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[Karkador]

Hey everyone, I'm pretty new to board games, but I'm very excited to have found a thread on GAF dedicated to them.

A BGG friend of mine has been introducing them to me, and I've enjoyed stuff like Dominion, Ticket to Ride, Catacombs, Avalon, Incan Gold, to name a few. I'm also loving Netrunner, which I just picked up about a week ago. As someone who hasn't played many card games, but always wanted to, I think it's perfect for me and is a lot of fun.

So, now that my own game collection has kicked off, I've been looking around for what else might be cool to buy/play. I ordered Android: Infiltration to go along with my Netrunner addiction, because while I liked Incan Gold, my girlfriend and I agree that it needs a little more to the game to be compelling.


Any of you recommend anything based on what I've played? I'm looking for games of any size and style. I'd also like your opinions on some games that have caught my eye- Mage Wars, Race for the Galaxy, Space Empires, Arkham Horror (and the Android game similar to it).

Thanks, everyone!

 

[AstroLad]

Really depends on what you are looking for in terms of number of players, complexity, playtime, and theme.

Race for the Galaxy and Arkham, I enjoy them both quite a bit but they're obviously hugely different games -- you almost couldn't get two more different games in terms of high-rated BGG titles.

 

[Keasar]

Any of you recommend anything based on what I've played? I'm looking for games of any size and style. I'd also like your opinions on some games that have caught my eye- Mage Wars, Race for the Galaxy, Space Empires, Arkham Horror (and the Android game similar to it).

Thanks, everyone!

Mage Wars is a fantastic game. The complexity and strategy is absolutely great, a little rule heavy so maybe not that beginner friendly but a friend and I absolutely loved it after our first go. Magic the Gathering on a board with less randomness, except with the dice rolling.

 

[Karkador]

I'm quite open to trying different things, if it's fun. I'd like to explore all types of games right now, as I don't know much about them. Maybe there are even some games I can play alone?

I figure the complexity is probably inversely proportional to the # of players, though, and complexity is fine. My board gaming friend is mostly into short and simple games that he brings to game nights for our group of friends, so I feel like I know the least about the longer, more involved games with a lot going on.

I brought up the specific games just to get some specific opinions about each one and show a little more about what things catch my eye.

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

Any of you recommend anything based on what I've played? I'm looking for games of any size and style. I'd also like your opinions on some games that have caught my eye- Mage Wars, Race for the Galaxy, Space Empires, Arkham Horror (and the Android game similar to it).

Thanks, everyone!

Out of that list the only game I have no familiarity with it Mage Wars.

Race for the Galaxy - A neat card game where on a player's turn you select a role card and everyone gets to perform that role but the person who played it gets some sort of bonus. The game isn't hard mechanically and the biggest hurdle is the iconography. It's a bitch to teach but once you understand what the icons mean it can play rather quickly.

Space Empires - I think this game is so-so. It's basically Masters of Orion in cardboard form. The thing I liked about it was how they handled Fog of War. Each ship chit looked the same on the back side but the face told you exactly what type and class the ship. You had an idea of what might be out there but you don't know for sure. My least favorite part, you had to do your bookkeeping by hand. I'm a spoiled new school hobby gamer so I'm used to games having systems in place doing the bookkeeping for me. With Space Empire you have a worksheet and a pen and then you need to fill out charts and boxes as you go. It's not the most streamlined thing in the world and it does work, I'd just rather have the game do some of the heavy lifting.

Arkham Horror - games a beast. It's not a hard game to play but, man, is it a tough one to learn. There is a lot of little moving pieces and can get in the way of enjoying the game, if you aren't familiar with the system. It's also a space hog, just the base game will take up most of a kitchen table.

Android - I like the game but find it really hard to recommend. It's a weird game, that has too many different mechanics, incredible amounts of downtime (when playing with the full amount of players), and can be absolutely punishing to players. With that said, the game's storytelling and atmosphere make the game really appealing. It's not so much a game you set out to win but one where the experience of playing trumps winning.

Hopefully that helps. All those games are solid with the worst being Space Empires and really its because of my hang ups.

 

[joelseph]

The more games I collect the more I find myself wanting to play fillers.

I am going to recommend you look at Mascarade by Bruno Faidutti. It's new and a mix between Citadels and Coup.

 

[Affeinvasion]

The more games I collect the more I find myself wanting to play fillers.

I am going to recommend you look at Mascarade by Bruno Faidutti. It's new and a mix between Citadels and Coup.

I wish I had gotten a demo of that in.

