Going home to the states to visit my family, I am heavily debating about my first true board game while I there before I go back to South Africa. I am leaning towards Arkham Horror: Co-op game, I can be a dick, lovecraft theme, high praises of it, and my friend knows the rules well enough to lead the game. But I would like to hear some opinions from Gaffers of their time with this game, and if they would advise anything different.
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New Board Gaming |OT2| On Tables, Off Topic
- Thread starter Karkador
- Start date
Mr. Lemming
Member
Jupiter Rescue, Castle Panic, and Lord of the Rings are few I haven't seen mentioned that my friends and I enjoy.
BomberMouse
Member
AFAIK: It's discontinued and replaced by eldricht horror. I don't think it's a good first game tbh.
Maybe something lighter will get more mileage?
Thanks for the heads up. I bought this expansion now even though I'm still waiting for the base game to come back in stock.
Here's a link for those interested ($10 shipped): http://boardgamegeekstore.com/products/marco-polo-the-new-characters
BGG link to the expansion: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/186554/marco-polo-new-characters
I agree with your note. I haven't played Arkham but from what I've read it doesn't seem like the best first game. Plus it's 2-4 hours long, so it's not a game you can bust out as often as other games. I think something that can provide a lot of replay and has a shorter playtime (like Dominion) might be a better first game choice.
Arkham was our first truly heavy Ameritrash game. I spent probably a whole day learning it -- reading the rules several times, FAQs, BGG rules forums. You could probably do it in half the time now with some good YT tutorials/playthroughs. Interesting thing is that since it's a pure co-op it's actually not nearly as hard to teach to others as it is to learn. A lot of the learning is basically figuring out how to handle upkeep of monsters and phases, and isn't really something the other players need to know in depth. I would recommend with 3-4 and never above that. The game supports more but that's when you hit the 3+ hour games you hear about. It's variable but you can pretty easily play it in under 3, and certainly under 4 with 3-4p if you as a teacher really know what you're doing and can quickly handle all the upkeep.
tl;dr: Arkham Horror is not nearly as intimidating as it seems if you are willing to personally put in the time to learning the rules fully.
tl;dr: Arkham Horror is not nearly as intimidating as it seems if you are willing to personally put in the time to learning the rules fully.
NuffDREW4two
Member
Arkham isn't that bad. I learnt it a few weeks ago and taught it to two of my co-workers. I did it using the rules, the FAQ (which wasn't entirely needed) and some turn flow charts from BGG. It was really just getting the turn sequence down, and after that, none of it is really that complicated. The flow chart helped a lot.
Thankfully the long-game sessions are not problematic. The upside of Peace Corps is the vast amount of dead time to have such long sessions. Dominion is a fun-ass game. My friend brought that along, and I had an utter blast with it. I may pick that up instead because of its simplicity. I appreciate all the tips and advice.
BlewHedgehog
Member
Some coworkers and I played Orleans tonight. Daaaaamn, that was fun! When the rules told us that there were 18 rounds, one of the players spat beer all over himself, but it wound up feeling like a quick play. The downtime between players was almost non-existent.
My buddy went heavy tech early on and was too efficient for us to catch up to. I'm a little concerned that that strategy will prove to be too viable and games might begin to feel samey as everyone savages the tech track.
It's definitely a game that I want to play again soon, as you begin to understand how the game works just in time for it ti end.
My buddy went heavy tech early on and was too efficient for us to catch up to. I'm a little concerned that that strategy will prove to be too viable and games might begin to feel samey as everyone savages the tech track.
It's definitely a game that I want to play again soon, as you begin to understand how the game works just in time for it ti end.
What was your strategic approach to the raptor?
I've played it 3 or 4 times now and didn't really see a trend with tech winning out. From my experience you really need to have buildings placed on the map to do well with the multiplier, or else you'll likely lose. Glad to hear you liked it - it's one of my favorite games too.
Apparently, it was to forget to inform my girlfriend that each scientist can perform only one aggressive action per turn. That uhhh...made things just a wee bit impossible. Did a more thorough read of the rulebook and checked some threads at BGG, and I think I have a firm crasp of the game now.
We played again last night. I pretty much played as scientists the whole night because she was hell-bent on getting a raptor win, but it never came. I feel like raptor strategies are harder to work out. I really like the game now and would happily play as the scientists or raptors, but I don't think she's really digging the game.
