Board Games!

[CarpeGuitarrem]

The rule on thread necromancy is 1 month, right?

45 days, as per the rules, yeah.

This month the gaming group split a bit with Dominion. One of the members bought the Dark Age expansion, while I bought the Guilds expansion. I was hoping to playing with Rebuild but it hasn't made it to the table yet. You've got to love a card where the game's designer admits it didn't get fully tested

Heh, sounds like the Alchemy expansion as a whole.

I've also been playing around with the Crisis expansion for Star Realms. Machine Cult \ Red got a couple of nasty additions, including two more of those "trade or damage" cards. Blue got an intriguing new member that works kind of like Workshop in Dominion - you can score a low-cost card for free instead of directly adding to trade, and it goes right onto the deck instead of the discard.

Oh, wow. So the new blue is basically a better freighter, yikes! Well, not strictly better, but definitely more generically useful. It's a highly useful "splash" card, which might actually be a good thing.

[midagedgamer]

Any one playing advanced wars "skirmish wars" board game??

Or is there any website that hosts online games of "advanced wars"?

I want to share with my brother so that we can play it together.

[Gnoman]

Any one playing advanced wars "skirmish wars" board game??

Or is there any website that hosts online games of "advanced wars"?

I want to share with my brother so that we can play it together.

This might sound a bit rude, but are you a spambot?

[LibraryOgre]

The rule on thread necromancy is 1 month, right?

The Mod Wonder: 45 days. You're cool.

</end ModVoice>

So, someone mentioned Shadowrun: Crossfire. How have you kept it interesting? My wife and I have played a few times, and it's nice, but since it's the two of us, we're just running Crossfire again and again. Are there any more scenarios out there?

[Erloas]

So, someone mentioned Shadowrun: Crossfire. How have you kept it interesting? My wife and I have played a few times, and it's nice, but since it's the two of us, we're just running Crossfire again and again. Are there any more scenarios out there?

I got it for Christmas but I haven't actually had a chance to play it at all. I'm not entirely sure if I've even actually opened the box.
How complex is the game? My girlfriend doesn't handle complex rule-sets very well so I haven't been looking at that many games lately.

We also got 011 (Eleventh Hour, a steampunk themed game) a while ago and while I did read through the rules we haven't got a chance to play it yet. Part of the problem is it takes at least 3 players and our only real 3rd player is almost 8 and I think the game would probably be a bit beyond her right now.

[LibraryOgre]

I got it for Christmas but I haven't actually had a chance to play it at all. I'm not entirely sure if I've even actually opened the box.
How complex is the game? My girlfriend doesn't handle complex rule-sets very well so I haven't been looking at that many games lately.

Really straightforward. You have a hand of cards, the initial size of which is determined by your Metatype. You can play as many cards as you like, and when you're done, you total up the damage done, and pay attention to its type. Specific types of damage are needed for some "damage levels"; untyped damage just needs to have lots of damage.

So, if someone has Weapon/4/Hacking/Social as damage levels, you have to do a Weapon damage, then 4 damage of any type, then a Hacking Damage, then a Social damage to completely defeat him. If you do a Weapon, 4 untyped (might be weapon, might be spell, might be untyped), and a Social, you lose the social, because you haven't done the Hacking damage, yet.

[Chen]

I picked up Roll for the Galaxy this weekend. Made by the same people as Race for the Galaxy but mainly dice based. Have to say its a lot of fun. Probably has less of a barrier to entry for new people than Race for the Galaxy too. Highly recommend it if you like Race for the Galaxy.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I picked up Roll for the Galaxy this weekend. Made by the same people as Race for the Galaxy but mainly dice based. Have to say its a lot of fun. Probably has less of a barrier to entry for new people than Race for the Galaxy too. Highly recommend it if you like Race for the Galaxy.

So, I've heard about this--what do they do to transition the mechanics over into dice? Are there many mechanical similarities at all? I've noticed that the dice seem to have symbols for the different phases, but what role do the planets play in the game?

[Chen]

So you have various different colored dice (each color has different distribution on faces). The faces have the standard RftG actions on them: Explore, Develop, Settle, Produce, Ship (replaced consume but is essentially the same). You roll all your dice in secret behind a screen and then assign them to the various phases. You then take one die (with any face) and use it to SELECT a phase (they don't have the match the face). Once everyone is done you reveal and all the selected phases occur. If you have any dice that show a selected phase (even if you didn't select it) you get to do that phase's action for each die you have that matches it.