 

[ultron87]

Mage Wars is a fantastic game. The complexity and strategy is absolutely great, a little rule heavy so maybe not that beginner friendly but a friend and I absolutely loved it after our first go. Magic the Gathering on a board with less randomness, except with the dice rolling.

I really need to take the time to set up Mage Wars to play somebody. The rule book is just so heavy that teaching it feels like it could be a nightmare. I was totally on board till I got to the big codex that has like 30 keywords.

 

[hat_hair]

Android - I like the game but find it really hard to recommend. It's a weird game, that has too many different mechanics, incredible amounts of downtime (when playing with the full amount of players), and can be absolutely punishing to players. With that said, the game's storytelling and atmosphere make the game really appealing. It's not so much a game you set out to win but one where the experience of playing trumps winning.

Have you tried the director's cut alternate ruleset for Android? It improves the game considerably, most notably by making players take their day's actions one-by-one instead of doing their whole day in one go. It also changes the Dark/Light card mechanics to reward players for being picked on rather than for picking on others.
And it changes the suspect system so that one of the suspects is actually guilty.
There's a load of alternate plot resolution mechanics as well, but I haven't tried them out yet.
The storytelling is great though. I encourage players read to out the flavour text on every card they play.

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

Have you tried the director's cut alternate ruleset for Android? It improves the game considerably, most notably by making players take their day's actions one-by-one instead of doing their whole day in one go. It also changes the Dark/Light card mechanics to reward players for being picked on rather than for picking on others.
And it changes the suspect system so that one of the suspects is actually guilty.
There's a load of alternate plot resolution mechanics as well, but I haven't tried them out yet.
The storytelling is great though. I encourage players read to out the flavour text on every card they play.

Not yet, I wanted to try the game first as originally designed. I did read through some of the director's cut rules and want to give them a shot at some point.

 

[joelseph]

I wish I had gotten a demo of that in.

It was the shortest demo at Asmodee and their demos netted you a $5 coupon off any of their game purchases. It was an instant purchase for me, I love the genre. The art is gorgeous.

 

[Keasar]

I really need to take the time to set up Mage Wars to play somebody. The rule book is just so heavy that teaching it feels like it could be a nightmare. I was totally on board till I got to the big codex that has like 30 keywords.

You can teach the basics of the game fairly well orally, its just all the keywords and status effects that are a bit trickier to get across.

 

[Gaming Truth]

All the Kickstarter projects where I have pledged and the product is ready in time for Gen Con, but not leaving enough time for the mail-out, have offered backers the ability to pick the product up at the event. Seeing a bunch of people carrying a particular product with them might urge a lot of people not aware of it to take a look. It's beneficial to both the backers and the product makers.

When the volume of sales for many items in tabletop gaming are not great, you can hardly fault anyone for taking the opportunity to sell more when it's still fresh in peoples minds and the excitement is there. If a pick-up at the event is feasible and is not offered, then it can be seen as a middle finger to backers. If it's not, who cares? More sales and more interest often equates to more product support; everybody wins.

Not having a go at you or your mate, just offering a different perspective.

No probs. I was just relaying the opinions of my friend and really, he's the type who'd forget/overlook exactly what you said above and misinterpret the whole thing. I did ask him on the GenCon floor if he could just walk up and get his copy anyways (I didn't know it was an option) and he said something like "no", which is where I got my impression.

 

[Gaming Truth]

I was planning on posting my thoughts on all of the games I played at GenCon this year and didn't realize how much work was involved. Here's the first half. Hopefully the second half won't take too long:

Firefly - The Board Game: (Purchased)

• Gameplay: Didn't get a chance to play the game. I was one of the mad monkeys that rushed the booth from a secret entrance at 10 a.m. and bought it.
• Impressions: Nice cards, decent figures, nice board, fantastic money. But I have no idea how the game is.
• Recommendation: N/A

Castle Dice: (Purchased)

• Gameplay: Castle construction game using a dice-rolling mechanic. Allows players flexibility when drawing from two decks that either focus on infrastructure or victory points. The dice selection system allows you to see what your opponents are focusing on, which is useful because you can guess what they're doing, actively deny them the resources they need, and/or mooch off of them. The farm animal system is unique because it grants you useful bonuses like turn priority, extended hand size, etc., and is balanced by their forced sale and some of the cards.
• Impressions: Nice art and custom dice. I can see a lot of depth and intrigue with how the game is played after the first game (where everyone's just strugging to get their own thing done and not paying attention to other players).
• Recommendation: Great for all types of players. It's a good gateway game.
• Funny story: I was parking the car in the garage and my party happened upon the designer at the hotel lobby. He introduced the game to my friends and I came in a short time later. It was so fun that one of my friends bought the demoed copy on-site and one of my other friends stalked him, hoping to find another copy (because he had no booth, but did do panels)

