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The New Board Game Thread (Newcomer Friendly)
- Thread starter AstroLad
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Whooooo! We have to actually get together for some games this time.
Yes, there is a whole area dedicated to them for open play. Last year they had Eclipse, Ora et Labora, Dungeon Petz and a lot of other stuff. Basically everything worthwhile from Essen. Play is the focus, buying secondary (funagain mostly) and announcements last (very few if any).
The funny thing is, I literally played 2-player Agricola earlier tonight and was about to post about the experience.
I got to game night late so they had already punched all the Agricola punchies. For some reason there are a bunch of nice little wooden pieces, but then also a bunch of cardboard punchies. Anyway, I was late, so they played 4-player Smash-up (everyone has their own double decks, like Zombie Dinosaurs, Ninja Wizards, etc.) and I stood around watching.
Then once THAT finally finished, the guy who'd been dying to try Agricola for ages finally got to play it, and everyone else was like...this'll take forever, eww, we don't even want to stand around for the rules, so they wandered off and played iPad games like Ticket To Ride and so forth. =P
But I was a nice guy and decided to stick it out for even the 2-player version so the guy didn't have to play by himself. The 2-player version took us maybe 2 hours, maybe a little more, including a lot of digging through the rules and trying to figure out what was going on. And that was even with the simplified family-friendly rules. It seemed like there was a fair bit of stuff like "so it doesn't tell us where to put the stoves once we buy them, this version is supposed to not have a hand of cards for the player", or the rules saying certain pieces were gray when they were actually solid black. We were able to determine most things from the rules, though it took some time.
With two players, it felt like there were a huge number of options to choose from, since players only have 2-3 actions per turn for a good bit of the game (unless you managed to rush expanding your house and your family)...with more players there might be some more options, but also more people to compete over them.
In the end I apparently won 34-32. I was behind a good bit in the early score counting because I had more empty fields and fewer cattle, but he took an early begging card (-3 victory points) for a total bonus card score of -1, while my cards ended up being 8 +2. Both of us almost certainly had turns where we didn't do things with maximum efficiency, so it could have gone either way. Overall it seemed very involved, even with the simplified rules once we understood things, and I think it could be difficult to get a group into playing it.
BomberMouse
Member
Believe me, once you know how to play it moves way faster. Me and the wife played in an hour the 2 player game, and that's including drafting 7/10 cards. If you use plastic containers you can set it up in less than 5 minutes.
It's a great game, though I don't think I'd play it with more than 3 or 4.
Bought Mr. Jack last weekend and played a few rounds with my wife. I'm impressed with the simplicity of the idea. Very good two-player games are devilishly hard to construct, it seems; this illustrates why. The whole emerges from its parts in a natural way; the rules and goals are easy to grasp; each move has a quite limited decision space; but the ideal execution of any given move is elusive. Bluffing becomes critical, and at some point you play your opponent as much as the board.
Yeah, like it a lot. I know Mr. Jack is old news to a lot of the regulars here.
Yeah, like it a lot. I know Mr. Jack is old news to a lot of the regulars here.
BomberMouse
Member
I never played the regular game, but found Mr Jack Pocket a lot of fun for such a small game. It seems to be a more distilled/streamlined version. If you liked the original game I recommend you take a look at the pocket version.
superrobot
Member
Antike Duellum
Another game in beta at Yucata.
Another game in beta at Yucata.
Exactly. Do they even know it's BGG? Ugh....
Indeed. It's timed specifically to get the new releases from Essen. They ship over a couple of large pallets of new games for open play and a few for prizes. Basically every game they do a video demo of at Essen will be in the library at BGG.Con.
Funagain sets up store for preorders & with some new stock of Essen games & hotter recent releases. There's usually a few publishers selling games, like ZMan, Stronghold etc, but it's not setup like Gencon/Origins. More focus on play than as a place to announce/release games, but it does happen - Kingdom Builder got released during the show last year for example.
But honestly, if it's at the show, you'll be able to buy it online. It's not a mini-Essen.
For me, it's about playing the new games & some random classics & one game of Twilight Imperium for sure
Usually play with people from my group down here in Austin/Round Rock & whatever random groups I can find. I like just joining in games with the "Players Wanted" flag. There's beer drinking. There's new games. There's a pointless poker tournament that everyone enters anyway. And it's 3 hours up the road from me. What's not to like? Yeah, we should hookup for a game, Astrolad. Anyone else going?
