Support NeoGAF

[BlewHedgehog]

Pandemic Legacy was a hell of a ride, can't wait for either season 2 or whatever the next Legacy branded game is. Really well done, and I was really impressed how much story it has, both on it's own and how much my wife and I contributed. I'm not into role-playing at all and my wife is barely a gamer but we had a lot of fun naming our characters, remembering their contributions, creating backstories to explain their relationships, etc.

I personally don't agree it's necessarily a one-and-done experience and I'm really surprised that I see people say so often that replaying it again would be pointless. Just like people rewatch movies, reread books, replay video games, etc. that they really like even though they already know what happens, I could definitely see us playing through Pandemic Legacy again after awhile. Hell, I've probably seen Fight Club six times and even though a repeat viewing will never compare to the first time I saw it it's still great.

Think we're going to get T.I.M.E. Stories next.

I haven't heard the lack of desire to play again so much as displeasure with having to fork over the money for a clean copy. Having played for the first time tonight, the prospect of peeling stickers off or keeping cards that are meant to be ripped seems ludicrous. I'm with you on the story beats. Naming characters is my favorite part of character creation and undoing or retracting details from their cards isn't worth the money being saved by cleaning your copy.

Original Pandemic is just fine, but the February play felt like an entirely different game than the January round we had just finished. If they keep up the differentiation at this level, I will be very impressed.

 

[Dryk]

I wouldn't remove the traitor thing too much, just dilute it. Make it more likely that the table is working together, but that there is a possibility of a traitor (for 4 people, my friends and I usually do 5+1...I think 8+1 would be right for your group).

2*n + 1 is the default number of cards

 

[AstroLad]

Just played our first game of Dead of Winter. Quick impressions:
-Theme is really good, especially in the suggested Too Many Mouths scenario.

-The game has a lot of rules, but they're all very light. Which is pretty interesting in terms of teaching it. There's nothing remotely hard to explain, there's just a lot to explain for what's ultimately a light mediumweight game.

-Too Many Mouths I had watched a couple playthroughs of online and man that is a tough scenario. We wound up with no traitor and all were one or two cards or barricades short of our objectives, which was pretty universally what I saw online too. Is this scenario decently balanced? Seems like a traitor could just run amok and the only question would be if the traitor could complete their secret objective, not anything else. Because we were teetering on a knife's edge the whole time. Maybe I'm missing some great strategy like exiling a non-traitor to save on resources. No idea. But I still thought it was really fun though I might try a different scenario next time because damn is upkeep on those helpless colonists annoying. I suppose a "good" traitor sort of tries to hang around the whole time so they can read their victory paragraph and not get exiled. I don't even like traitor games but man do I love the idea of reading a victory passage to everyone you just screwed over.

 

[DTU]

Going to my first Gen Con this year. Lucked out tremendously and got a room at the Fairfield! Pumped as hell!

 

[ultron87]

Another year of good Gen Con lottery luck has us in rooms at the Westin and the Sheraton. Yay Gen Con! Now I can be excited instead of filled with anxiety.

 

[nicoga3000]

I missed out on room lottery stuff. Bummer. I mean, I only live 25 minutes or so away from the convention center, but it's nice to not have to drive back and forth every day.

 

[toddhunter]

Maybe I'm missing some great strategy like exiling a non-traitor to save on resources.

Sounds reasonable for "too many mouths"

How long did the game take?

 

[Blizzard]

Having played the Undermountain expansion earlier, we finally tried the Skullport expansion to Lords of Waterdeep.

I think we both preferred Undermountain. Skullport does change gameplay, but it becomes even more of a vicious 2-player game. There are various ways to attach skulls to certain action spaces, screwing over the person that goes there with a (potentially) -5 victory point penalty. It ends up making you agonize over poor choices. I prefer games where you agonize over awesome choices. Race for the Galaxy feels a bit more like that, for me.

Although, presumably Race for the Galaxy is unbalanced in favor of produce/consume combos unless you use an expansion?

 

[AstroLad]

Sounds reasonable for "too many mouths"

How long did the game take?

Took about half an hour to teach and then a little over 90 minutes to play. Thankfully the couple we played with are pretty casual but also quite good at picking up on rules because again for a lightish game it's not the easiest one to explain. Definitely gives you that itch to try again though...in fact they're coming down next Friday so we can give it another go.

 

[toddhunter]

Took about half an hour to teach and then a little over 90 minutes to play. Thankfully the couple we played with are pretty casual but also quite good at picking up on rules because again for a lightish game it's not the easiest one to explain. Definitely gives you that itch to try again though...in fact they're coming down next Friday so we can give it another go.