Cinque Terre:

• Gameplay: It's a pickup-and-deliver game, but a very bland one at that. You're forced to travel in a circle, drawing cards in hopes that you can make your pickups efficient.
• Impressions: The communal mission cards "seems like" a good idea, a twist on Ticket To Ride's mission cards, but the whole blind draw option and the anyone can score it option can make the game very imbalanced. One player chain scored three turns in a row cards that other players were forced to reveal. It was that or eat the points to help "the team", which obviously no one did.
• Recommendation: Get The Great Hartland Hauling Co. instead if you were thinking about this game. I mean, really, why make a game that's a copy of another game and take away almost everything in it? It's like making a Settlers of Catan clone where all players start in the exact same spot, you're forced to build in predefined places in a predefined order, and you've taken away all of the players and made it a solo-game.
• Funny story: It was nicknamed "Cinque Terrible" by a Rio Grande volunteer. We should have known to move somewhere else, but people who go to GenCon know how packed the Rio Grande room can get.

Trains:

• Gameplay: It's a deck-building territory control game with trains.
• Impressions: We only played a half-game. Maybe in a full game, it's not terrible as it seemed. You start out somewhere on the board and based the cards in your hand, you can lay tracks, build stations, and/or buy more cards. Victory points involve creating stations and building into star terrain that's placed off the side of the map.
• Recommendation: I dunno, it felt terrible. Uninspired art, boring play, and there's no depth. If you want to play a train game, play Age of Steam or any one of the other train games. There's nothing I saw in this game.

Unexpected Treasures:

• Gameplay: It's a role card game (think Citadels) where players are trying to flip garbage they pick up for profits. There's stealing involved, which makes things interesting. Players play cards ranked 0 - 5 and the number determines player order and amount of loot they can collect (lower #s go first, higher numbers collect more loot). 0's are thieves and can steal from players who are out busy collecting. Ties are resolved by an extra token and help balance against thieves indirectly.
• Impressions: I like it as a quick and casual game. The art is nice.
• Recommendation: I enjoyed it, but my friends did not. The turnoff is ties, where all but one player have to sit out a round if they tie. However, people who sit out don't count as players who are looting, which in turn, limits thieves. Basically, it's a lose-lose for everyone except the victor which is why no one likes it.

Archipelago: (Purchased)

• Gameplay: It's a very deep game. It's a worker-placement game where you're trying to balance getting money, resources, and fulfilling secret objectives to win victory points while trying to not anger the natives. This is just a basic description of how everything ties together. Every action has a consequence and there's also trying to determine the victory conditions through observation of other players' play.
• Impressions: A very deep game and it seems very enjoyable. The art is wonderful, the components are solid, and the game is very modular (three game lengths, adjustable game conditions, etc.)
• Recommendation: It's the kind of game that I can probably convince almost anyone to play because of how interesting it is. There's so many things happening with every player action and it's just fun to watch.
• Funny story: Christophe is an awesome guy. He personally demoed the game to us and provided fantasic flavor to everything. His enthusiasm when he talked about how all the parts of the game are inter-related, how he designed the box art and box components, and his disdain for the rude Americans (GenCon volunteers).

Bootleggers: (Will purchase, if we remember)

• Gameplay: It's a economy game involving alcohol and the mafia.
• Impressions: It's got nice components that include trucks to hold beer, mafia figures to place on the board, an decent card art. The game is rather simple to teach and fun to play.
• Recommendation: I enjoyed the game but am not sure how deep it is. The dice-rolling mechanic is very interesting because it controls things like supply, demand, and the cops. Since I haven't seen all of the cards, I don't know how much they'll make games different between play sessions. We like the designer and think we're going to purchase it, but it isn't out yet.

Coup:

• Gameplay: It's a role card game where people are trying to get as much money as they can before they are eliminated.
• Impressions: Made from the guys who made Resistance, players are trying to sniff out the various roles distributed on the table. There's more than one of each, so there's a lot of bluffing involved. Being caught bluffing (usually by the actual owner of a role or by jealous players) and being assassinated are the two ways to lose people. Once you lose them all, you're out.
• Recommendation: It looks very intriguing. It also looks like a 5+ players only game. I didn't get to play it, just watch, but look forward to playing this one day (it's not available yet).