Just got an emal from a local game store, advertising x-wing expansions. I hadn't paid attention to this game at all, but that Millenium falcon and A-wing are just beautiful. I'm not into miniatures at all but this is a real button pusher. Is the game decent? Ok for families/kids to play?
I'll be coming up from Houston. Booked a flight because I don't feel like driving and I have a hotel room reserved for pretty much the whole week.
BattleMonkey
Member
Did an extended breakdown and review of it in the miniature gaming thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=41785863&postcount=1042
Hard to say about kids being able to play, but you will have to be careful with them and the fragile ships which have many potential elements that can be broken if not handled right.
Anyone attending BGG feel free to PM me your emails if you are comfortable with sharing and I can make a Google group or something for us. Would love to play some games with you, fenners & merc. I am coming down with one friend myself so we'll likely be hunting around from games a bunch.
Affeinvasion
Member
Had ordered Eclipse with some birthday money from CSI. Said it was due in November, but surprise it got back in stock! Yay!
timetokill
Banned
My copy of Spartacus FINALLY arrived
platypotamus
Member
Still no expansion though. Grumble grumble.
Affeinvasion
Member
My copy of Spartacus FINALLY arrived
It took me about 5 minutes of straight staring to figure out that the slot on the right was meant to stick the four gladiators in. Also I hope that BGG gets the promo cards. I got one with my order from Miniature Market, but I'd like the whole set.
Gaming Truth
Member
I got one from GenCon (but don't remember who). Is there more than one out there?
Edit: oh F that. So they've stooped to video game preorder BS. Do I preorder from GameStop or Best Buy? How do I catch 'me all?
One card comes from directly ordering from them online. So physically buying from them in-person doesn't count? =(
timetokill
Banned
Ha, is that what that's for? I ended up stacking the player house tokens in there, because my gladiators wouldn't "quite" fit the way I was thinking they would.
What other promo cards are there? I got a gladiator card with mine. It was funny that it came outside the box, just floating there in the packaging.
joeyjoejoeshabadoo
Member
I think all the promos are gladiators.
BattleMonkey
Member
Meh City of Horrors comes out right after they ship my order out.
csi shipped it yesterday for me along with seasons and formula d
Affeinvasion
Member
I generally try to avoid all of the animal themed fantasy games out there.
timetokill
Banned
Got 4 of the usual 5 in my group to get together to try out Spartacus. It was a tale of two games: one with 4 of us, and another with 3 of us.
Good
+ With 4 players, it's absolutely awesome. So much betrayal and backstabbing. This game is not for the thin-skinned, as your friends will pretty much be forced to be treacherous, and so will you.
+ The arena combat can be incredibly exciting and it's not overly predictable. We had some beatdowns, sure. But we also had some matches that changed momentum multiple times during the match, where one guy was overpowering the other, and then with a lucky roll got on the offensive.
+ After we finished the first game, everybody wanted to play again immediately, even after a full 2.5 hour first game. Always a good sign.
Bad
- With 3 players, it's terrible. I actually managed to get a sizeable lead in assets with one really good turn, and with the other guys in the hole they ended up teaming up against me for the rest of the match before we just called it, acknowledging that I was pretty much a lock to win the game.
- This extended to the other 2 guys conspiring to throw matches in any way they could, making the arena matches a complete farce. You'd have guys refusing to attack, throwing away their attack dice when they got wounded just so they wouldn't get certain unintended strong rolls, etc.
- After the 3 player game, everyone agreed to never play with 3 players again.
It was clear to me reading the rules that the game was made for 4 players, but I honestly expected the 3 player game to be about 2 players ganging up on one from a superior position. Instead, it was the two from an inferior position ganging up out of futility. If this was the only time we'd played it I doubt it would hit the table again.
I do think there's a way to make 5 or 6 players work for this game, and make it even more treacherous. At some point we may create a "house" character for this purpose. If it works out I'll let you guys know.
Good
+ With 4 players, it's absolutely awesome. So much betrayal and backstabbing. This game is not for the thin-skinned, as your friends will pretty much be forced to be treacherous, and so will you.
+ The arena combat can be incredibly exciting and it's not overly predictable. We had some beatdowns, sure. But we also had some matches that changed momentum multiple times during the match, where one guy was overpowering the other, and then with a lucky roll got on the offensive.
+ After we finished the first game, everybody wanted to play again immediately, even after a full 2.5 hour first game. Always a good sign.
