The Board Game Thread - What have you Played recently?

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I don't think it made it to Disney+ as they tried to bury it with Avengers Assembled (a show that wasn't as good despite getting better).
 
IMDB 8.3 for Avengers EMH, 8.2 for Spectacular Spiderman, 8.5 for Justice League. Sounds about right.
 
Played Burgle Bros 2's first scenario with my wife last night. It's a fun take on the co-op game using action points, with not-so 'be the hero' theme as you're running heists. Tough, challenging, but smart. It seems to scale well to player count, too.

I also did a solo playthrough of Pax Pamir 2e against the Wakhan automata - a tough opponent, I barely squeezed out the win in the last dominance check. It led to an interesting state of play with us rarely coming to blows and me just desperately trying to keep them penniless throughout.
 
I played a TTS game of Oath yesterday, Leder Games' entry that's a legacy game, but not quite a legacy game in the sense that many might be familiar with. There are no cards to flip over or book entries with corny narrative to read aloud to the group, nor any boxes to open with crazy figures to add to the game. Instead, the game primarily creates it's narrative through play.

By participating in the game, you can in some ways shape the world for future games, and if you win you have the most control over shaping it for next time. This is not to say that winning guarantees future victory, but instead you have a guiding hand in the shared tapestry.

I had a lot of fun with it, I am glad I have a physical copy to try!

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In our game:
The concept of the game is that the current powers-that-be are facing a crisis, so one player takes up the mantle of the Chancellor of the empire. The other players are exiles. For this game, Supremacy is the main objective (there are alternate victory paths).

Off the bat, an exile takes control of the heart of the empire - they build up a great castle in the home plains, that houses a garrison of a skilled Longbow wielding cohort. They immediately steal the keys to the city and kick out the Empire, taking control. I travel the unknown regions and collect relics of ages past, and find myself in control of a dark, dark secret that might prove useful later.

The Chancellor, feeling weak, offers me citizenship to join the Empire - Given I already had some relics and I own the banner of the darkest secret, citizenship provides me with another relic, meaning if the empire wins the game, I will win as the strongest contender within the empire. There is a chance the game can end early and I bank on this and double down.

I gambled, and quickly lost.

When the game end doesn't come to pass, the Chancellor comes to strike me down, stealing my relics and neutering my loyal army to nothing. It becomes apparent that the Chancellor has this game in the bag so citizens and exiles both work together in a desperate attempt to bring our brutal leader down. Every culminates in a final battle outside the seat of the empire, at the Castle that the exile built for the Empire, the exile desperately trying to lead a campaign to secure territories out from under the Empire.

Alas, it does not come to pass. So ends the tale of our brutal Chancellor's journey in how they maintained the empire's grip over the lands.

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At game end, some of these important areas that are controlled by the winning player will continue over to the next game, so this seat of the empire will have the castle on the plains again for next game, making it harder to take. The game world retains the memories of the generation(s) past.
 
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Over the weekend, I played two rounds of Thurn and Taxis with my wife. She wiped the board with me in both games. Oddly, in neither game did either of us come up with many long ‘chains’ in creating our routes. I’d guess that long chains are easier to put together in a two-player game than with three or four players, and usually we have multiple 6 and 7 city chains in the course of the game.
 
Played Escape the Dark Castle recently. It's the second time we've played and the only time we've actually escaped the castle. Really does rely on teamwork and resting strategy and the art is absolutely fantastic. I'm a sucker for shorter games and this one only took about 45 mins (with numerous breaks). Would recommend it! You can play solo and it reminds me of a gothic Fighting Fantasy gamebook.
 
Radlands - a 1v1 Card Game in the vein of MTG except both players share a single draw deck. The setting is two post-apocalyptic factions are at each other's throats over the scarcest resource there is, Water!

On every turn there are multiple opportunities usually open to you - do something now, prep for something next turn, or somewhere in-between. You always feel like a choice matters and it's a vicious but thoroughly enjoyable knife fight in the wasteland against your wily opponent.

My wife and I have gotten in a game or two every evening since my Kickstarter copy arrived!
 
Played Boggle and Big Boggle over the holidays. It had been a long time since we'd played them, so it was really quite fun. Sometimes a simple, straight-forward game is just right.

Also, played Castle Panic for the first time with my wife and teen daughter. We'll definitely play it again in the near future.
 
Played Boggle and Big Boggle over the holidays. It had been a long time since we'd played them, so it was really quite fun. Sometimes a simple, straight-forward game is just right.

Also, played Castle Panic for the first time with my wife and teen daughter. We'll definitely play it again in the near future.
Played Castle Panic 3 times this week with my 6 and 8 year olds.
 
Played 300: Earth and Water. It’s a really good 2 player wargame that plays in less than 30 minutes but feels like a much bigger game.

The assymetrical sides make each their own challenge and the use of just 16 cards allow for lots of specific narrative flavour.

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Just played Scythe (virtually) and currently playing Game of Thrones (virtually)

Update: House Stark for the 3 player win!! Winter came.
 