Deathfear:

• Gameplay: It's a dungeon-crawling/not-so-secret traitor game. Players are trying to collect parts of the demon to become one themselves. Once that happens, it becomes a survival game for all of the other players.
• Impressions: I dunno. The art looks a lot like the art on the Event cards in Betrayal at House on the Hill. The dungeon mat though, looks bland.
• Recommendation: It's hard to recommend this game. I didn't not enjoy playing this game, but, I didn't really enjoy it either. It seems like a very simple exploration game and the not-so-secret traitor part is interesting and tense, but it's not enough.

 

[joelseph]

I'm always amazed at how different everyone gencon games lists are. Testament to how big the convention has become. Good writeup!

 

[BattleMonkey]

My pickups from the con:

- Pathfinder Card Game + character pack
- Trains
- Maximum Throwdown
- Firefly
- The Duke
- Drunkquest

Rest was a ton of miniature game minis, books, and accessories. Got three of each of the new X-Wing fighters, and one of the Imp shuttle and the Moldy Crow. GF also splurged on gaming minis and stuff to paint up.

Pathfinder is neat, it's essentially a RPG broken down into a card game, lot of it feels like to get maximum enjoyment out of it requires playing a campaign adventure set though as so much of your characters are locked out till you play through a scenario to "level up". One off scenario play doesn't look to be as fun.

The negatives I see so far with Pathfinder Card Game is the whole set up and storage aspect since you have to build the card pools depending on what scenarios/adventures you are running, and you will have to constantly be taking cards out and reorganizing stuff once the expansions come out, same with the stuff you mix into the player decks which you will likely want to keep stored between game sessions if you campaign play. Not sure how well the game is going to be accepted for one off quick play scenarios, as it really feels like it's something you will want to play through multiple sessions like a real RPG. Also the cards you will probably want to sleeve since you have to write on them to keep track of things on your character cards, rules tell you to use a light pencil mark but see that getting ugly over several plays of erasing it.... so figure players will want to perhaps try sleeves and using dry erase markers instead, but that makes storage a bit of a pain if your going to do multiple sessions over a period of time. The set up and taking down the game seems a bit heavy, a bit more than some players will be used to with other card games.

Also the game begs for a game board/mat. With all the cards having same backing, can see the stacks getting mixed up easy when you have all the different piles on the board with no markings of what is what.

 

[Ohnonono]

My FLGS had Pathfinder ACG last night and so I picked it up and played it last night solitaire with two heroes. I only sleeved the character cards i was using because I think that is all you should ever have to write on. I set up AND played the first scenario in about an hour and a half. I can see it being hard to set up for some people but coming from a hex and counter wargame background 15 mins to set up is absolutely trivial. If everything is organized I feel like that's about as long as it should take if your being diligent about it. There is also plenty of space in the box to pre-set up the cards for a play session(I tend to do this when my son is awake as I can't play but can usually sort cards/deck build/sort counters and such.)

The game itself was better than I thought it would be. I think it takes a little bit of imagination but it was a very narrative experience and felt difficult but fair. I will for sure be playing this a lot more.

 

[Gaming Truth]

I'm always amazed at how different everyone gencon games lists are. Testament to how big the convention has become.

Yeah, there's so much stuff to do. The last two years, outside of Star Wars: X-Wing, I've tended to stay away from Fantasy Flight because their lines and game demos were long. Up until this year, I mainly went to the other big guns like Mayfair, Asmodee, AEG, etc., but this year, a friend of mine stopped at a lot of booths I normally wouldn't have, and for some (like Bootleggers), I was pleasantly surprised.

Seriously, three and a half days is too little time. If the same convention was held over five days, I'd probably still feel that it wasn't enough. The dealer hall is huge and I didn't get to it all, the gaming hall is awesome and I didn't get to play anything this year, and there's so much good food if you know where to look.

Maybe next year I might sneak out and meet up with fellow GAF'ers. My group usually travels together for the majority of the time and like I said, there's so much to do and see!

 

[Alcotholic]

Love Letter Kanai Factory Limited Edition is out!
Basically a print of the japanese version.

Just ordered my copy.

 

[Affeinvasion]

Seriously, three and a half days is too little time. If the same convention was held over five days, I'd probably still feel that it wasn't enough. The dealer hall is huge and I didn't get to it all, the gaming hall is awesome and I didn't get to play anything this year, and there's so much good food if you know where to look.

I ate at Ali Baba's Mediterranean place on Capital and it was really good.

 

[BattleMonkey]

I ate at Ali Baba's Mediterranean place on Capital and it was really good.

Yea that place was good, we went there on Sat night when all the bikers and shit created such a chaos of lines everywhere.

Lot of great smaller pubs too with real good food.

 

[Gaming Truth]

Yea that place was good, we went there on Sat night when all the bikers and shit created such a chaos of lines everywhere.

Lot of great smaller pubs too with real good food.

