The Board Game Thread - What have you Played recently?

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Got in two games with my wife today:

Sunrise Lane by Reiner Knizia/Horrible Guild. It plays pretty well with two, but I'd love to get a four-player game going. My wife kicked my ass, trouncing me by 70 points. Simple rules, easily taught, quick to play, but with meaningful decisions.

Cubed: Next Level Dominoes by Friendly Rabbit. A fun abstract game that looks great on the table. Again, my wife won, though it came down to the last damn tile! Again. Like Sunrise Lane, this game is easy to play and teach and will definitely hit the table again. If I have one complaint, it's the colors on the tiles are sometimes too similar, especially with the pinks. Definitely not a game for the color blind!
 
I have that glorious monster box in my office. Whenever anyone wants to say it comes in a big box I point to that bastard.
I sold mine and kept the PocketBox set in the pink box. Now if only SJGames would put out the Battlefields pocket box they've been hinting at for a few years I could complete the set!
 
Played Hammer of the Scots today and the dice and cards gods forsook me. My English were nearly routed in the first three turns but survived to have the advantage by mid-game. Then it all went to hell. I made it to the final turn but soundly lost. At least I killed that insufferable William Wallace.
 
Played Hammer of the Scots today and the dice and cards gods forsook me. My English were nearly routed in the first three turns but survived to have the advantage by mid-game. Then it all went to hell. I made it to the final turn but soundly lost. At least I killed that insufferable William Wallace.

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(sorry :grin: )
 
Played a few games last night. Lost Ruins of Arnak, Epic Spell Wars Murdershroom Marsh, Its a Wonderful World, and Air Land and Sea. The night did not have a lot of victory on my side but it was fun.
 
I bought The Night and read the rules but haven't played yet. A solo Night of the Living Dead, basically.
 
Had a lot of fun playing Talisman 2e the other night. A longtime Talisman fan in my regular group wants to get a game going for money, as he believes that adding stakes to the game would increase PvP vigorousness. Everyone seems to be on board with the idea but as most of our group has never played, we decided we'd have some stakes-free games so they can learn the game a bit.

Glad this weekend's game wasn't for money, because I got smoked! The dice and cards were both against my poor Gipsy early on, and by the time things started to turn around for me it was too little, too late.
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Had a lot of fun playing Talisman 2e the other night. A longtime Talisman fan in my regular group wants to get a game going for money, as he believes that adding stakes to the game would increase PvP vigorousness. Everyone seems to be on board with the idea but as most of our group has never played, we decided we'd have some stakes-free games so they can learn the game a bit.

Glad this weekend's game wasn't for money, because I got smoked! The dice and cards were both against my poor Gipsy early on, and by the time things started to turn around for me it was too little, too late.
Wow, board games for money... Not my cup of tea, but then I'm a firm believer in the old adage: "if you look around the table and you can't tell who the mark is, it's you"--and I'm always the mark.
 
Had a lot of fun playing Talisman 2e the other night. A longtime Talisman fan in my regular group wants to get a game going for money, as he believes that adding stakes to the game would increase PvP vigorousness. Everyone seems to be on board with the idea but as most of our group has never played, we decided we'd have some stakes-free games so they can learn the game a bit.

Glad this weekend's game wasn't for money, because I got smoked! The dice and cards were both against my poor Gipsy early on, and by the time things started to turn around for me it was too little, too late.
I have booked a play of my set of Talisman 2e in a week's time (haven't played for years). Its so random that playing for money would be a crapshoot XD
 
Horrified: Greek Monsters.
Great little co-op board game, the third in the Horrified series from Ravensburger. Also recently played King of Tokyo.

Recently finished painting and trying out Mantic Games’s Armada fantasy naval game— it’s a fun one.

Also busy painting my growing HeroQuest collection.
 
Horrified: Greek Monsters.
Great little co-op board game, the third in the Horrified series from Ravensburger. Also recently played King of Tokyo.

Recently finished painting and trying out Mantic Games’s Armada fantasy naval game— it’s a fun one.

Also busy painting my growing HeroQuest collection.
The best thing about HeroQuest is …
 
Horrified: Greek Monsters.
Great little co-op board game, the third in the Horrified series from Ravensburger. Also recently played King of Tokyo.
As much as I like Horrified, the Greek Monster version of Horrified seems like a bit of a missed opportunity. They should have made the board a larger map of Greece rather than keep it to a city, as actual distance is abstract. Also, the characters should have mythic heroes rather than nameless individuals. This would have made it more heroic and less horror.
 