Bad
- With 3 players, it's terrible. I actually managed to get a sizeable lead in assets with one really good turn, and with the other guys in the hole they ended up teaming up against me for the rest of the match before we just called it, acknowledging that I was pretty much a lock to win the game.
- This extended to the other 2 guys conspiring to throw matches in any way they could, making the arena matches a complete farce. You'd have guys refusing to attack, throwing away their attack dice when they got wounded just so they wouldn't get certain unintended strong rolls, etc.
- After the 3 player game, everyone agreed to never play with 3 players again.
It was clear to me reading the rules that the game was made for 4 players, but I honestly expected the 3 player game to be about 2 players ganging up on one from a superior position. Instead, it was the two from an inferior position ganging up out of futility. If this was the only time we'd played it I doubt it would hit the table again.
I do think there's a way to make 5 or 6 players work for this game, and make it even more treacherous. At some point we may create a "house" character for this purpose. If it works out I'll let you guys know.
Jables Swan
Member
Did some boardgaming with a bunch of friends for a Halloween party over the weekend.
Managed to play:
Belfort
Android: Netrunner
Zombicide
Innovation
Flashpoint: Second Story
Paint the Line
Not too bad overall. I wanted to get my black box copy of Glory to Rome to the table but there was just too much going on.
Belfort:
This was my second time playing this and it's a really fun worker placement game. It's been about half a year since my first game though so I forgot everything I had learned in terms of strategy and didn't realize until the last 2 turns that I needed to be building more things if I could've, and earlier. I also screwed myself out of turn 2 by using all of my gold, so I couldn't afford recruitment costs via the hiring center and even my own inn. :< Next time!
Netrunner:
I blatantly stole Astrolad's decklists that he posted, with minor tweaks to accommodate my only having 1 copy of the core set. My friend pretty much had to remake his decks on the spot and didn't want to use mine, nor would he let me use a regular OOB deck, so the games were fairly one-sided lol :x I wish I had someone who lived closer to playtest decks against though :x
Zombicide:
For a purchase I bought 70% because it was a good mini to cost ratio, I'm very happy with it. This was maybe my 4th or 5th play with this game and the scenarios have all been fun. I think the only complaint I might make is that it's been almost too easy, but at the same time I don't think we've made it out of any scenario perfectly. The game is just really casual, has a lot of theme oozing through its pores and appeals to basically anybody who would like a zombie themed game.
Innovation:
Didn't bust out the expansion yet, as this is only my second play, but holy crap there's so many cards. I've decided to not even going to bother with trying to read all the cards and abilities and treat each one as a surprise. My first play was last week with my GF and I don't think I'll have the success most of you do because she just about went axe murderer on me when I used a dogma to steal 2 of her score cards to prevent her from getting her 6th achievement (I had none). She ended up winning something like 6 achievements to my 3, but I think the action of me "stealing" away her early victory really soured her impression of the game. :<
Flashpoint: Second Story:
It's Flashpoint. Not much else to say about it. I love it and I love the expansions too. I kinda like how the fire truck is a little less useful in this one because it felt a slightly overpowered in the first. Didn't really get to make use of the structure repair role so I can't really say anything new.
Paint the Line:
I love ping pong and Penny Arcade, but I think this game fell a little flat. To be specific, I think the problem is the use of a D20 for the dice rolls. The game represents the best players of 2 nations facing off against each other, but with a D20 you can often fail on the serve using a basic shot, which makes the matches feel really amateur in comparison. Of 4 games to 11 I only got one rally that maxed out the escalation track to 20, which was when it got really intense as we had to use all our super moves to stand a chance of hitting it back. I think if we tweaked the rules to use 4d6 instead of a d20 it would fix a lot of the problems.
Managed to play:
Belfort
Android: Netrunner
Zombicide
Innovation
Flashpoint: Second Story
Paint the Line
Not too bad overall. I wanted to get my black box copy of Glory to Rome to the table but there was just too much going on.
Belfort:
This was my second time playing this and it's a really fun worker placement game. It's been about half a year since my first game though so I forgot everything I had learned in terms of strategy and didn't realize until the last 2 turns that I needed to be building more things if I could've, and earlier. I also screwed myself out of turn 2 by using all of my gold, so I couldn't afford recruitment costs via the hiring center and even my own inn. :< Next time!