Instead of cards for planets/development you have tiles. These are double sided, one side with a planet, the other with a development. When you explore you draw these from a bag and can place them into your construction area. During develop/settle you use dice to place onto the construction area and build planets/development.

Development all have powers. Many are "reassign" powers which let you manipulate dice. Such as "you may reassign one white die to any other action". These are done while you are secretly placing your dice. Planets all provide more dice in some way. Either directly into your cup or into your standby area.

When you use a die for an action it goes to the standby area. At the end of the round you buy back dice from the standby area into your cup (ready for rolling) by spending 1 credit for each die you want back. By default you get 1 credit per turn and each turn you MUST spend all your credits. You get credits for shipping (like consume/trade) or from various other abilities on developments/planets. Max credits per turn is 10 so max you're rolling 10 dice at a time.

[midagedgamer]

This might sound a bit rude, but are you a spambot?

would I reply here if I'm a spambot?

[TheEmerged]

So, I had a bit of spare cash when I went to buy new card sleeves (I'm working on sleeving a few of my older board games that are long out of print) and I picked up the Batman: Love Letter reskin.

Let me emphasize "reskin", because it's all-but-identical except for the art on the cards and an addition to the scoring mechanic. I was hoping the powers on the cards would at least get rethemed (perhaps the Two Face card would involve a coin flip or something) but, no, it's the exact same cards & card counts. The new scoring mechanic, though, changes some things.

The equivalent for the Guard (value 1, mechanic is to guess what card player X holds and if you're right they're eliminated for this hand) in this set is Batman. If you eliminate a player using a Batman card, you get a point toward winning the game - the same value as winning the hand. Given that the number of points needed to win has also gone up (7 is recommended now) you're almost going to have to Guard\Batman a time or three to win.

Conventional Wisdom (it doesn't rise to the level of a tactic) in Love Letter is to start guessing the Princess (Joker in this set) since if that's in someone's hand and you don't remove it, that player wins. You skip guessing the Countess (Harley) because she eliminates herself half the time and move to the King... of course this goes out the window if you've got a pretty good idea what the player has, after all. The new scoring rule though makes the notion of guessing the lower-valued\higher count cards more viable. I'm not sure how much more viable yet, though.


Other than that, though, the best thing about the Batman: Love Letter reskin is the new wording for the "You shouldn't be playing with people that cheat" statement in the rules. I left the book at home though so I'll try to remember to edit the exact wording in later


=====================================

Speaking of older, out of print games... What are some memorable examples of this for you? Not necessarily favorite, but games no longer published that stick out for you for some reason. Here are a few of mine.

1> Mystery Mansion, 1984, Milton Bradley. I wish I would have sleeved this a long time ago - I have often toyed with the notion of printing up my own cards and sleeving them to replace the (extremely cheap) cardstock for my copy. Yes, if this came out today I'd say it was too luck based, but it's still a go-to game for me. The first game I played that had a variable board that is built as the game is played (I'm sure there were earlier ones), and probably figures into my preference for that type of setup. It was clearly part of the inspiration for Betrayal at the House on the Hill.

2> Conquest - the first game I bought via mail order, back in the late 80's. Something of an abstract wargame where each player takes a limited number of moves per turn, the attacking piece always win (but not all pieces can attack all pieces) - with the at-the-time mind-blowing addition that other player could interrupt\react under certain circumstances! Ah, the amount of time I spent playing this and trying to find more people to play it with. I'd replace this in a moment if feasible, just for the nostalgia (I doubt it'd hold up today).

3> Trust Me. Memorable for me for two reasons. The first is that this is the first time I played a game and then went, "That can't possibly be right." The second is that my parents threw this game out when they discovered it involved lying\bluffing (I was 11 or 12 at the time, okay?). Insert line about how I to-this-day stink at lying\bluffing games...

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Chen: Huh! Thanks for the overview.

RE: Batman Love Letter, very interesting! That new score mechanic does seem like it'd change things up a bit, and it's pretty thematic, what with Batman being the Guard.