Yeah, they missed a couple of tricks with H:GM. The character art is dreadful— far too modern in style and in some cases even absurd— the “Hoplite” looks like a punk rocker from ‘80s London. The card backs, however, are terrific.
They should have ditched the Basilisk, which is just another “stone them” monster like Medusa (and has no significant Greek myth) for the Hydra or the Dragon of the Hesperides— or, in a nod to Harryhausen, the Kraken. The Basilisk is a head scratcher. I agree, an isle-themed map could have been fun, placing elements of the myths with their actual origin cultures.
But the game play remains solid, and the different capabilities of the heroes makes for different play choices than the previous two.
And for the record I can’t STAND the art for the Legends— especially Circe. But once you’ve got the standee on the board, you can ignore the art and just move her towards her destination.
 
Got a few games in tonight. Played a couple of games of Star Wars Unlimited, the TCG, using the 2 player starter first, and then 1 game with a deck I cobbled together out of 6 boosters. Imperial won both games. Was quite fun. First games for both of us.

Then we played Lost Ruins of Arnak, my second play, the other guy's first time playing. We had another fun match, but I will say that the research track seems to really be something you cannot sleep on.

Last we played Super Fantasy Brawl, and both had a blast with it. We used the characters in the core box (I have all expansions), and just picked the characters by random die roll. It was a fun battle, but I managed to pull the win on this one. I'll take 1 out of 4 games as a win, because the main point was experiencing and learning new games with friends. First game for both of us.
 
So, Super Fantasy Brawl remained on my mind today. I enjoyed the other games. Lost Ruins is a great deckbuilder. But man, Super Fantasy Brawl was a blast to play. Of the board games on my wall of boardgames, that's the one I want to get to the table again next.
 
Played Odin's Ravens with the 2nd oldest. He didn't care for it but I thought it was a solid 2 player game.
 
I played my first game of Star Trek Away Missions the other night. We were only playing the QuickStart.

Somewhere I had read it was like some other game. I don't recall what that game was. But what it reminded me of was Warhammer 40K FireTeam combined with scoring like Dark Tales. Unlike FireTeam, which is focused on killing the other guy, Away Missions was much more about just positioning in order to do skill checks with conflict with the other player being near incidental. Whereas FireTeam just had the cards be game setup randomizers, in Away Missions there was a lot more cardplay, but nowhere near an actual cardgame like Dark Tales. However the similarity to Dark Tales was in how scoring was handled and the general feel of each player pursuing their scoring independently while trying to interfere in the pursuit of score by the other player.

My first impression was that it was OK. I'll need to play again to determine if I really like it. With miniature games like this, I really prefer more active combat. For the type of feel I got out of my first game of Away Missions, I think I'd get more entertainment value for my time with Dark Tales, although I wouldn't get the Star Trek theme. And I do have to say the game certainly plays thematically. But the jury is still out. I need to try my hand at the Borg. Plus, I have the Romulan and Klingon team expansions the game was originally launched with, so I'll have to try those after we get into the full rules.

I can say I bought the game blind. When I placed my pre-order a long time ago, I had been under the gross misimpression the game would be something like a co-op Star Trek Zombicide game. Honestly, I do think something like that would have been better with Borg as an AI enemy players work to defeat.
 
I got to play my first crayon railroad game today. Played Empire Builder. I know these are older games, but I feel like there was a real missed opportunity when Ticket to Ride was big to push it as a great option for those wanting more complexity. Had an absolute blast playing it.
 
Finished our send full run through of all 14 Time Stories boxes on the weekend (photo below omits Cavendish).

I love Time Stories. It is the best adaptation of the solo gamebook mechanic to a multiplayer board game experience I have experienced. I would love to see them make more, but it looks like it may have run its course.

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The group is starting up Etherfields next month as its replacement.
 
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As a mushroom fan and a trained ethno-mycologist, my wife picked up some biology and mycology themed board games. Last week we played a couple of games of Wonder Woods, which was fun.

She also picked up Fungi, On The Origin of Species and Mycelia. Haven't played those yet.
 