We went to:

• Cracker Barrel - It's local to me, but it's far away and it's hard to get people to go. I always make it a mandatory stop on the 10-hour drive up.
• BRU Burger Bar - Wonderful place we discovered last year. A very creative burger menu where the burgers are juicy, but not greasy, the buns are wonderful (flavorful like Fuddrucker buns, but not coated in butter), and the garlic fries are yummy
• Yats - Local cajun place. Cheap, fast, and delicious. So good, we went back Sunday before departure. It has a rotating menu too. Check out the web site. I'd seriously open a restaurant here if it wasn't an Indy-only thing.
• St. Elmo's - The steaks were awesome as always. Good bread. Top-notch Shrimp Cocktail.
• Firstwatch - Wonderful breakfast place. Good menu, huge pancakes, friendly service.
• Sonics - Why in the world is it not in my area? It's north, south, and west of where I live, but not where I live!

 

[SCHUEY F1]

Picked up Elder Signs: Unseen Forces yesterday. Looks like a real nice expansion, look forward to playing it.

Also played Bioshock again last night, this time with 4 players as well as Mansions of Madness.

Bioshock with 4 was fun, but it plays better with 2 imo. Played the Inner Sanctum scenario in Mansions. It went over pretty well. Seems to be one of the better scenarios. I was quite aggressive enough with the keeper, but it was their first time playing.

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

Bioshock with 4 was fun, but it plays better with 2 imo.

I can imagine that is the case. Was it any longer? How was the downtime? It seems like it could drag quite a bit.

 

[SCHUEY F1]

I can imagine that is the case. Was it any longer? How was the downtime? It seems like it could drag quite a bit.

A little bit with people planning their moves and what cards to play. So slow players could drag it down a bit. Sharing upgrades was neat.

 

[AstroLad]

One year I will go to GenCon. But realistically I can only travel for one board-game event/year so it would be at the cost of BGG, which I love. The shortness of GenCon is a real bummer. I remember from Pax that waiting in lines for stuff all day can really suck up your time and make a con go by as if it had never happened. Of course with Pax we mitigated that by just saying screw it and playing board games the entire time both times I went. But that wouldn't make nearly as much sense at GenCon, which has more stuff I'd actually want to see, and which afaik doesn't have the greatest open-gaming environment. It's on the to-do though, along with Essen. Although give it another year or two and I feel like Essen might be mostly redundant/unnecessary. GenCon just has more stuff I care about at this point.

 

[ultron87]

From my experience there aren't any Gen Con lines that really compare to lines at PAX. The only crazy one I remember seeing is for the Fantasy Flight store. Though I don't spend a ton of time in the dealer hall, so it is very possible I just didn't see them.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Yea outside of the limited con exclusive item lines, there usually isn't many. As long as you showed up when the con doors opened too, you usually could get in any of the exclusive lines and get whatever you wanted without a massive wait.

FFG this year had a huge line because they were trying to cut down on the chaos and keep things more organized for those wanting to buy so they were limiting about of people in at a time. And that was just to buy stuff. Paizo had big lines as well but that was mostly for people buying up the Pathfinder card game and that took a while to sell out. But they had a decent pace to it and folks going down the line checking people out who would pay with cash so they didn't have to wait for the cashiers.

But outside those two and the exclusive early lines, Gencon is pretty chill.

 

[Affeinvasion]

Yea outside of the limited con exclusive item lines, there usually isn't many. As long as you showed up when the con doors opened too, you usually could get in any of the exclusive lines and get whatever you wanted without a massive wait.

FFG this year had a huge line because they were trying to cut down on the chaos and keep things more organized for those wanting to buy so they were limiting about of people in at a time. And that was just to buy stuff. Paizo had big lines as well but that was mostly for people buying up the Pathfinder card game and that took a while to sell out. But they had a decent pace to it and folks going down the line checking people out who would pay with cash so they didn't have to wait for the cashiers.

But outside those two and the exclusive early lines, Gencon is pretty chill.

The WizKids lines were crazy to the point where there was a stampede one day. I wisely stayed away from all of that.

 

[Gaming Truth]

Tacking onto what Ultron87 and BattleMonkey said, there aren't really any lines. Honestly, the only lines I saw this year were:

• The 10 a.m. - Black Friday Walmart-like lines to enter the floor
• The Fantasy Flight vendor booth (roped off for security reasons)
• Rampage (extremely popular)
• Bathroom lines (memorize where the bathrooms are so you can completely avoid the most popular ones!)

 

[wookieofdoom]

Out of that list the only game I have no familiarity with it Mage Wars.