I've also played Hobbit Love Letter, which changes two things. First: there's the One Ring, which is a rating 0 card until the end of the game, when it becomes rating 7. Second: the Baron's ability gets split into Tauriel and Legolas. Legolas works like the Baron, but Tauriel works like an inverse Baron. And they're two distinct cards, so both are harder to Guard.

[TheEmerged]

May's gaming budget = the new Adventures expansion for Dominion.

Now mind, I've only been playing Dominion around a year, but there certainly seem to be some game changers here. The Event cards (chose 2 when selecting the initial list of available cards, and anyone can play the effect by "buying" it, but the card stays in play) are a welcome addition for me - essentially, they're short term 'house rules' all the players can use in this game. "Borrow" for example allows you to gain 1 coin this turn, but you automatically lose one next turn.

The one I'm dying to test in play is Inheritance: it costs 7 coin (a lot in context), each player can only do it once... and it allows you to pick a 4-coin or less action. From now on, your Estates now can be played as that action. Estates are one of the weakest cards; you start with 3 of them and a mainstream strategy is to get rid of them as quickly as possible. I've rarely seen them purchased. This makes me wonder if someone held a "make Estates useful" competition.

There are also a number of new duration cards, which we've otherwise only seen in the Seaside expansion. One of them in particular, Bridge Troll, is very similar to a previous card (Bridge), except this one counts as an attack and stays in play for a bit. To help avoid power creep, it's also slightly more expensive. Of course it means I can put off buying the expansion Bridge is in There's also two that give new meaning to "stays in play", and they don't leave - period - and one of them essentially represents a permanent hand size increase. I'm unaware of a way to eliminate them in game now.

One... interesting addition are the new Traveller cards - Page and Peasant. When discarded from play, you can instead turn them into another traveller card (named on the Page\Peasant)... which can be turned into another named card when they are discarded from play... there are 5 steps on the chain, meaning the last one is going to come out near\at the end of the game. I'm not terribly impressed at the moment - they're powerful at the end but less so on the way, and take 5 shuffles to get all the way upgraded - but as usual I want to get 'em on the table before I pass judgement.

As for the new Reserve cards? Distant Lands, the new Victory card, is #2 on the "I want to see this on the table" list. It costs 5, same as a Duchy (worth 3 VP). At the end of the game, it's worth 4 VP if it's on your Tavern mat, and 0 VP otherwise. Getting it to the Tavern mat is as easy - and as expensive - as playing it as your action. As a rule the new Reserve calls allow you to set them aside to "time" them on another turn - getting the usual restriction about having to draw them at the same time as something useful. Ever had one of those games where you just couldn't seem to draw your Chapel and Ruins\Curses at the same time? Yeah, me too. Another noticeable example is Royal Carriage - essentially, a Throne Room (duplicate the effects of an action) that you can play when you want instead of hoping to draw it at the right time.

Number 3 on the "I want to see this on the table" list for Adventures is the Miser. 4 coin cost, just a plain action... and you choose one of two effects. Either put a Copper (the least valuable coin card, you start with 7 of them you hope to replace as quickly as feasible) on the Tavern mat, or gain 1 coin for every Copper on the Tavern mat. So it essentially "trashes" a weak card that makes up 70% of your initial deck, and gets more valuable as it goes.

Not all is good with the set though. I may be missing something obvious but the new defense card (Caravan Guard)... doesn't seem to really do anything. I'm pretty sure I'm missing something.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Huh, interesting! The Miser sounds fun to play with, and wow Inheritance! Though I'd point out that the Miser doesn't get better as the game goes on, since coins are expendable.

[TheEmerged]

Huh, interesting! The Miser sounds fun to play with, and wow Inheritance! Though I'd point out that the Miser doesn't get better as the game goes on, since coins are expendable.