Best way to get your SO to hate a game = destroy her/him at it :b
Do you know how hard it is to NOT win with scientists when your opponent is just learning how to play raptors?
Well it just seems to me you guys really get how to play scientists.
Thing is the longer the game goes the more it favors the scientist, while the raptor is really strong early game.
It's almost like a aggro vs control matchup. The raptors can via their early placement and with the right use of mommy escape the board really early, while it gets much harder later on. The game feels very balanced to me, but it takes quiet a few plays to get
Well it just seems to me you guys really get how to play scientists.
Thing is the longer the game goes the more it favors the scientist, while the raptor is really strong early game.
It's almost like a aggro vs control matchup. The raptors can via their early placement and with the right use of mommy escape the board really early, while it gets much harder later on. The game feels very balanced to me, but it takes quiet a few plays to get
Now that I understand the rules better, I feel the game is a lot more balanced, but I fear I'm never going to find out for sure because my girlfriend might lost interest. Perhaps I should just throw the game!
Try to make her give it a last chance. It's a really good 2 player game once it clicks!
And yes if that means throwing a game in the process it's well worth it! ;D
toddhunter
Member
Yep I thought Splendor would be a good chill couples game so got it and played a couple of games with my partner last night.
I got crushed.
Fuck Splendor.
antiquegamer
Member
That is too bad to hear, I was thinking about picking this up.
I got Apex deckbuilder and it suppose to play well solo I hope for better experience than Marvel Legendary.
Finally got a game of Fiasco this weekend (i bought the book for my gf for valentines day and it has been just collecting dust.)
It went pretty well, i feel like the first game is always going to be a mixed bag largely because even with the dice there it's hard to judge how long a game is. So we kinda hit a climax in the 3rd scenes and the 4th scenes were largely insanity.
Our story revolved around someone hiring a smuggler to smuggle a 55 gallon urine barrel filled with unknown contents (we discovered in the final scenes it was urine all along) out of Antarctica. Meanwhile the smuggler intends on taking the money, emptying the barrels contents and using it to smuggle cocaine (because barrels that big are uncommon in Antarctica.) It was immature, silly and a fun way to learn the game.
It went pretty well, i feel like the first game is always going to be a mixed bag largely because even with the dice there it's hard to judge how long a game is. So we kinda hit a climax in the 3rd scenes and the 4th scenes were largely insanity.
Our story revolved around someone hiring a smuggler to smuggle a 55 gallon urine barrel filled with unknown contents (we discovered in the final scenes it was urine all along) out of Antarctica. Meanwhile the smuggler intends on taking the money, emptying the barrels contents and using it to smuggle cocaine (because barrels that big are uncommon in Antarctica.) It was immature, silly and a fun way to learn the game.
EYEL1NER
Member
I just looked up Fiasco and I recognize that art and logo; I guess I have seen it during many sales.
That's cool that you had a good time with it, Protome. I read the game's website descriptions, its wiki page, a couple Amazon reviews, and the SUSD just now and it sounds fun to me. It sounds like something I would want to try but I don't know how good of a role player I am yet. My DnD 5E play was very limited when I tried that recently and I remember my delivery being a bit stiff and wooden. I was also playing a pre-generated character though and didn't have much affinity for it. I did create a couple characters that had great stories and ambitions but the group fell apart after that.
I may end up buying it and giving it a shot sometime soon though.
That's cool that you had a good time with it, Protome. I read the game's website descriptions, its wiki page, a couple Amazon reviews, and the SUSD just now and it sounds fun to me. It sounds like something I would want to try but I don't know how good of a role player I am yet. My DnD 5E play was very limited when I tried that recently and I remember my delivery being a bit stiff and wooden. I was also playing a pre-generated character though and didn't have much affinity for it. I did create a couple characters that had great stories and ambitions but the group fell apart after that.
I may end up buying it and giving it a shot sometime soon though.
Great deal on TtR - I have been wanting to pick this up and couldn't pass up this deal.