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As a mushroom fan and a trained ethno-mycologist, my wife picked up some biology and mycology themed board games. Last week we played a couple of games of Wonder Woods, which was fun.

She also picked up Fungi, On The Origin of Species and Mycelia. Haven't played those yet.

Which Mycelia game is it? I ask because there's two games with that name.

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Prepping the table for a little board gaming this weekend. Besides speeding up setup, it helps me to lay everything out when reviewing the rules. Everything starts to click again (since it's been 2 years since I last played this game.

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Which Mycelia game is it? I ask because there's two games with that name.

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My first thought is what the hell are the odds of two games with that nam?!??!?!

My second thought was "Well if I name it Mycelia at least I don't have to worry about a name collision! Who else would name their game that?!?'"

So I can kinda see how it happened.
 
My first thought is what the hell are the odds of two games with that nam?!??!?!

My second thought was "Well if I name it Mycelia at least I don't have to worry about a name collision! Who else would name their game that?!?'"

So I can kinda see how it happened.
Well, for a mushroom-themed game it's not that far-fetched.
 
Prepping the table for a little board gaming this weekend. Besides speeding up setup, it helps me to lay everything out when reviewing the rules. Everything starts to click again (since it's been 2 years since I last played this game.

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Oh, my friend The Sailor has that game and keeps telling me how he'd like for us to try it. What's it like?
 
Oh, my friend The Sailor has that game and keeps telling me how he'd like for us to try it. What's it like?

Well, it's most notably an app-driven game. (The first I've played). Download the app on whatever device, sync it with the tower, and the conflict results, events, and the tower's behavior will be controlled by the app.

Gameplay consists of moving your heroes individually across 4 kingdoms, cooperatively trying to keep the corruption spreading across the land under control. Monsters spawn, which grow stronger the longer they're on the table. Quests are introduced every month (and conditions worsen if you fail to achieve certain quests). Small dungeons spawn and can be explored. The tower spews out corruption - in the form of skull tokens - which can destroy the beneficial buildings in each kingdom, if enough skulls accumulate. If your heroes fail in conflicts, they can become corrupted, making them less effective. In the end game, the Adversary emerges from the tower, and you have to work together to try and take it down.

It's a game of constant hero development (through loot and resource collection), resource attrition and area management. You're on a turn time limit and have to juggle a lot of responsibilities if you want to have a chance to make it to the end game and defeat the big bad. There's rarely a dull moment.

I've played it 3 times at the standard difficulty level and have yet to beat it. One time we got close - the Adversary had left the tower, and our group took turns trying to take the bastard down. But we just fell a little short.
 
Wow, that sounds almost nothing like the original Dark Tower. So the only things they kept the same are the visual table appearance and the name?
 
It's been a really long time since I played the original Dark Tower - 40-42 years ago. So, I don't recall all the differences between the original and "Return".
Some aspects remain, like:
  • The Warrior resource attrition in battles.
  • The tower tracking battles and game activities.
  • The buildings providing you with resources and recovery options.
I wouldn't say that it's nothing like the original, but "Return" greatly expands upon the 1981 game. It's pretty much what you would expect from a pricey, resurrected Kickstarter board game - lots of extra features, miniatures, additional complexity. Whether that's a net plus or a negative is subjective.
 
It's been a really long time since I played the original Dark Tower - 40-42 years ago. So, I don't recall all the differences between the original and "Return".
Some aspects remain, like:
  • The Warrior resource attrition in battles.
  • The tower tracking battles and game activities.
  • The buildings providing you with resources and recovery options.
I wouldn't say that it's nothing like the original, but "Return" greatly expands upon the 1981 game. It's pretty much what you would expect from a pricey, resurrected Kickstarter board game - lots of extra features, miniatures, additional complexity. Whether that's a net plus or a negative is subjective.

I had kind of wondered what their Dark Tower was like. I never got to play the original. I avoided the remake due to lack of nostalgia for the original and the app dependent nature.

I can say that in regards to Thunder Road, Restoration Games definitely does a recognizable but somewhat different modern spin on the old games. Unmatched is also in this category of recognizable but not identical remakes (Unmatched uses the same general ideas as the old Star Wars and Transformers Epic Duel games released by Hasbro in the early 00s).
 
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