Cool, sounds like a reasonable time frame.

 

[Experien]

Just played our first game of Dead of Winter. Quick impressions:
-Theme is really good, especially in the suggested Too Many Mouths scenario.

-The game has a lot of rules, but they're all very light. Which is pretty interesting in terms of teaching it. There's nothing remotely hard to explain, there's just a lot to explain for what's ultimately a light mediumweight game.

-Too Many Mouths I had watched a couple playthroughs of online and man that is a tough scenario. We wound up with no traitor and all were one or two cards or barricades short of our objectives, which was pretty universally what I saw online too. Is this scenario decently balanced? Seems like a traitor could just run amok and the only question would be if the traitor could complete their secret objective, not anything else. Because we were teetering on a knife's edge the whole time. Maybe I'm missing some great strategy like exiling a non-traitor to save on resources. No idea. But I still thought it was really fun though I might try a different scenario next time because damn is upkeep on those helpless colonists annoying. I suppose a "good" traitor sort of tries to hang around the whole time so they can read their victory paragraph and not get exiled. I don't even like traitor games but man do I love the idea of reading a victory passage to everyone you just screwed over.

Maybe it was the scenario I played but Dead of Winter seemed themeless and boring. I forget which one it was but it always puzzled me on why everyone raved about this game.

 

[joelseph]

Got Sheraton for the first time. Bummed no free breakfast nor internet but at least it's on campus even if it's near the monument.

Really really feeling the housing fatigue. We have long timers dropping out over a second year of lottery bullcrap.

We got 3 on campus rooms out of 15+ tickets. Not fun.

 

[nicoga3000]

Got Sheraton for the first time. Bummed no free breakfast nor internet but at least it's on campus even if it's near the monument.

Really really feeling the housing fatigue. We have long timers dropping out over a second year of lottery bullcrap.

We got 3 on campus rooms out of 15+ tickets. Not fun.

I should open our home up to Gen Con GAF folk. We have the space for it...

 

[Karkador]

This GenCon crunch is totally absurd. Cons need a new model.

 

[BattleMonkey]

This GenCon crunch is totally absurd. Cons need a new model.

Most don't have the shitty lottery system model, you just first come first served. Gencon completely lost me because of the lottery, won't even attempt that nonsense.

 

[Palmer_v1]

This GenCon crunch is totally absurd. Cons need a new model.

For Gencon, the biggest annoyance is that I buy my passes at a certain point, then have to wait to actually try and get a hotel room. I just want that to all happen at the same time so I know how fucked I am immediately. I hate lottery systems. I'd rather have increased prices across the board if it meant nothing was left to chance.

Overall, I hate that you have to plan for these so far in advance. I knew I was skipping Gencon, but I was considering Geekway. Turns out that's also been sold out for a while.

If these events are so popular, why aren't they just running them more frequently?

 

[Faiz]

Yep, lotteries are awful. I won't go to a con with one. This is a vacation for me, I'm not spending it at some crap hole 10-20 miles from the convention that I was assigned to.

Oh the days when you just called up the Marriot Marina for a room for SDCC.

 

[antiquegamer]

Yep, lotteries are awful. I won't go to a con with one. This is a vacation for me, I'm not spending it at some crap hole 10-20 miles from the convention that I was assigned to.

Oh the days when you just called up the Marriot Marina for a room for SDCC.

Haha, those were the days. I remember we used to just drive down to San Diego from Los Angeles and able to get in and as the year progress it became more and more insane. Now you have to try to get the pass a whole year in advance which is nut.

I also remember when we first move up here to the Northwest. We would just drive up to PAX in Seattle and buy a ticket there and walked in.

 

[BattleMonkey]

For Gencon, the biggest annoyance is that I buy my passes at a certain point, then have to wait to actually try and get a hotel room. I just want that to all happen at the same time so I know how fucked I am immediately. I hate lottery systems. I'd rather have increased prices across the board if it meant nothing was left to chance.

Overall, I hate that you have to plan for these so far in advance. I knew I was skipping Gencon, but I was considering Geekway. Turns out that's also been sold out for a while.

If these events are so popular, why aren't they just running them more frequently?

Well Gencon takes alot of work, and there is always fear of diluting one event by having too many repeats of the same event. Also the industry as a whole can only attend so many cons, it will be harder to get everyone you want to show up when they get spread out too much. There used to be two gencons a year long ago, kinda seems like they could consider doing that again though.

But the popularity seen for Gencon seems to be spilling into other lesser known events, as most of the smaller cons are seeing growth as well. Gencon reaching capacity is just going to help the other cons grow.