$27.59
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0975277324/?tag=neogaf0e-20
$27.59
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0975277324/?tag=neogaf0e-20
The nice thing about Fiasco is that you come up with characters and the scenario together. You get some pointers from the book and you automatically get into a discussion about the things with the other people and it happens quite naturally. I can also recommend Goblin Quest which just revolves around telling funny stories about how your Goblins die doing the most mundane things.
You definitely don't need to be a good role player for it. Just go with what people suggest and don't take it too seriously. Fiasco was my first experience with role playing outside of some light forum games a long time ago.
Making characters was actually one of the best parts of Fiasco for us. It's super simple and fast and everyone gets an input on everyone else's character because they are defined by their relationships, not individual traits. I recommend watching the Tabletop video on it if you haven't already or listening to Gosh Darn Fiasco (episodes 2, 6 and 7 in particular!)
I definitely recommend giving it a shot.
I think so too! I think we went a little too immature at times. But it was funny and this first game was mainly to learn how to play anyway.You played Fiasco right.
I just looked up Goblin Quest and I'm sold on it.
EYEL1NER
Member
Thanks. I'll watch the TT vid and look into Goblin Quest too.
It might not be that I meant I am worried about not being a good role player actually but that I am worried about being a good actor. If a group comes up with a character direction for me, then that is great. I am an introvert and kind of subdued and do not put myself out there too much. When I was trying DnD, our DM had all kinds of accents and voices and impressions for different characters he was doing, and it added a lot to the experience. My pre-generated character was an aristocrat who probably had a snooty "Hugh Laurie in Blackadder III" sounding voice and I delivered all of his lines in my normal speaking voice.
I guess I am worried that if I don't get "into" it more, I'll just be ruining everyone else's fun. I say "everyone else" and guess I would just be playing this with my wife, but I have the same concern about trying DnD again. I liked what little I played before my group imploded and I am in an area now where there is a 5E group that meets, a Pathfinder group, and a Pokemon RPG group. I thought about attending one of the weekly open sessions where you just need to show up with a character, but then I get worried that these other people (that I do not know) will think 'I'm just not feelin this' as I mumble my character's introduction.
Armoured Priest
Member
Got to play Mysterium yesterday.
Turned out pretty good. Glad I bought it. We found the murderer.
Clue meets Dixit is a pretty good description of that game. The problem arises when you're trying to describe the game to someone not familiar with Dixit.
Turned out pretty good. Glad I bought it. We found the murderer.
Clue meets Dixit is a pretty good description of that game. The problem arises when you're trying to describe the game to someone not familiar with Dixit.
Losing a Dead of Winter game is devastating, but some of the objectives are pretty damn difficult. We were playing the "stockpile" one in which we have to end a game phase with 2 of every resource type and 2 food tokens for every non-exiled played and all entrances to the colony barricaded, which we barely succeeded at, except the win condition is checked after the crisis resolution and zombie-placing phases, both of which wrecked our barricades. We were so close
I hope my friends will want to play it again sometime. Pandemic you can lose and not feel so bad about since it's not that huge of a time investment, but a DoW game is like 2 hours long.
I hope my friends will want to play it again sometime. Pandemic you can lose and not feel so bad about since it's not that huge of a time investment, but a DoW game is like 2 hours long.
Where do people go to find their board game group? I thought MeetUp was great but someone messaged me saying, "oh people don't think to check it and only use Facebook groups, please use my facebook group." And sort of scratched my head at that.
Also, is there a good place to advertise your board game groups and/or podcasts?
Also, is there a good place to advertise your board game groups and/or podcasts?
Yeah, unless you know strategy (which I imagine exists?) I feel like it's really tough in many cases to win on both personal and overall objective, especially for the good guys but heck even for the traitor in some cases. I'm totally cool with that but I think the one problematic state the game does not properly account for is that it's actually possible for someone to have near or literal zero chance at winning several rounds out. And not only are there no mechanics to keep the game interesting for such a player, there's not even any guidance in terms of what the game would have you do since the game is pretty clear that unless you check every box you lose, no half-victories. I'd much rather they owned up and just said if you're a good guy and you can't meet personal objectives, group victory is a half-win or something more clever than that (as it is you just get all that "do what you think is fun!" guidance on BGG that I absolutely hate (not the people giving it, but the designers for not completing the job)).Losing a Dead of Winter game is devastating, but some of the objectives are pretty damn difficult. We were playing the "stockpile" one in which we have to end a game phase with 2 of every resource type and 2 food tokens for every non-exiled played and all entrances to the colony barricaded, which we barely succeeded at, except the win condition is checked after the crisis resolution and zombie-placing phases, both of which wrecked our barricades. We were so close
I hope my friends will want to play it again sometime. Pandemic you can lose and not feel so bad about since it's not that huge of a time investment, but a DoW game is like 2 hours long.
