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[AcridMeat]

I've been wanting to play Betrayal , as those games with modular boards (especially when they're little rooms or something) really appeal to me. I heard it was kind of cheesy, schlocky, b-mpvie type of fun.

The language on the cards made it fun to read out loud when you had to, but since we were all new there wasn't much playing that aspect up. It also went bad so quickly that I don't think it had time to develop as such.

Though my friend did run into a room someone discovered, lose a stat, then immediately get attacked by a slime, as their first turn. Pretty funny.

 

[joelseph]

I love playing MTG drafts at stores that pay out prizes in store credit AND stock board games.

Got me a free copy of Smash Up last night!

 

[Ohnonono]

Oh yeah..

Thanks again BattleMonkey for the recommendation.

Yay! Such a good game! Plays great solitaire as well IMO. Roll dice for hidden stuff if necessary.

 

[SCHUEY F1]

Yay! Such a good game! Plays great solitaire as well IMO. Roll dice for hidden stuff if necessary.

How does it work solo?

 

[Ledsen]

Damn it I'm drooling over the Kingdom Death KS page and I can't BELIEVE that I didn't back it... what the fuck was I thinking?
...anyone have a spare pledge?

Hmm, I love boardgames (recently got Carcassonne and Machiavelli), but I struggle to find people that are willing to play.

I understand that I have probably a much larger appetite for playing boardgames than most people in my proximity, but it seems that most people only like to play once a year.

How do you people experience this?

I'm very lucky in this regard... I introduced my fiancée to gaming beyond Cluedo... she's now a Catan nut, has enjoyed many other games (Kingdom Builder, Agricola, Kingdoms, Dixit, Carcassone etc) and is completely on board with playing at least once a week. I introduced my family to Stone Age, Cyclades and Kingdom Builder and now we play at least one game a day when we're all home for holidays. All our friend couples either really liked board gaming already or they started loving it after we introduced it to them. Just a couple of weeks ago we made a couple buy Catan after playing it only once. There's also a local gaming group with an age range of mostly 20-35 year olds I'm thinking of joining, and just the other day I learned that my closest co-worker plays WH40K and knows people in said gaming group. So yeah, I'm pretty lucky.

 

[fenners]

Damn it I'm drooling over the Kingdom Death KS page and I can't BELIEVE that I didn't back it... what the fuck was I thinking?
...anyone have a spare pledge?

Do they have a fully playtested fun game to go with the minis yet? (Snark, but genuine question at the same time...)

 

[BattleMonkey]

Do they have a fully playtested fun game to go with the minis yet? (Snark, but genuine question at the same time...)

Friend ordered it, so will see how it turns out. The gameplay videos of it made it seem awful though. Extremely clunky system with way too many steps to do simple things like just attacking. I instantly said no to it watching those videos. Friend spent like 350$ on the KS though, so I'll get to play it either way.

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

Kingdom Death looks awful. Sure the minis look nice, but that gameplay, woof! Really amazed at how much money people threw at that campaign.

 

[fenners]

Kingdom Death looks awful. Sure the minis look nice, but that gameplay, woof! Really amazed at how much money people threw at that campaign.

People loved the minis & the potential of it. It had a great story behind it & gorgeous minis. What's not to love? Oh yeah, the actual game...

 

[Dreavus]

Tom Vasel reviews BattleCon: Devestation of Indines

Alright, now I am really hyped to receive my box from the Kickstarter.

I'm waiting anxiously for mine as well.

This is the kind of game that will warrant some kind of "BattleCon" night to play tons of matches with different people. I'm hoping I can drum up some interest from my board game group.

 

[Toma]

Zeichen Des Kruzes?

Have you checked out Wallenstein or Shogun? They use the cube tower, and from what I understand are both a bit more balanced.

Shogun was such an awesome recommendation. Cant thank you enough. PM incoming, please give me more recommendations Just came back from a 5 hour session of Shogun and it was greeeeat.

 

[daevv]

Thinking about getting the base game for The Lord of the Rings Card Game but I have a few questions. I know we need 2 copies of the base game to make it 4 player. What about the Saga expansions, 2 copies for 4 people? Is the game even fun with 4?

My Pathfinder group is four people and were thinking about getting into LOTR while in between Adventure Packs. We're fans of the movies more then the history so we would start with the Saga expansions (after doing the base game scenarios) as it should be more familiar.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Thinking about getting the base game for The Lord of the Rings Card Game but I have a few questions. I know we need 2 copies of the base game to make it 4 player. What about the Saga expansions, 2 copies for 4 people? Is the game even fun with 4?

My Pathfinder group is four people and were thinking about getting into LOTR while in between Adventure Packs. We're fans of the movies more then the history so we would start with the Saga expansions (after doing the base game scenarios) as it should be more familiar.

You will need 2 core sets for four players in large part because you wont have enough cards otherwise to make complete decks. Core gives you lots of options but your going to be having some issues with having to use every card you get. Now do you need 4 core sets? No, not if your buying a bunch of the expansions. But 2 core sets gives you extra components like the trackers, tokens, and more base cards that will help make decks.