 

[Karkador]

I just think that at some point (a point we've apparently arrived at), you're either doing the Comic-Con/PAX model in different cities, and you choose a new venue.

 

[BattleMonkey]

They have a contract with Indy and it's probably much cheaper to run than moving to a bigger venue. Also options for bigger venues are pretty limited. It's also not much of a problem with venue, but really the city it's located in though. Indy just doesn't have the housing needed.

Orlando actually would be a great place for Gencon, the OCC is massive con center, and it has a ton of hotels around the area, but I wouldn't doubt it costs aheck of alot more to move the con to Orlando, or San Diego

 

[ultron87]

It doesn't sound like there's really a better place in the Midwest to do the show. Like Chicago has enough hotels, but they're not within walking distance of the convention center. They could move it to Vegas or somewhere like that that would have the rooms and everything, but that would vastly change the cost and travel arrangements for most of the attendees.

I do think the lottery is the fairest way to do it (and I recognize my group has been extremely fortunate in it both years so far) but I think there is some stuff they could do to make the not downtown experience more palatable. The biggest one would be setting up a well working shuttle service so people don't need to deal with driving in and out and parking. Sounded like the one last year was a mess and they're not even running one this year.

The hoopla of the last weekend is certainly not palatable, but hey, Gen Con is my favorite yearly event, so I'm willing to work through it.

 

[Draxal]

Just need some more additional big gaming conventions. Too many have their world championships at GenCon, glad FFG moved to their own separate convention for theirs.

 

[AstroLad]

Maybe it was the scenario I played but Dead of Winter seemed themeless and boring. I forget which one it was but it always puzzled me on why everyone raved about this game.

Must have been or maybe dsfdf. Game is dripping with theme (intro and outro paragraphs, Crossroads cards) and theme is easily its strongest point as the mechanics are mostly w/e. I don't know that its deserving of all the hype it originally got (probably not) but I had a very good time. People here and on BGG though all seem to say the 'recommended' first scenario is not very good, so maybe you ran into that. Or maybe game wasn't for you. If you're into deeper semi co-ops like BSG I could see it being pretty uninspiring. To me the relative lightness of it and the strength in theme are appealing though.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Yea the crossroad cards are just nothing but theme, so much fun with them.

 

[Iced]

Looking for feedback on a couple of games. They will typically be played with a group or 3 or 4, and who aren't huge on board games but still enjoy them immensely any time we play. I've listed games I already own below these as well. I am hoping to have as many unique board game experiences as possible without much repetition in mechanisms.



Blood Rage: seems to be hugely popular lately. I've never really been into the whole viking thing, and I'm not huge on minis either (could take them or leave them). That said, is the gameplay there for this one? Or is it popular because of the theme and the minis?

Star Wars: Imperial Assault: I want to have a Star Wars game to play. I've never played Descent so I'm really not sure how this plays, but I understand there is a campaign mode and a skirmish mode, which I'm a big fan of. Is the campaign the sort of thing where eventually we'll play through everything and not want to play it again? How are the skirmishes, and how many players can play them? This game costs $105 in Canada, so I want to make sure I'd be getting my money's worth!

Trailer Park Boys: The Board game: Okay, I know a lot of you won't have a lot of experience with this one, but I've read on several sites that the game is quite a bit like Talisman, which I've never played. We're big TPB fans so the theme is a huge draw, but I don't want to play something with shallow gameplay.



Games I have thus far:
- Dead of Winter
- Settlers of Catan (+ seafarers) (I've owned this forever and am ridiculously bored with it, as are my friends)
- King of Tokyo (+ power up expansion)
- Codenames
- Spyfall
- Pandemic
- No Thanks
- The Resistance: Avalon
- Coup
- Ticket to Ride: Europe

 

[BattleMonkey]

SW:IA campaign, the campaigns are designed that they have lot of randomness in order of the scenarios and you often wont play through the same ones. Essentially you have a deck of scenario cards that determine your next scenario choices, you are given random scenarios to choose from between the main story missions.

Each figure expansion and such have added more scenarios to add to the base game, so IA does have a ton of scenarios to go through before even adding in a big box expansion to the game.

The problem I have with IA though is the campaign mode style game can only really be played as a campaign, it doesn't really work well as a sit down and play a random mission type of game. You start a campaign, you kinda have to go through the whole thing or start over.

 

[Iced]

The problem I have with IA though is the campaign mode style game can only really be played as a campaign, it doesn't really work well as a sit down and play a random mission type of game. You start a campaign, you kinda have to go through the whole thing or start over.

I'm fine with this actually, depending how long it takes to complete. Can you complete a campaign over an afternoon, for example?

(I know very little about this game, save for the fact that it's very well reviewed and popular!)