That said I still really like the game because it is light and quick enough to not make any of these issues that big of a deal.
woo and indeed hoo
Banned
I would:
i/ Google 'board game group' and 'your area/location'
and
ii/ search on Board Game Geek [if you don't have a BGG account and don't want one, drop me a PM with your area/location and I'll do a search for you]
That's what's worked for me previously anyway and I am hardly in the centre of the board game universe [a small town on the UK coast].
Back home from Geekway and completely spent.
Next year Geekway is leaving the Sheraton Lakeside Chalet in favor of a convention center in St. Charles. While I'm happy this means more people will get the chance to experience the best con, I'm also sad because the hotel is so awesome and is a big part of why it is the best con.
This year it never felt too crowded. We were able to get good tables every day. We were able to check out and play almost all of the Play-to-Win games that we wanted. Never tried to play Scythe, didn't even bother. Got to play Above and Below only once but someone from the group ended up winning it! Above and Below felt like the darling of the show. Between Two cities was another hot ticket, probably because of the Geekway promos you got for checking it out. Mombosa was hot but heavy, there always seemed to be a copy on the Play-to-Win shelf.
Personally for our group we really enjoyed Dead Man's Draw and Darkest Deeds. Dead Man's Draw is a super light, filler card game for 2-4 that has you pushing your luck down a deck trying not to bust on similar suits. Each suit has a mandatory action that must be taken before continuing. There are 10 suits that can combo pretty cleverly together to make a pretty good little filler. The other favorite was Darkest Deeds. I only played this once compared to the multiple play throughs from my group but I really enjoyed what I saw. There is a bid line of cards that are either citizens or guards. You must sneak past or kill guards to get at the citizens. You attempt to steal items from citizens that will make it easier to do your dark deeds against stronger guards and townsfolk. Evil deeds have you accumulating suspicion points. If you are the most suspicion person at the table certain things will happen, guards will come after you, etc. There are take-that style cards that allow you to manipulate suspicion and all that fun stuff. A fun take on a pretty crowded genre.
So many other good new games but it all blends together at this point. I will add to my picks as they come to me.
Biggest disappoint for me was World's Fair 1893. I had the highest of hopes going in and it was a hard to get game. By the time we were able to get a copy and play it it was like 1am on Friday and it just fell flat. I think we ended up playing it in our hotel room that night and went to bed asking what the hype was all about. I gave it another shot the next day at 2, 3 and 4 and it never really elevated to a point that I "got". Simple area-control game that seemed to hinge to much on the ability cards and who got them.
Non Play-to-Win stuff I remember playing: Five Tribes (x2, love this game), Eldritch Horror (x1, hate Ameritrash coops), Imminent Domain (x2, love this game), ...And then we held hands (x1, too abstract for me), Minerva (x1, fucking awesome art work, definitely picking this one up.), Spyfall, and tons more.
My free game for MiniMarket was Fury of Dracula, happy about that. I entered the trade table with 5 games. 2 games traded and I got a XMen Dicemasters box and Mtg Boardgame. All the good stuff was gone by the time I was picked but my buddy got Robinson Crusoe. Was unable to stick around for the flea market on Sunday. As mentioned before I didn't win any play-to-wins but I believe my group overall won Above and Below, Melee, and Darkest Deeds. I also traded a copy of Talisman for 6 Cherry Poptarts and a D&D dicemasters starter set. It was late, I wanted Cherry poptarts.
I'm a 5 hour drive from Missouri and wouldn't miss Geekway, what's your excuse?
Next year Geekway is leaving the Sheraton Lakeside Chalet in favor of a convention center in St. Charles. While I'm happy this means more people will get the chance to experience the best con, I'm also sad because the hotel is so awesome and is a big part of why it is the best con.
