 diseases on one city. then it spreads to another with 3 diseases which makes that spread again? Or is that 2 outbreaks?

I believe that is counted as 2 outbreaks.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by ColtCrazy

Second, on my trip to England, can anyone recommend a good travel, solitaire game to play? Anything with strategy. Dug out my old Statis Pro Basketball game and want something else. Figured I'd go this route rather than spend $300+ on a Vita and games.

Friday can be had for cheap, $19.99 Amazon Prime. It's a deck builder that you have to not only build your deck, but eliminate the bad cards at a cost as well. I caved in getting it based on numerous people talking about it on BGG.

Friday | Board Game | BoardGameGeek



Played my second game of Summoner Wars. I'm all in in terms of fanboyism. I wasn't excited about how I thought the ice race played so I played it against the desert race and it was the complete opposite of the first game. It was slow, tactical, and both sides ran out of draw cards and were left with what they had on the board and in their hands. I looked at the board and saw the desert race had twice as many guys, and yet I swore the ice race was going to win. Not only did they, it was a virtual slaughter. All of the little tiny aspects of ice that don't come off as big played a part in the deck winning in the end.

[Ragone]

Originally Posted by Danny

I'm not sure I would recommend Carcassonne as your starter game. It's a good game and I own it, but it's really just a dry, boring looking tile laying game. I think something along the lines of Ticket to Ride would be better. It's much more colorful, interactive and a better gateway game in my opinion.

hmm, where could i get that game on the cheap.. amazon is 37 right now and i'm assuming thats probably the lowest possible price based on quick search..

[Danny]

Originally Posted by Ragone

hmm, where could i get that game on the cheap.. amazon is 37 right now and i'm assuming thats probably the lowest possible price based on quick search..

Unless you want to spend 100$ to get free shipping somewhere then Amazon will be the cheapest. I love $100 free shipping, gives me an excuse to get more games .

Coolstuffinc does it have for $30 http://www.coolstuffinc.com/main_boa...c-TicketToRide if you decide to go that route

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Danny

Unless you want to spend 100$ to get free shipping somewhere then Amazon will be the cheapest. I love $100 free shipping, gives me an excuse to get more games .

Coolstuffinc does it have for $30 http://www.coolstuffinc.com/main_boa...c-TicketToRide if you decide to go that route

One thing to note is Amazon's price is getting it via Prime so it's free shipping as where CSI you need to add it in there. TtR shouldn't be too bad for shipping though. I went with the Europe edition as it adds some complexity to the game but not much.

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Quick question as I type. And I will look it up in the rules. But does it count as one outbreak if you get the 4 diseases on one city. then it spreads to another with 3 diseases which makes that spread again? Or is that 2 outbreaks?

If your outbreak triggers an outbreak in another city that counts as two outbreaks, yes. I believe a single city can't outbreak twice in one turn, but you can definitely have a chain reaction like that which kills you.

[tarcone]

Yeah, those chain reactions killed us in both games. It wwas brutal.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Yeah, those chain reactions killed us in both games. It wwas brutal.

Third on chain reactions! Freaking outbreaks on outbreaks on outbreaks!

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by Ragone

hmm, where could i get that game on the cheap.. amazon is 37 right now and i'm assuming thats probably the lowest possible price based on quick search..

Ticket to Ride is at Target as well, but I'm guessing it's $40-50.

[tarcone]

Ticket to Ride $32.50 at minaturemarket.com

[tarcone]

Please support my local game store. minature market is based out of St louis. I went up there and they have a dent and ding wall. Boxes damaged when received. Great deals there.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Please support my local game store. minature market is based out of St louis. I went up there and they have a dent and ding wall. Boxes damaged when received. Great deals there.

They get mentioned on BGG quite often.

Sleeving a game reminds me why I'm in no hurry to add on to Dominion. It was only Mage Knight, which has 240 cards, but still.

[Thomkal]

New Tabletop episode is out. This time its Munchkin, and one of the guests is GURPS (and Munchkin) creator Steve Jackson!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6oMB...ure=plpp_video

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

New Tabletop episode is out. This time its Munchkin, and one of the guests is GURPS (and Munchkin) creator Steve Jackson!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6oMB...ure=plpp_video

Fun but flawed game supported by a really good cast. It would have helped if the one guy didn't get so completely screwed. It seems like Wil was actually trying to play harder this time as well.

[Vince, Pt. II]

Has anyone here finished Risk: Legacy and/or opened the packet underneath everything that is labeled "Do not open. Ever."?

[tarcone]

Looking at playing Formula D tonight with my daughters. Looks like a fun racing game. Will report back if we get to it.

[Ragone]

Update:
My wife and i played carcassonne.. (minus the farmer scoring, really didn't want to introduce that just yet)

At first my wife kinda was accomidating me i think, just playing.. But something happened.. and she really started enjoying the strategy of the game, not to mention she was legitly kicking my ass.

I think i'm going to add the builders expansion to the game.. and maybe inn's/cathedrals.

I then told her about ticket to ride and had her watch 5 minutes of wil wheaton's youtube video "hey! thats the guy from toy soldiers who had the stupidest death ever!" and she was hooked on that too..


Thanks guys

[tarcone]

Playing Game of Thrones 2nd ed. Tonight with 3 other guys. Pretty excited. Im reading that game is unbalanced with 4 players. If anyone has any set up ideas to balance it out, it would be appreciated.
This is my 2nd game and their 1st. So unbalanced play may not matter.

[Matthean]

"Play the Game" podcast from Origins for a couple unique games. Morels is out now. Mice and Mystics is still in preorder phase.





Colby(Summoner Wars) isn't the actual designer for this one, but he helped out since it's a Plaid Hat game. I have it preordered and it's by far the game I'm most looking forward to for the rest of the year.

Z-Man Games got the license for Hans im Glück games and are looking to reprint some of the games that are OOP. Maybe the most elusive for me has been Taluva, and Z-Man on their Facebook page are taking suggestions for which games to do. Taluva is doing really well, so this might be finally a chance to own it after officially considering it dead after contacting the publisher and being told there were no plans of a reprint.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by Matthean

Fun but flawed game supported by a really good cast. It would have helped if the one guy didn't get so completely screwed. It seems like Wil was actually trying to play harder this time as well.

The biggest flaw I've seen with Munchkin is when you decide to use the expansions, there are just too many damn cards.