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Massive Darkness (1st edition). Campaign mode gets really boring after a while. After about 3rd level, the heroes are just too powerful. Going to be scouring the web for good house rules (apparently this is a known issue with the game).

Zombicide Night of the Living Dead. Fun, but also a bit too easy. Definitely house ruling a bit. Medieval Zombicide is still the best.
 
Played Boggle and Big Boggle over the holidays. It had been a long time since we'd played them, so it was really quite fun. Sometimes a simple, straight-forward game is just right.

Also, played Castle Panic for the first time with my wife and teen daughter. We'll definitely play it again in the near future.

Castle Panic is one of my favorites! I'm familiar with Boggle, but what is Big Boggle?
 
Also, played Castle Panic for the first time with my wife and teen daughter. We'll definitely play it again in the near future.
We love Castle Panic in this house (with 2 kids, boy and girl under 10). Only thing is trying to avoid bossing other players around with advice (a common issue with cooperative games).
 
Castle Panic is one of my favorites! I'm familiar with Boggle, but what is Big Boggle?
Like Boggle with the following differences:
  • 5 x 5 grid rather than 4 x 4
  • 3 letter words are not allowed
  • doesn't have the bonus letters (circled letters) for x2 scoring
I might still like the original version better because of the temptation to link multiple bonus letters into a word when those circles turn up.
However, Big Boggle is fun too and has a slightly different feel. In particular, it takes a bit more thought than you might expect to find 4+ letter words since 3 letters are prohibited.
 
On Friday, I got to play Gravwell: Escape from the Ninth Dimension (first edition) and Timeline: Music and Cinema with a couple that I'm friends with. There was a lengthy stalemate in Timeline, but I eventually won. Oh, we also played No Thanks, which is a favorite of mine.

Last night, a buddy I haven't seen in quite a while came over, and we played Gravwell: Escape from the Ninth Dimension (second edition) and Escape the Dark Sector. I like most of the changes they made in the new edition of Gravwell. We came really close to beating Escape the Dark Sector, but died on the next-to-last card.
 
On Friday, I got to play Gravwell: Escape from the Ninth Dimension (first edition) and Timeline: Music and Cinema with a couple that I'm friends with. There was a lengthy stalemate in Timeline, but I eventually won. Oh, we also played No Thanks, which is a favorite of mine.

Last night, a buddy I haven't seen in quite a while came over, and we played Gravwell: Escape from the Ninth Dimension (second edition) and Escape the Dark Sector. I like most of the changes they made in the new edition of Gravwell. We came really close to beating Escape the Dark Sector, but died on the next-to-last card.

I really enjoyed Escape the Dark Sector. I preferred the fantasy trappings of the original game but the changes to the rules were great and the art was just as evocative as Castle.
 
On Friday, I got to play Gravwell: Escape from the Ninth Dimension (first edition) and Timeline: Music and Cinema with a couple that I'm friends with. There was a lengthy stalemate in Timeline, but I eventually won. Oh, we also played No Thanks, which is a favorite of mine.

Last night, a buddy I haven't seen in quite a while came over, and we played Gravwell: Escape from the Ninth Dimension (second edition) and Escape the Dark Sector. I like most of the changes they made in the new edition of Gravwell. We came really close to beating Escape the Dark Sector, but died on the next-to-last card.
I played Gravwell 1e with the designer a couple years ago on TTS and he revealed the second edition was in the works. Was really quite an interesting experience as I'd never heard of it before!
 
I got to play Project L Finesse and Rococo this weekend. Both were good games, though I did prefer PLF even though I performed worse in it.
 
Played Samurai Sword for about the 3rd time a couple of days ago.
I'd forgotten how fun this game is. I love that it plays pretty quickly, no elimination of players, and the semi-cooperative nature of the teams.
We'll definitely add the Rising Sun elements next time.
 
Played Castle Panic 3 times this week with my 6 and 8 year olds.
Castle Panic is always a hit at our house. We have a Star Trek version as well. Fun game. I really like mixing in some coop games when I'm playing with the family. (And not just because everyone groans when Dad wins something again).
 
Kabuto Sumo was a big hit at my place. I try to find games like this for my daughter to help her work on her fine motor skills.

 
I'm interested in adding The Dark Titan and Wizard's Tower to the game. Have you used those additions? Thoughts?
Haven't played any additions. It's one of the few coop games my oldest will play.
 
I'm interested in adding The Dark Titan and Wizard's Tower to the game. Have you used those additions? Thoughts?

The last time I played any version of Castle Panic was pre-pandemic, so my memories are a bit hazy at this point. That said, I have tried each of those expansions and found them both enjoyable. To the best of my recollection, The Dark Titan basically takes the base game and makes it harder, whereas the Wizard's Tower has enough differences that playing with it feels like a different game.
 
Playing through the Washington Z.C. campaign for Zombicide 2nd Edition. We just finished Mission 5, after failing it the first time (major difficulty spike). The campaign rules are not super intense, it's almost barely there, but having the unknown objectives is a nice light twist on the normal gameplay. After a TPK on the first run of this mission, we are using the Presidents pack, except we replaced Reagan with the Queen of England.