This year it never felt too crowded. We were able to get good tables every day. We were able to check out and play almost all of the Play-to-Win games that we wanted. Never tried to play Scythe, didn't even bother. Got to play Above and Below only once but someone from the group ended up winning it! Above and Below felt like the darling of the show. Between Two cities was another hot ticket, probably because of the Geekway promos you got for checking it out. Mombosa was hot but heavy, there always seemed to be a copy on the Play-to-Win shelf.
Personally for our group we really enjoyed Dead Man's Draw and Darkest Deeds. Dead Man's Draw is a super light, filler card game for 2-4 that has you pushing your luck down a deck trying not to bust on similar suits. Each suit has a mandatory action that must be taken before continuing. There are 10 suits that can combo pretty cleverly together to make a pretty good little filler. The other favorite was Darkest Deeds. I only played this once compared to the multiple play throughs from my group but I really enjoyed what I saw. There is a bid line of cards that are either citizens or guards. You must sneak past or kill guards to get at the citizens. You attempt to steal items from citizens that will make it easier to do your dark deeds against stronger guards and townsfolk. Evil deeds have you accumulating suspicion points. If you are the most suspicion person at the table certain things will happen, guards will come after you, etc. There are take-that style cards that allow you to manipulate suspicion and all that fun stuff. A fun take on a pretty crowded genre.
So many other good new games but it all blends together at this point. I will add to my picks as they come to me.
Biggest disappoint for me was World's Fair 1893. I had the highest of hopes going in and it was a hard to get game. By the time we were able to get a copy and play it it was like 1am on Friday and it just fell flat. I think we ended up playing it in our hotel room that night and went to bed asking what the hype was all about. I gave it another shot the next day at 2, 3 and 4 and it never really elevated to a point that I "got". Simple area-control game that seemed to hinge to much on the ability cards and who got them.
Non Play-to-Win stuff I remember playing: Five Tribes (x2, love this game), Eldritch Horror (x1, hate Ameritrash coops), Imminent Domain (x2, love this game), ...And then we held hands (x1, too abstract for me), Minerva (x1, fucking awesome art work, definitely picking this one up.), Spyfall, and tons more.
My free game for MiniMarket was Fury of Dracula, happy about that. I entered the trade table with 5 games. 2 games traded and I got a XMen Dicemasters box and Mtg Boardgame. All the good stuff was gone by the time I was picked but my buddy got Robinson Crusoe. Was unable to stick around for the flea market on Sunday. As mentioned before I didn't win any play-to-wins but I believe my group overall won Above and Below, Melee, and Darkest Deeds. I also traded a copy of Talisman for 6 Cherry Poptarts and a D&D dicemasters starter set. It was late, I wanted Cherry poptarts.
I'm a 5 hour drive from Missouri and wouldn't miss Geekway, what's your excuse?
EYEL1NER
Member
Mine? I'm over twice that distance away. It's 15 hours to KC from where I am and I have only made that drive once. Stopping at MM when passing through St Louis was a treat though. If I ever move back home to the Independence/KC-metro area I will be going to Geekway for sure because that is an extremely easy drive across the state on I-70. However, I am looking to move to Colorado from the Southeast Coast and it is still an 8 hour drive from the area I am looking at, across Kansas, and into KC. So still a bit longer to get to Geekway.I'm a 5 hour drive from Missouri and wouldn't miss Geekway, what's your excuse?
Nice write up though. Looks like you got to play a lot of games; I'm jealous.
Let us know how that goes. I'm still waiting on part of the recent Kickstarter to arrive and haven't really done anything with mine but I do have the Exotic Predators LE also that I could start playing.
We definitely play like that. IMO, completing the main objective is winning, and then completing the personal objective is like an extra achievement. I feel like some personal objectives are super unbalanced too. "Collect 1 of each kind of item and have it in your hand by the time the game ends" is way more difficult than "have an item equipped on each of your characters", for example.
Oh, I forgot to mention I played my first game of Twilight Struggle. Really cool game, loved every second of it even though I got steamrolled as the US. The early war deck felt super unbalanced towards the USSR, and I started to come back on the mid game but it was too late and I couldn't hold for long. I got dealt a super bad hand with tons of scoring cards and that gave my friend the last VPs he needed.