Sorry, my habit of referring to the money value in Dominion as "coin" interferred there. Miser gets a money value of X for every Copper on the Tavern mat. So if you've got 1 Copper there, you can choose between putting another Copper on the mat or getting 1 in money value. If you've got 2 Copper there, he's potentially worth 2 in money value (same as a Silver) and so forth. I wasn't refering to the coin tokens (from Guilds). So the Miser gets the Copper out of your deck and becomes more valuable as it does.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Sorry, my habit of referring to the money value in Dominion as "coin" interferred there. Miser gets a money value of X for every Copper on the Tavern mat. So if you've got 1 Copper there, you can choose between putting another Copper on the mat or getting 1 in money value. If you've got 2 Copper there, he's potentially worth 2 in money value (same as a Silver) and so forth. I wasn't refering to the coin tokens (from Guilds). So the Miser gets the Copper out of your deck and becomes more valuable as it does.

Oh, huh. Wow. I can just imagine a Throne Room combo deck with those two cards.

[Fri]

My new boardgame has just arrived.

It's Tragedy Looper, a japanese board game that's recently translated by Zman games. I was looking for a new deduction game since Black Vienna is so taxing.

Basically it's an anime-themed game about a bunch of people with ability to loop back in time trying to prevent some sort of tragedy.

One play the mastermind, and the other play protagonists. The mastermind try to make a tragedy happen, it might be suicide, murder, or some other thing. The protagonists try to prevent it.

There are some npcs in the board, where the masterminds and the protagonists try to influence. Each npcs have secret roles, like the brain, the victim, the killer, etc, that the mastermind knows, but the protagonists don't. And if the tragedy happen, the protagonist loop back in time.

With the knowledge that they have from the previous loop, they have to prevent the tragedy to happen this time.The protagonists, win if they can prevent the tragedy happen just once. The mastermind win if the protagonists die or fail to prevent the tragedy for a few loop, the number depends on the scenario.

It sounds fun, though I have a bit of a concern about the replayability. But it support making custom script, there's a detailed part in the mastermind handbook about how to make custom script, the publisher apparently often releases expansion packs with new scripts, and there's a community in bgg who share custom scripts they make. I hope I can testplay it this weekend.

[TheEmerged]

My new boardgame has just arrived.

It's Tragedy Looper, a japanese board game that's recently translated by Zman games. I was looking for a new deduction game since Black Vienna is so taxing.

Basically it's an anime-themed game about a bunch of people with ability to loop back in time trying to prevent some sort of tragedy.

This one came onto my radar recently. I've been unable to find details on the nature of the tragadies yet though - and this is an issue at our gaming table as a couple of the players are the kids of the older players. They're "tweens" now (not little kids) but I'd still need more details first (essentially, if I can't play with them in the room there's no point in me buying it).

[CarpeGuitarrem]

My new boardgame has just arrived.

It's Tragedy Looper, a japanese board game that's recently translated by Zman games. I was looking for a new deduction game since Black Vienna is so taxing.

Basically it's an anime-themed game about a bunch of people with ability to loop back in time trying to prevent some sort of tragedy.

Tragedy Looper!!! I've really enjoyed this game. I think the replayability might indeed be an issue, but custom scenarios are not a bad idea. It's like an RPG-lite framework, and I love the "blind selection" element where you have to double-guess the Mastermind.

[Magentawolf]

2> Conquest - the first game I bought via mail order, back in the late 80's. Something of an abstract wargame where each player takes a limited number of moves per turn, the attacking piece always win (but not all pieces can attack all pieces) - with the at-the-time mind-blowing addition that other player could interrupt\react under certain circumstances! Ah, the amount of time I spent playing this and trying to find more people to play it with. I'd replace this in a moment if feasible, just for the nostalgia (I doubt it'd hold up today).

Ah, Conquest. There's a copy sitting on the shelf at my local store that's been tempting me, ever since the manager introduced it to us during one board game night.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Speaking of older, out of print games... What are some memorable examples of this for you? Not necessarily favorite, but games no longer published that stick out for you for some reason. Here are a few of mine.

Does the old Dune boardgame count? It's technically out-of-print. I had the best experience going to my Economics professor's house, where a group of us played 6-player Dune, the same copy he'd played in college, over the day. Simply glorious.

[Fri]

Oh man, I wish it's still on print. One of my friend had Rex once, which is based on the rules but with tacked on original setting, and it's just not the same. We always call each faction with their Dune equivalent anyway

[CarpeGuitarrem]

This one came onto my radar recently. I've been unable to find details on the nature of the tragadies yet though - and this is an issue at our gaming table as a couple of the players are the kids of the older players. They're "tweens" now (not little kids) but I'd still need more details first (essentially, if I can't play with them in the room there's no point in me buying it).