Netrunner:
I blatantly stole Astrolad's decklists that he posted, with minor tweaks to accommodate my only having 1 copy of the core set. My friend pretty much had to remake his decks on the spot and didn't want to use mine, nor would he let me use a regular OOB deck, so the games were fairly one-sided lol :x I wish I had someone who lived closer to playtest decks against though :x
Zombicide:
For a purchase I bought 70% because it was a good mini to cost ratio, I'm very happy with it. This was maybe my 4th or 5th play with this game and the scenarios have all been fun. I think the only complaint I might make is that it's been almost too easy, but at the same time I don't think we've made it out of any scenario perfectly. The game is just really casual, has a lot of theme oozing through its pores and appeals to basically anybody who would like a zombie themed game.
Innovation:
Didn't bust out the expansion yet, as this is only my second play, but holy crap there's so many cards. I've decided to not even going to bother with trying to read all the cards and abilities and treat each one as a surprise. My first play was last week with my GF and I don't think I'll have the success most of you do because she just about went axe murderer on me when I used a dogma to steal 2 of her score cards to prevent her from getting her 6th achievement (I had none). She ended up winning something like 6 achievements to my 3, but I think the action of me "stealing" away her early victory really soured her impression of the game. :<
Flashpoint: Second Story:
It's Flashpoint. Not much else to say about it. I love it and I love the expansions too. I kinda like how the fire truck is a little less useful in this one because it felt a slightly overpowered in the first. Didn't really get to make use of the structure repair role so I can't really say anything new.
Paint the Line:
I love ping pong and Penny Arcade, but I think this game fell a little flat. To be specific, I think the problem is the use of a D20 for the dice rolls. The game represents the best players of 2 nations facing off against each other, but with a D20 you can often fail on the serve using a basic shot, which makes the matches feel really amateur in comparison. Of 4 games to 11 I only got one rally that maxed out the escalation track to 20, which was when it got really intense as we had to use all our super moves to stand a chance of hitting it back. I think if we tweaked the rules to use 4d6 instead of a d20 it would fix a lot of the problems.
BattleMonkey
Member
For those who find the Zombicide scenarios with the game too easy, check the game's official site as theres a campaign as well as a bunch of new scenarios they have posted. The difficulty on them and complexity of some of these new scenarios are a bit higher.
http://guillotinegames.com/en/
Also there is an article about the game's zombie cards as they are numbered and the number ranges have themes. You can alter a game's difficulty by simply taking out certain range of cards and the extra zombie cards that came with the kickstarter should only be used if you want to have lots of extra plain walkers in your game.
http://guillotinegames.com/en/blog-zombie-cards-secrets
http://guillotinegames.com/en/
Also there is an article about the game's zombie cards as they are numbered and the number ranges have themes. You can alter a game's difficulty by simply taking out certain range of cards and the extra zombie cards that came with the kickstarter should only be used if you want to have lots of extra plain walkers in your game.
http://guillotinegames.com/en/blog-zombie-cards-secrets
we are going to have lots to play at BGG. I haven't played Second Story but we have used the repair guy and he seems really underpowered. Do quite enjoy flashpoint though.BattleMonkey
Member
Was funny as we had the repair guy early in one of our games and were like, hes useless once he got rid of the hot spots. Until a few unlucky explosions and shockwaves made too many holes and house was about to collapse. Then we really wanted the repair guy and sorry we ditched him so early as we figured we could handle the various holes in the wall as we had ton of damage ubes left over still. But was too late, we were one away from victory and it was looking good and ran out of cubes.... *smash*
But the removal of hot spots alone is a great ability especially with the crazy amount that start on the board if your playing with a full 6 players
Anyone still need a ticket and a room for BGG.con? I booked early and just found out I won't be able to go. Room reserved is on location and has two double beds non smoking.
Giving first shot to folks here on GAF before I attempt to find someone on BGG.
I'll just look for payment for the badge obviously and then we can contact the hotel to get the reservation switched over to your name / card number.
Just PM me.
Giving first shot to folks here on GAF before I attempt to find someone on BGG.
I'll just look for payment for the badge obviously and then we can contact the hotel to get the reservation switched over to your name / card number.
Just PM me.
Shoulda kickstarted it! Get in on that hot preorder action where you could help ensure the game gets made (even though it was already on its way to stores) & feel good about yourself.
Yeah, I had a lapse of judgement and kickstarted Urbanization (a Queen game).
I feel like an idiot for that one.
Oh & look, Tom Vasel's launching a game kickstarter, via GameSalute. Perfect timing!
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/876834/nothing-personal-is-now-live-on-kickstarter
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/876834/nothing-personal-is-now-live-on-kickstarter
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