I think the game is like that by design. Not necessarily "unbalanced", but asymmetrical in a sense. It's definitely a game you gotta play several times to get good at.
Another game that came out of the haze..
Grizzled. Very evocative co-op set in WW1. There is an extremely interesting blog post on BGG, highly recommended.
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1573796/not-gas-mask
Grizzled. Very evocative co-op set in WW1. There is an extremely interesting blog post on BGG, highly recommended.
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1573796/not-gas-mask
I got to play my copy of Millennium Blades last week. We skipped the pre-release and did the regular 3-tourney structure, but didn't use the character powers. It was chaotic but tons of fun. We did play with 5 players though, and the store deck ran out a couple times. The first times we reshuffled the store discard pile into it. But by the end of the third deckbuilding round even that was gone, so we started reshuffling the removed from game cards. If we turned up promo or starter cards though we sent those back to the box.
Speaking of the box though, the insert is awful. Just two pits to throw the cards into, not even any baggies. It's the first game I've considered getting an aftermarket insert. In the meantime, this is my makeshift solution:
Speaking of the box though, the insert is awful. Just two pits to throw the cards into, not even any baggies. It's the first game I've considered getting an aftermarket insert. In the meantime, this is my makeshift solution:
Go7 has a template out now and BT says they might have one coming..
MB was getting mad play at Geekway this weekend, everywhere I looked people were playing their own copies. Even helped someone at the Reddit Resistance table put their money piles together before their game. Good times.
Oh yeah, that's sort of what I meant, I know it's not a symmetrical game - the US begins with more influence on the board, for one. It feels like USSR is designed to overwhelm in the early game and the US has to do a good job of controlling those advances until the mid/late-war when it can catch up. I definitely messed up by not doing more coups and maybe not having the foresight of what cards were coming that a more experienced player would have, which prevented me from handling the USSR's advances correctly, and activating cards I should have activated later when some other stuff went into effect. I also did have some really bad hands
definitely looking forward to my next game, and I wouldn't mind playing US again, it actually feels more suited to my playstyle in other strategy games.I had heard the name Millennium Blades several times but had written it off assuming it was probably a miniature based tactical game, purely based on the name and being on Kickstarter. When I saw it at my LGS on Friday and found out it was a CCG meta simulator with deckbuilding like mechanics I was like "shiiiiit", because that's probably the game someone would make to appeal specifically to me. I'm now determined to try it out soon, either at my LGS or at Origins in a few weeks.
EYEL1NER
Member
I'm about to chat with CSI and drop Potion Explosion from a standing order. I've had an order since the pre-orders went up and had a couple things on there that I didn't need right away but during their 10% sale I added some more since their estimated shipping date indicated it might be in stock this month. Now I am seeing the guy from Watch It Played say that when he tried it at the recent CMoN Expo in Atlanta, they told him it would be out for GenCon or in Q3. Fuck, that's another three months from now at least...
Maybe in that amount of time I can get an order together on CardHaus since they have the slight discount on pre-orders. I'll have to keep an eye open on all three big sites though and watch for the pre-order allotments to possibly sell out. Once they have no more at one, the other two will be quick to follow and I'll need to get a pre-order in somewhere (I guess I could place one with MM using their 'hold' system, but their site is down right now for maintenance).
There goes the hope to be playing Potion Explosion anytime soon though...
Maybe in that amount of time I can get an order together on CardHaus since they have the slight discount on pre-orders. I'll have to keep an eye open on all three big sites though and watch for the pre-order allotments to possibly sell out. Once they have no more at one, the other two will be quick to follow and I'll need to get a pre-order in somewhere (I guess I could place one with MM using their 'hold' system, but their site is down right now for maintenance).
There goes the hope to be playing Potion Explosion anytime soon though...
Is there a European retailer that sells any of these? I was considering it might be good to have as well after I saw on BGG one of the insert parts that also doubled as a card tower for the store deck.
That's the one from Meeple Realty. That's the one I was actually thinking of getting since I might pick up their Terra Mystica insert at the same time.
http://www.meeplerealty.com/store/p...ompatible_with_MILLENNIUM_BLADES™).html
But sorry no, I'm not aware of any EU retailers for these.
Back home from Geekway and completely spent.