Android - I like the game but find it really hard to recommend. It's a weird game, that has too many different mechanics, incredible amounts of downtime (when playing with the full amount of players), and can be absolutely punishing to players. With that said, the game's storytelling and atmosphere make the game really appealing. It's not so much a game you set out to win but one where the experience of playing trumps winning.

Hopefully that helps. All those games are solid with the worst being Space Empires and really its because of my hang ups.

I actually did not like Android at all the first time I played it. I originally played with 4 players, and found the game too slow and not enough interaction between the other players.
The next time I played, I had a blast. So what was the difference? I played it with three players. This allows a lot more interaction between the players and reduces the downtime considerably. If you ever play it, play it with three. It's so much better.

 

[joelseph]

10am Vendor Floor line - 1+ hours
FFG line - 1-2+ hours
Thursday Pathfinder card game line - 30minutes+
Thursday Firefly line - 1 hour+
Food truck lines at lunch - 30minutes+
Dinner line at the Ram - 30 minutes+
Waiting for Pastimes to get a tournament started - 1hour+

=)

 

[Gaming Truth]

10am Vendor Floor line - 1+ hours
FFG line - 1-2+ hours
Thursday Pathfinder card game line - 30minutes+
Thursday Firefly line - 1 hour+
Food truck lines at lunch - 30minutes+
Dinner line at the Ram - 30 minutes+
Waiting for Pastimes to get a tournament started - 1hour+
=)

The Ram has an amazing line that always stretches out the door. The food trucks are a nice addition this year. I don't know if it was coincidental or intentional, but it was good. The homemade popsicles were the best.

 

[BattleMonkey]

They had food trucks before. Usually skipped the trucks though due to the line and standing in the sun that long. There was always lot of good local places that had no waits if you walked a few blocks or looked around. All the chain restaurants were usually packed of course.

 

[fenners]

Trains was tonight's game. I'd played it before at BGG.Con, my friends hadn't. Huge hit with the guy who bought it & hosts - we ended up playing it three times in a row which is a very rare thing for my group.

I don't think there's anything revolutionary it, but the mix of deck building working towards a bigger tactical target on the board is a good thing for my group.

 

[joelseph]

Love Letter Kanai Factory Limited Edition is out!
Basically a print of the japanese version.
http://geekstopgames.com/cmsAdmin/uploads/pic1709459_md-1.jpg[IMG]
[IMG]http://littlemetaldog.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/image-1.jpeg?w=500&h=375[IMG]

Just ordered my copy.[/QUOTE]

Played it last night, the slight change makes it a touch harder. Still such a great game. AEG is my favorite Pub.

---

Played Mascarade last night with a new group, it's a total hit or miss depending on the player. I adore the game but it takes a while for most people to start to see the strategies emerge. I feel like it's teaching people to play Avalon/Resistance all over again. Watching people not call bluffs and not swap constantly is torture when you know the next round someone will win because of it.

---

Wanted to get Ascension with the new xpac to table last night but we had a few die hard Magic people burnt from learning Mascarade so we played a long drawn out game of multiplayer EDH. I kept overloading cyclonic rift and recurring it, I think I cast it 5 times that game before finally taking over for the win after a couple hours. Needless to say most of the table currently hates me and is lobbying to have the card banned from our casual EDH.

 

[Ohnonono]

Played Pathfinder ACG last night again. It is heartbreaking to see an amazing spell or item and miss the check by some tiny number. Especially when you could have used a blessing or something to help and chose not to. Good bye amazing Tome that would have helped my crew with crazy arcane checks and monsters who have to die to magic... good bye.

 

[daevv]

Three days, Three delay updates....It seems I've run into the inevitable Kickstarter wall of delays. I've now decided to not back some card games I've been watching: The Agents and Zero Hour.

I still haven't gotten my copy of Dungeon Roll. There was an update yesterday stating shipping for international (I'm in Canada) backers will start today. I don't mind to much as August was the release month but when I can buy the Kickstarter version on eBay for slightly more and have it quicker, it puts a damper on the whole thing.

Dungeon Dice update advised of delays from October 2013 to February 2014.

Berserk: War of the Realms update for today states a delay from September 2013 to almost January 2014.

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

After three months, I finally had a solid game night. I played Among the Stars, Drum Roll, and Android: Infiltration.

Among the Stars is basically 7 Wonders in space. Players are drafting cards ala 7 Wonder (keep 1 card pass the rest, repeat until done) and either placing them in their space station, turn it in for a power reactor, or pitch it for 3 bucks. The neat thing about the game is the spacial stuff. Some cards give you bonuses for having other cards next to or near that one. Some cards require power so they must be within two of the power reactors. The game is very 7 Wondersy so if you are familiar with that game you will be familiar with this one. It is also different enough to stay in my collection for now. We will see if there is enough there for repeated plays, but for now I enjoyed it.