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I've played Marvel United X-Men three times over the weekend.

Game 1, solo, Cyclops, Wolverine, Jean Grey vs Sabretooth: Sabretooth as a villain basically has the mechanic of hunting you around the board and beating the shit out of you. He hunts a specific hero, and if he knocks that hero out he moves on to the next hero. If the hunted token ever goes back to the first hero again you lose. He is the suggested villain for first game out of the rulebook, and I think the reason is because he is the simplest villain (he uses the least rules). That said, simple doesn't mean easy. This was by far the hardest of the games I played. He was relentless in punishing my characters. I got close, but lost the turn before I could knock him out. LOSS

Game 2, 2p (played with EmpressNorton), Gambit and Rogue vs Mr. Sinister: this one felt a lot more in control. Mr. Sinister's mechanics revolve around running around and stealing dna samples from the heroes, and if he takes 9 dna samples he wins. He does a lot less direct damage to you though, and it is much easier to "spread out the damage" of him taking the dna. I also think 2 player might just be a little bit easier to play overall. This was the only game where we finished the threats mission (you have to do 2 out of 3 missions before you can damage the villain, the three missions are defeating thugs, rescuing civilians, and stopping threats, stopping threats is usually the one that takes the most amount of actions to do(but they also give the biggest bonus, as stopping a threat in a location opens up it's special ability)). 2 of Mr. Sinister's threats make it impossible to defeat him if they aren't removed first, so we focused on beating thugs and removing threats as both Rogue and Gambit are good at getting attack actions. The ending of this one was pretty awesome though cause it ended with my wife using Rogue's ability to absorb powers to first use Gambit's master theif ability to give herself a wild card token, then use it again on the next turn to use Gambit's kinetic charge (which requires sacrificing an action token, using the one she just got from Master Thief) combined with her own attack actions she did like 6 damage in one turn and just annihilated Sinister all at once. WIN

Game 3, solo, Magik, Blink, and Phoenix (Rachel) vs. Omega Red: Omega Red's main mechanic seemed to revolve around building up threat tokens on characters, then doing damage to them based on the number they have. I picked this group mostly on a whim (just grabbing characters I like from the Kickstarter Extras box) and kind of lucked out in that Magik has a starting hand card that once played basically let's her sack a threat token on every villain turn. Omega Red also basically summoned TONS of Civilians and Thugs onto the board, making it incredibly easy to have plenty of targets for the Rescue Civilians and Defeating Thugs missions. There was some risk of overflow (if you are supposed to add a thug or civilian to a space and can't the villain does an overflow effect), but his overflow effect was do 1 damage to 1 hero in the location you can't add a thug/civilian. So as long as I avoided places that were overcrowded it wasn't much of a threat. Magik defeated mass amounts of thugs, Blink did a lot of rescues, and Phoenix did a bit of both. I felt like I cleared the two missions really fast, and then Blink teleported everyone right on top of Omega Red. Magik hit him once a solid hit, then Phoenix hit REALLY hard and knocked him out. WIN
 
I picked up The Night Cage on Friday. Will get it to the table this coming Thursday at a friend's house.
 
I've played Marvel United X-Men three times over the weekend.
We did too:

1. Multiple Man, Gambit and Kitty Pryde v Arcade - Win
2. Apocalypse, Rogue and Bob (agent of Hydra) v Mojo - Win
3. Ms Marvel, America Chavez, Dr Doom and Moon Knight v Silver Samurai - Win

All were fun games with very different strategies based on the hero and villain combos in play.

My favourite was the Apocalypse and Bob team up that brought Mojo down (Bob tried to throw Apocalypse a weapon but accidentally hit Mojo instead, but luckily distracting him so Apocalypse could land the final punch needed).
 
Played The Night Cage tonight. Just 2 of us, so we each controlled 2 characters. First game, we just barely beat, second game, we added an advanced monster in, and lost handily. I think they really timed out the average game length with their playtesting (thought randomness still has a big impact). End result, we both agreed we'd play it again.

 
Played a few games of Alien: Fate of the Nostromo over the weekend. Very much in the model of Horrified and other similar games from Prospero Hall, but it’s a lot of fun.

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Followed Alien: Fate of the Nostromo up with a few games of Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps :smile:

It was surprisingly good fun, reminding me a lot of the kind of skirmish games I played when younger like Space Crusade and Heroquest but with better design.

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Played 300: Earth and Water tonight, a two-player game about the Greco-Persian Wars. Even as our first time it took only around 40 mins to set up and finish. Didn’t get too deep into the tactical aspects that the game’s cards allow for, but I was satisfied! I played the Persians and beat the Greeks after 5 campaigns. I wouldn’t suggest it for those who want a huge amount of fiddly pieces and rules, but one of the most important aspects of board games for me recently is speed of play. Can’t beat this one for that.
 
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