Next year Geekway is leaving the Sheraton Lakeside Chalet in favor of a convention center in St. Charles. While I'm happy this means more people will get the chance to experience the best con, I'm also sad because the hotel is so awesome and is a big part of why it is the best con.
This year it never felt too crowded. We were able to get good tables every day. We were able to check out and play almost all of the Play-to-Win games that we wanted. Never tried to play Scythe, didn't even bother. Got to play Above and Below only once but someone from the group ended up winning it! Above and Below felt like the darling of the show. Between Two cities was another hot ticket, probably because of the Geekway promos you got for checking it out. Mombosa was hot but heavy, there always seemed to be a copy on the Play-to-Win shelf.
Personally for our group we really enjoyed Dead Man's Draw and Darkest Deeds. Dead Man's Draw is a super light, filler card game for 2-4 that has you pushing your luck down a deck trying not to bust on similar suits. Each suit has a mandatory action that must be taken before continuing. There are 10 suits that can combo pretty cleverly together to make a pretty good little filler. The other favorite was Darkest Deeds. I only played this once compared to the multiple play throughs from my group but I really enjoyed what I saw. There is a bid line of cards that are either citizens or guards. You must sneak past or kill guards to get at the citizens. You attempt to steal items from citizens that will make it easier to do your dark deeds against stronger guards and townsfolk. Evil deeds have you accumulating suspicion points. If you are the most suspicion person at the table certain things will happen, guards will come after you, etc. There are take-that style cards that allow you to manipulate suspicion and all that fun stuff. A fun take on a pretty crowded genre.
So many other good new games but it all blends together at this point. I will add to my picks as they come to me.
Biggest disappoint for me was World's Fair 1893. I had the highest of hopes going in and it was a hard to get game. By the time we were able to get a copy and play it it was like 1am on Friday and it just fell flat. I think we ended up playing it in our hotel room that night and went to bed asking what the hype was all about. I gave it another shot the next day at 2, 3 and 4 and it never really elevated to a point that I "got". Simple area-control game that seemed to hinge to much on the ability cards and who got them.
Non Play-to-Win stuff I remember playing: Five Tribes (x2, love this game), Eldritch Horror (x1, hate Ameritrash coops), Imminent Domain (x2, love this game), ...And then we held hands (x1, too abstract for me), Minerva (x1, fucking awesome art work, definitely picking this one up.), Spyfall, and tons more.
My free game for MiniMarket was Fury of Dracula, happy about that. I entered the trade table with 5 games. 2 games traded and I got a XMen Dicemasters box and Mtg Boardgame. All the good stuff was gone by the time I was picked but my buddy got Robinson Crusoe. Was unable to stick around for the flea market on Sunday. As mentioned before I didn't win any play-to-wins but I believe my group overall won Above and Below, Melee, and Darkest Deeds. I also traded a copy of Talisman for 6 Cherry Poptarts and a D&D dicemasters starter set. It was late, I wanted Cherry poptarts.
I'm a 5 hour drive from Missouri and wouldn't miss Geekway, what's your excuse?
My excuse is tickets were sold out kinda fast. I can't plan for them far enough in advance to be able to get tickets for the good cons.
Finally got to bust Millennium Blades open with my group this weekend.
We played with four people, pre-release + two regular rounds, no character powers, recommended 'first game' sets. At the group's request (half the group felt it was a bit overwhelming and had minimal prior CCG experience), we didn't use the timer but played as though we were (people wanted to get a 'feel' for real-time play) -- interestingly enough, we finished each round in about twenty minutes *anyway*, as people basically spent their money/took their actions in the first 'round' and we burned through subsequent rounds very quickly.
All four players ended up running slightly different engines - I ended up running the same "stack mages" engine for the two tournaments, while one player had a self-flip centric engine, a third player had a 'stack +1s' engine (that didn't work as well as he thought due to misreads of cards -- though, as the rulebook says, no takebacks!), and the fourth player had a high-star value card engine. The players who finished 1st and 2nd were very close to each other but had a gap on 3rd and 4th (who were very close to each other). This game had very little in the way of aggressive play towards other players, and I think we only had two clashes the entire time.
Overall, everyone liked the mechanics, though felt that it would be overwhelming w/ a time limit until they get a few plays in, and everyone was high on the theme (even the players with minimal CCG familiarity knew enough to 'get' most of it) and aesthetic. Got a universal thumbs up from the group and I will be bringing it back next time we get together.