 

[BattleMonkey]

I don't think so. A scenario takes about 30-45 min to play through, and all the set up/take down etc can make it take longer. A campaign runs for like over 10 scenarios possibly.

 

[Iced]

I don't think so. A scenario takes about 30-45 min to play through, and all the set up/take down etc can make it take longer. A campaign runs for like over 10 scenarios possibly.

Oh my. Yeah, this might not be the game for me, then! Half the people I'm playing with live a reasonable distance away from me, so we're really only able to get together once a month or so.

 

[JSR_Cube]

After some plays with Blood Rage, my biggest problem with it is that it appears that it is an area control game but often quest cards or combinations of other cards have a big effect on the game. Sometimes it isn't that satisfying for my group when one or two cards wins the game. I can see why some people would like this but it I have the feeling that this isn't going to last for us. I doubt it will be a classic for us.

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

Blood Rage: seems to be hugely popular lately. I've never really been into the whole viking thing, and I'm not huge on minis either (could take them or leave them). That said, is the gameplay there for this one? Or is it popular because of the theme and the minis?

The way the game works is you draft a hand of cards each round. Each card is either an upgrade, a quest (think round goal for points), or an attack card. At the beginning of each round you get an allotment of action points, called Rage, these points are used in order to deploy or move troops, play cards, or take over villages for stat upgrades and points. At the end of the third round whoever has the most points wins.

The game is not too deep, but there are some interesting tactical decisions that need to be made. The drafting in the beginning of each round also offers some strategic preplanning that puts it above just a minis game for me.

I really like this game and feel that the praise it gets is deserved. At this point the hype is pretty high and a lot has to do with how it looks, but if you take away all the minis and replace them with cubes, the game would be just as good.

 

[Lupercal]

Anyone have any good deck builders to recommend?
Tried my hand at Legendary and Dominion but looking for something more pvp oriented.

 

[AstroLad]

Anyone have any good deck builders to recommend?
Tried my hand at Legendary and Dominion but looking for something more pvp oriented.

Star Realms and Baseball Highlights 2045. Very pvp.

 

[ultron87]

I like the Star Realms app a lot as a PvP deckbuilder, but I'm not sure how well it plays with actual cards. The game might be a bit too random to deal with all the book keeping that the app takes care of for you.

 

[BattleMonkey]

I like the Star Realms app a lot as a PvP deckbuilder, but I'm not sure how well it plays with actual cards. The game might be a bit too random to deal with all the book keeping that the app takes care of for you.

Outside of points, there isn't much book keeping at all in star realms, and it comes with the cards for that

 

[nicoga3000]

Anyone have any good deck builders to recommend?
Tried my hand at Legendary and Dominion but looking for something more pvp oriented.

Ascension is pretty good.

 

[ultron87]

Outside of points, there isn't much book keeping at all in star realms, and it comes with the cards for that

Playing the app it always felt like later turns in the game would have a lot to keep track of as a bunch of abilities are triggering and adding to the different point values. But then I'm starting to approach the opinion that most deckbuilders should only be played digitally. So that is probably related.

 

[AstroLad]

Just finished T.I.M.E Stories Asylum campaign, and without giving any spoilers I have to say I greatly preferred Pandemic: Legacy (the game that T.I.M.E often gets compared to even though they're hugely different). I actually hate to ever be one of those wet-blanket types about a hot game, but I'm sort of puzzled at the degree of acclaim it's gotten. I already own the Marcy Case though, which I heard is a bit better, so I'll certainly give it another go.

 

[Experien]

Trying to play Shadows of Brimstone again, why so hard?!

Zombies just tearing me apart on tile two and three.

 

[NuffDREW4two]

How many characters and what classes are you running?

Keep in mind that zombies only have a movement of two, so you can certainly back up or escape hand to hand if need be. But yes, their defense makes them a pain. Try slotting something to give you extra attacks (brimstone grip!?) or find something like a shotgun that does D8 to hit and damage.

 

[antiquegamer]

Oh my. Yeah, this might not be the game for me, then! Half the people I'm playing with live a reasonable distance away from me, so we're really only able to get together once a month or so.

You probably could do two or three scenarios per session (if you play all day on your game day) . It's not difficult to track characters upgrade. When I play with my son over the course of 2-3 months and we have a blast and probably the time we have playing boardgame last year right up there with TIME Stories and Pandemic Legacy.

What type of game does your group enjoy? Smallwood is pretty fun area control game or if you want try card drafting 7 Wonders is another one we enjoy.

 

[Lyng]

I like the Star Realms app a lot as a PvP deckbuilder, but I'm not sure how well it plays with actual cards. The game might be a bit too random to deal with all the book keeping that the app takes care of for you.