Drum Roll is a cube pushing, euro-ass euro game and I loved it. In this game you are running a circus. You use action discs to grab cubes, (here they are things like props, costumes, rehearsal, etc) sell tickets, buy investments (rule breaking cards), and hire performers and workers. Like any euro you are turning in cubes for stuff and scoring points for doing so, but here the cube pushing feels meaty. There are some neat combos one can pull off with their performers and personnel. The game is also tight, Feld tight. You need to make sure you have enough cubes to do a proper performance, but getting enough cubes is kind of hard to achieve and you will be strapped for cash more times than not, because everyone you hire not only costs money to buy but also brings along the need for a salary. Can't pay them? Lose points. Really fun game, the game was really tight points with no clear winner until the end where I ended up winning due to a tie breaker.

Android: Infiltration that other Android game, this one designed by Donald X. Vaccarino of Dominion fame. Yo, it's Incan Gold, that's not a bad thing, though. If you aren't familiar with Incan Gold, in that game, you play as explorers delving in a cave, or temple, trying to grab as much treasure as possible before the cave, or temple, collapses. If you are able to make it back to base camp you keep what you took, if you were stuck in the cave, or temple, you lost it all. Fun game but very simplistic. In Infiltration, the game has you doing basically the same thing. Enter a building, steal data files, and exit before the police arrive. The difference between the two is how in your face Infiltration can be. In Incan Gold you are given two cards, one says stay the other says leave, t's a fairly solitaire experience. In Infiltration you have four actions, Advance, Infiltrate, Retreat, Extract (or Download for easy mode). In addition to those four action cards you have a hand full of item cards that can be brutal. For instance, I had a card that allowed me to move all the data files and myself to an adjacent room. Well, I was in the same room as the person behind me when I played that card and he played extract. (grab the datafiles) So, yeah, he wasn't happy when I took all the data files from the room he was expecting to extract them from to another room. Fun game and pretty fast, we were done with it in 45 minutes.

 

[JetBlackPanda]

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is starting to his FLGS but none around me even know what I am talking about.

awesome.

Guess I will buy online.

 

[XShagrath]

Why is Pathfinder showing up at places, but CSI has it listed for the 28th? They should have it already so that I can buy it, damnit!

 

[Ohnonono]

Places have it but were instructed not to sell it because some places did not get theirs. My FLGS gives no fucks. I don't blame them as its hard enough to get people to buy at retail.

 

[Sutton Dagger]

Posted this in another thread, thought you could help.

"I know that there are a few board game enthusiasts on AusGAF, and I was wondering if anyone has played the Game of Thrones board game (second edition)? I'm not big into them, but I absolutely love the old school Hero Quest BG so don't know if GoT is at all similar?".

Thanks in advance guys.

 

[Xater]

In case you are not aware or missed the thread in the gaming are, there is a Witcher board game coming. It is designed by Ignacy Trzewiczek, so it might actually end up being of good quality. They had a prototype I saw in the business are, but it's to judge how it will play just looking at the parts. There will also be a iPad version which uses a digital dice called Dice+. (http://dicepl.us/#) Convince the PR lady to actually send me a copy once it is done.

 

[AstroLad]

Finally got around to playing X-Wing today after owning it since it came out. Took 2+ hours to wrap up our 100-pt game but was a lot of fun. Never played many real minis games so the frequency of how often you have to use your judgment on moves and the like is kind of surprising to me (not to mention I accidentally nudged stuff like every turn), but as long as you are playing for fun who cares. (Though I don't know if I could handle a tournament with those sorts of ambiguities -- I find NR tournaments tricky enough already and there's no judgment there.)

Working on a Rebel build right now. If there are any X-Wing players, let me know what you think. Basically in today's game I used the shitty build that four different ship types so want to go for something more focused here.

Lando Calrissian/YT-1300 (44)
7 3 1 8 5
After you execute a green maneuver, choose one other friendly ship at Range 1. That ship may perform 1 free action on its action bar.
Luke Skywalker (7)
– After you perform an attack that does not hit, immediately perform a primary weapon attack. You may change 1 result to a result. You cannot perform another attack this round.
Nien Nunb (1)
– You may treat all maneuvers as green maneuvers.
Millennium Falcon (1)
– Your action bar gains the action icon.

Arvel Crynyd/A-Wing (23)
6 2 4/3 2 2
Unique
You may declare an enemy ship inside your firing arc that you are touching as the target of your attack.
Stealth Device (3)
– Increase your agility value by 1. If you are hit by an attack, discard this card.