I agree with some of the comments here re: storage solution - I sleeved all my cards, so I ended up buying a 550 ct. box that I use for the store deck and starters (the starters are in a Dragon Shield sleeve box), and I have all of the other pieces in the regular box. This clearly won't work once the expansion hits, so at that point I may just move everything but boards and chits into a 1,600 ct. box with labeled boxes for splitting up character cards, starter decks, promos, and the like.
After we finished that we moved on to what we expected would be a quick single play of Sentinels of the Multiverse (we had a total of six players, so the guy that owned the game played as Villain/Environment and the rest of us played heroes) but quickly turned into four. This one was extremely well received by our group, and I personally felt it played like what I had hoped Legendary would be. It's definitely one I will be looking to add to my collection.
Some of the heroes definitely felt a bit lackluster, but that may have been skewed by our game (though Argent Adept is apparently high tier, I could never get them going - admittedly, that game ended stupidly quick because of Omnitron-X + Unity tech) and there were some games where a hero that appeared weak in the previous game would have been stupid good in this one. Still, the heroes are diverse/varied enough that I can see this game having tons of replay value, especially once people are picking teams that synergize well (instead of randomly out of the box) and you're playing some of the harder villains w/ advanced powers.
We played with four people, pre-release + two regular rounds, no character powers, recommended 'first game' sets. At the group's request (half the group felt it was a bit overwhelming and had minimal prior CCG experience), we didn't use the timer but played as though we were (people wanted to get a 'feel' for real-time play) -- interestingly enough, we finished each round in about twenty minutes *anyway*, as people basically spent their money/took their actions in the first 'round' and we burned through subsequent rounds very quickly.
All four players ended up running slightly different engines - I ended up running the same "stack mages" engine for the two tournaments, while one player had a self-flip centric engine, a third player had a 'stack +1s' engine (that didn't work as well as he thought due to misreads of cards -- though, as the rulebook says, no takebacks!), and the fourth player had a high-star value card engine. The players who finished 1st and 2nd were very close to each other but had a gap on 3rd and 4th (who were very close to each other). This game had very little in the way of aggressive play towards other players, and I think we only had two clashes the entire time.
Overall, everyone liked the mechanics, though felt that it would be overwhelming w/ a time limit until they get a few plays in, and everyone was high on the theme (even the players with minimal CCG familiarity knew enough to 'get' most of it) and aesthetic. Got a universal thumbs up from the group and I will be bringing it back next time we get together.
I agree with some of the comments here re: storage solution - I sleeved all my cards, so I ended up buying a 550 ct. box that I use for the store deck and starters (the starters are in a Dragon Shield sleeve box), and I have all of the other pieces in the regular box. This clearly won't work once the expansion hits, so at that point I may just move everything but boards and chits into a 1,600 ct. box with labeled boxes for splitting up character cards, starter decks, promos, and the like.
After we finished that we moved on to what we expected would be a quick single play of Sentinels of the Multiverse (we had a total of six players, so the guy that owned the game played as Villain/Environment and the rest of us played heroes) but quickly turned into four. This one was extremely well received by our group, and I personally felt it played like what I had hoped Legendary would be. It's definitely one I will be looking to add to my collection.
Some of the heroes definitely felt a bit lackluster, but that may have been skewed by our game (though Argent Adept is apparently high tier, I could never get them going - admittedly, that game ended stupidly quick because of Omnitron-X + Unity tech) and there were some games where a hero that appeared weak in the previous game would have been stupid good in this one. Still, the heroes are diverse/varied enough that I can see this game having tons of replay value, especially once people are picking teams that synergize well (instead of randomly out of the box) and you're playing some of the harder villains w/ advanced powers.
I'm considering picking up a game in Cryptozoic's Cerberus System after playing their DC deck-building with friends, and I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for which variant I should pick up? I like the DC version from what I've played, but I'd like to give the Street Fighter one a shot, too. And I know that the Lord of the Rings ones are the cheapest, but I don't know if they're any good. Does anyone here have any favorites? Thanks!
i haven't played any of the others, but I am tempted by the naruto, the cartoon network, and the future attack on titan ones lol.