Its very easy to keep track of the points with the cards that come with the game. The app is great but I prefer it face to face.

 

[joelseph]

Just finished T.I.M.E Stories Asylum campaign, and without giving any spoilers I have to say I greatly preferred Pandemic: Legacy (the game that T.I.M.E often gets compared to even though they're hugely different). I actually hate to ever be one of those wet-blanket types about a hot game, but I'm sort of puzzled at the degree of acclaim it's gotten. I already own the Marcy Case though, which I heard is a bit better, so I'll certainly give it another go.

Were you taking notes?

Did you solve the case?

Spoiler

How many loops did you take to solve? What did you think about the main puzzle? Did you get the extra stuff?

 

[joelseph]

Star Realms and Baseball Highlights 2045. Very pvp.

This game is my JAM. Top 5 desert island games for sure.

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

Anyone have any good deck builders to recommend?
Tried my hand at Legendary and Dominion but looking for something more pvp oriented.

For a standard deck builder, I like Arctic Scavengers. It has a good mix of dominion style deck building with some pvp action.

For a non-standard deck builder I absolutely love Blood Bowl Team Manager. The deck building in the game is super light, but there is some of that element there. The main focus in this game is the PVP. Each player takes control of a fantasy team represented by a deck of cards. The players are fighting over the spoils on different pitches which represent different games during a blood bowl season (Blood Bowl is a mix of football and Rugby in a fantasy setting). The deck building comes in the form of adding new players to your deck through out the season.

 

[Ohnonono]

Put some time into the Conflict of Heroes Solo expansion last night. It takes a while to get used to implementing the AI orders. The smoothest war gaming solo system I have played by a long shot, but in a tactical game that is still pretty complex. It was an absolute blast not to be playing against myself though. As long as it took them to get the game out it works really well and is sort of a white whale situation. Tactical level war games are full of options and to have an AI that behaves with some brains is pretty cool.

They will get my tactical war gaming money as long as they keep releasing the solo boxes along with the big boxes.

 

[joelseph]

My deckbuilder recommendations "Theme theme theme"

1 player: Hostage Negotiator. Tiny deckbuilder that has you playing out wildly different hostage scenarios ripped from action movie plots. Recently got a needed 2nd printing via KS. Van Ryder Games is someone to watch.

2 player: Baseball Highlights 2045. A medium weight deckbuilder featuring fierce head-to-head competition. (plays great solo and in groups too!) Theme is tight but not suffocating, I'm not a baseball fan and LOVE this game. Another one that recently got a reprint, I believe there is a master collection now available, I recommend all the expansions. Eagle and Gryphon Games make their games with love.

3 player: Trains Rising Sun. A more traditional Dominion style game that throws in a game board to watch your creations come to life. I am recommending the expansion (which can be stand alone) because it features more Player vs Player interaction and the starting boards are much better than the base. The weakest theme on the list, still extremely strong mechanically. You can find this for sale from places like MM for deep deep discounts, I got mine for 75% off.

4-5 player: Legendary Encounters Aliens. My only coop recommendation on the list. The Encounters line from Upper Deck improves Legendary gameplay by adding actions to help teammates and more importantly ramping up the difficulty to make that teamwork necessary. Theme is really big for me and this one is oozing the stuff.

 

[Draxal]

Put some time into the Conflict of Heroes Solo expansion last night. It takes a while to get used to implementing the AI orders. The smoothest war gaming solo system I have played by a long shot, but in a tactical game that is still pretty complex. It was an absolute blast not to be playing against myself though. As long as it took them to get the game out it works really well and is sort of a white whale situation. Tactical level war games are full of options and to have an AI that behaves with some brains is pretty cool.

They will get my tactical war gaming money as long as they keep releasing the solo boxes along with the big boxes.

Have you played something like DVG's Fleet Commander: Nimitz game? interested in a comparison between the two if possible.

 

[Lupercal]

My deckbuilder recommendations "Theme theme theme"

1 player: Hostage Negotiator. Tiny deckbuilder that has you playing out wildly different hostage scenarios ripped from action movie plots. Recently got a needed 2nd printing via KS. Van Ryder Games is someone to watch.


3 player: Trains Rising Sun. A more traditional Dominion style game that throws in a game board to watch your creations come to life. I am recommending the expansion (which can be stand alone) because it features more Player vs Player interaction and the starting boards are much better than the base. The weakest theme on the list, still extremely strong mechanically. You can find this for sale from places like MM for deep deep discounts, I got mine for 75% off.

These two sound amazing, thanks. Will start the search.