Rookie Pilot/X-Wing (21)
2 3 2 3 2

Posted this in another thread, thought you could help.

"I know that there are a few board game enthusiasts on AusGAF, and I was wondering if anyone has played the Game of Thrones board game (second edition)? I'm not big into them, but I absolutely love the old school Hero Quest BG so don't know if GoT is at all similar?".

Thanks in advance guys.

It's not like Hero Quest at all -- it's more of a longish diplomacy and strategy-heavy game. I'm not super into it but it's absolutely dripping with theme and probably a decent choice if you have 5+ players into the show willing to learn rules for about 30-45m. If you want a dungeon crawler, check out Claustrophobia (2p) or if you want something longer and epic that seats more players, Descent.

 

[Ohnonono]

Finally got around to playing X-Wing today after owning it since it came out. Took 2+ hours to wrap up our 100-pt game but was a lot of fun. Never played many real minis games so the frequency of how often you have to use your judgment on moves and the like is kind of surprising to me (not to mention I accidentally nudged stuff like every turn), but as long as you are playing for fun who cares. (Though I don't know if I could handle a tournament with those sorts of ambiguities -- I find NR tournaments tricky enough already and there's no judgment there.)

Working on a Rebel build right now. If there are any X-Wing players, let me know what you think. Basically in today's game I used the shitty build that four different ship types so want to go for something more focused here.

Lando Calrissian/YT-1300 (44)
7 3 1 8 5
After you execute a green maneuver, choose one other friendly ship at Range 1. That ship may perform 1 free action on its action bar.
Luke Skywalker (7)
– After you perform an attack that does not hit, immediately perform a primary weapon attack. You may change 1 result to a result. You cannot perform another attack this round.
Nien Nunb (1)
– You may treat all maneuvers as green maneuvers.
Millennium Falcon (1)
– Your action bar gains the action icon.

Arvel Crynyd/A-Wing (23)
6 2 4/3 2 2
Unique
You may declare an enemy ship inside your firing arc that you are touching as the target of your attack.
Stealth Device (3)
– Increase your agility value by 1. If you are hit by an attack, discard this card.

Rookie Pilot/X-Wing (21)
2 3 2 3 2




It's not like Hero Quest at all -- it's more of a longish diplomacy and strategy-heavy game. I'm not super into it but it's absolutely dripping with theme and probably a decent choice if you have 5+ players into the show willing to learn rules for about 30-45m. If you want a dungeon crawler, check out Claustrophobia (2p) or if you want something longer and epic that seats more players, Descent.

X-wing has less ambiguity than most if you careful. Imagine competitive Warmachine... It is a hell scape of measurement with a tape measure and then having people argue that you are out of melee by 1/100 of an inch. Also not sure what you played X-wing on but felt can help with the bumping stuff.

 

[Affeinvasion]

I know as many tie fighters as possible is one of the meta teams for empire so I would assume having as many a wings as possible would also work for the rebels.

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

I know as many tie fighters as possible is one of the meta teams for empire so I would assume having as many a wings as possible would also work for the rebels.

It's been so long since I last played but don't Y-Wings have the ability for a 360 degree firing arc? Even though they are slow wouldn't they also help with giant armies of ties.

 

[BattleMonkey]

X-Wing plays quite well and yea it's less ambiguous than most mini games. General rule of thumb to make the game go smoothly is to always set the movement templates down, and hold them down with your finger to avoid any nudging or wrong movements. With the guidelines on the base it really makes these nice and smooth compared to other free form movement mini games.

Y-Wing is nice but it can get chewed up quick. Yea right now the meta seems to revolve around just taking tons of the basic Tie Fighters and even Rebels can do it by just taking a bunch of the cheapest X-Wings and A-Wings, but still no one is as cheap as the imperial basic rookie Tie Fighters for sheer numbers. If your taking a Falcon in your force, it's always good to upgrade it to be able to make two attacks a turn using it's turret weapons. That 360 firing is a game changer.

Firesprays (Slave I's) have become very popular since they can drop bombs that do AOE like attacks and can take out swarms fairly well. Believe the last regional tourny was won by a guy using two of the Slave I's and a Tie or Tie/I.

B-Wing's have not gotten a ton of use yet since few got them outside the Gencon attendees, but they have a ton of firepower potential and insane customization options. They will need a ton of concentrated firepower.

 

[AstroLad]

What is a good rebel build then? For now I'm trying to focus on Rebels and stay away from huge swarms because it's just harder to manage. Lando doesn't seem very popular but I dig his ability.