IIRC, there's basically murders and suicides which you're trying to prevent. If certain combinations of characters are at various gamestates on a particular turn, a murder (or sometimes suicide) happens according to the script, and you're trying to make that gamestate not come about on that turn.

Oh man, I wish it's still on print. One of my friend had Rex once, which is based on the rules but with tacked on original setting, and it's just not the same. We always call each faction with their Dune equivalent anyway

If I had a regular playgroup and more time/inclination, I'd do Ilya 77's print-and-play Dune. Otherwise, yeah...Rex is actually pretty good--I liked the tweaks they made. Also I totally call each faction by their Dune name.

[Fri]

Forgot to do the after action report of Tragedy Looper.

It was a blast. Everyone who played it absolutely loved it.

I played the mastermind of course, and we played two games. One is the introduction script, and right after that, my friend said they want to go straight to the advanced script (which is called basic script, strangely).

I won the introductory game. We played with tabletalk on, so it was really amusing watching the protagonists discuss the mystery and debate and plan. They still lost though.

I lost the next game. There was 4 loops in that scenario. I won the first and second loop so easily . With the same way, even. I just managed to surprise the protagonists. They were more prepared at the third loop, and it was a true battle of wits. And at the end, they managed to win.

Though, I actually set up something in that loop, but I forgot myself what did I set up. I just remembered what I was planning to do on the journey home. What an absentminded mastermind.

Anyway, the theme was great. I never played any deduction game where the detectives really feel like detectives like this, and the mastermind really feel like mastermind.

If there's bad side for it, the game was actually less narrative than I thought. I mean, there is a story, but the mastermind can't tell it to the protagonist. Though, it's still somewhat narrative and thematic, since the players make up their own story in their head. I mean, it was clear that "the doctor is a serial killer that's moving from the hospital into the school to kill the class rep" instead of just random nameless/shapeless chits or miniatures moving on abstract board. And of course the loops. Next time I play this, I'm going to play a time machine sound effect and evil laugh from my phone everytime they loop. Any idea what time machine sound effect I could use?

Another bad side for the game is that the rule is kinda confusing at first and pretty hard to explain clearly. I understood it pretty well, but after reading some posts in bgg, a lot of people stumble into the rule.

And if you're not into it, I guess the old-school anime pictures can be a downside *shrugs.* There's a lot of reviews saying that, which I personally find silly, but each to their own I guess.

Anyway, after playing this game, I realized how much I find this game brilliant. Not for the gameplay. Well, not just for the gameplay. But about how good the game is with this little components. It just got what? A board, a couple of cards? And there also aren't that many cards. No hundreds of tiny cubes, no stack of hundred of small cards.

I still like playing games with hundreds of little plastic men, but I find myself adoring this lack of component so much. Especially since I'm a messy person, and games with hundreds of components are just asking me to lose them. I'll leave collecting those kind of games to my friends and I'll stick to games with minimal component like this, thank you .

So, any idea what other good games with minimal amount of components but not a micro game like Lost Legacy or Love Letter are out there?

[Xapi]

So, any idea what other good games with minimal amount of components but not a micro game like Lost Legacy or Love Letter are out there?

Resistance is a medium weight game very light in components, although I'm probably not blowing your mind with the suggestion.

[Fri]

Nah, we have Resistance, Coup, and Maskerade, and we love those. I guess I should've told what small games we have first.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Don't forget that pretty much any card game will be minimal on components! Citadels, Tichu (and Chimera, if you have a 3-player group), whatever deckbuilder of the month it is, and I even consider Eminent Domain to just barely fit in this category. Barely.

[Beacon of Chaos]

On that note, perhaps Machi Koro? Some cards, some dice, tokens for money, that's it.

[Magentawolf]

On that note, perhaps Machi Koro? Some cards, some dice, tokens for money, that's it.

Do you like not being able to do anything for multiple turns in a row? Or, once you've made enough money to make a purchase, enjoy finding it stolen from you by yet another unlucky roll of the dice? If so, Machi Koro is for you!

[Fri]

Hey guys! I'm making my own card game now, and I need playtesters. If you're interested, you could check it here