You don't really need much familiarity with the lore to play the scenarios, and unlike Pathfinder you don't play them in order, you just pick a scenario and play it. Each scenario has a pretty standard fantasy storyline that is spelled out in greater detail than actually what Pathfinder does with it's scenarios. And now with updated rules that you can get off their site, you can choose between three difficulty levels for every scenario.

 

[AcridMeat]

Against people's advice, I bought Ascension: Rise Of Vigil.

Where/what are the best sleeves to get and how many should I plan to get realistically? Since I now have two deckbuilders. I just want to make shuffling a bit easier and less of a hassle trying to keep them nice.

 

[Omikron]

Played Talisman on the weekend (among other things), and it has so many design choices to avoid in order to make an interesting board game.

Whoever puts 'lose a turn' in a board game needs to be banned from design for life.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Played Talisman on the weekend (among other things), and it has so many design choices to avoid in order to make an interesting board game.

Whoever puts 'lose a turn' in a board game needs to be banned from design for life.

It's an old game, from a time when board games weren't so well balanced and lot of randomness was key. I think its a fun game but it shows its age and I would never recommend it.

Alot of older GW games from way back then also had similar things, including stuff like a person being able to lose on their first turn lol

 

[Omikron]

It's an old game, from a time when board games weren't so well balanced and lot of randomness was key. I think its a fun game but it shows its age and I would never recommend it.

Alot of older GW games from way back then also had similar things, including stuff like a person being able to lose on their first turn lol

Hah yeah, I get that, but I guess it shows the progression of design overall.

But god, lose a turn, so ridiculously punishing. Never mind everything else in the game is essentially random.


Also yesterday played 2-player lords of waterdeep and I have a feeling the Lieutenant is wayyyy too powerful, especially if you get it early as I did.

 

[Dreavus]

I know this is the board game / card game thread, but have any of the Magic: the Gathering players in here put together a Cube for drafting? (I cannot for the life of me remember if I have posted about this before.) We did a draft last night and it was lots of fun.

Having a fairly static (outside of new additions every so often) stack of cards to play with almost makes it feel like a contained card game on it's own, instead of the TCG that it obviously is. It also lets old players join in who don't keep up with the expansions but still know how to play and enjoy playing. One such player says he almost enjoys the drafting part more than the actual matches.

Anyways, I highly recommend it if you have a decent collection to draw from. You do not have to make it out of the very best/overpowered cards like a lot of people do, as long as it's fairly balanced overall.

My one trouble with it is that it's tough to introduce new players (who don't have much/any MtG experience), since the cards come from all kinds of sets with all kinds of different mechanics. I was considering making a Cube for "new" players but that somehow sounds like more trouble than it's worth.

 

[Blizzard]

At games night this weekend we played PIX (pixel art Pictionary). It was okay though difficult to make pictures, and the phrases were weirdly specific "plaster cast" instead of cast, and "yacht" instead of "boat".

We also played Mascarade, which reminded me of Love Letter. It seemed okay, though the mechanic of possibly switching cards when you're holding two cards under the table meant that A) you kind of neat a table that can facilitate this, such as one with a table cloth, and B) you can mess yourself up since you're doing it blind and can't look at the cards. Though that part is presumably by design.

Unfortunately one person decided not to play and watch a movie/looked at Reddit (with associated porn) like 70% of the time, on a big screen TV, which meant half the people were constantly distracted. The sad part was, one of the distracted players still won so it didn't even matter other than making things slow and irritating. =P

 

[daevv]

You will need 2 core sets for four players in large part because you wont have enough cards otherwise to make complete decks. Core gives you lots of options but your going to be having some issues with having to use every card you get. Now do you need 4 core sets? No, not if your buying a bunch of the expansions. But 2 core sets gives you extra components like the trackers, tokens, and more base cards that will help make decks.

You don't really need much familiarity with the lore to play the scenarios, and unlike Pathfinder you don't play them in order, you just pick a scenario and play it. Each scenario has a pretty standard fantasy storyline that is spelled out in greater detail than actually what Pathfinder does with it's scenarios. And now with updated rules that you can get off their site, you can choose between three difficulty levels for every scenario.

Thanks for the info!

Edit: I just ordered the base game off amazon.ca for $30 and free shipping. Not a bad deal and should be easy to convince someone in my group to buy if we go with 4 players. Gonna hold off on The Hobbit: Over Hill and Under Hill Saga expansion till we get the base game scenarios done. Would we need 2 copies of The Hobbit: Over Hill and Under Hill for 4 players?

Against people's advice, I bought Ascension: Rise Of Vigil.

Where/what are the best sleeves to get and how many should I plan to get realistically? Since I now have two deckbuilders. I just want to make shuffling a bit easier and less of a hassle trying to keep them nice.

I use the official Ascension sleeves. I've bought 50 count packs on ebay and have also bought the 2 official storage boxes (each with 200 sleeves) that are listed on their website. Look around though as you can get them cheaper than their website. The clear Dragon Shield sleeves are great too but expensive.

 

[AcridMeat]

I use the official Ascension sleeves. I've bought 50 count packs on ebay and have also bought the 2 official storage boxes (each with 200 sleeves) that are listed on their website. Look around though as you can get them cheaper than their website. The clear Dragon Shield sleeves are great too but expensive.

I'm thinking of just going to the store that I've been going to board game nights and buying from them, regardless of price. I'd like to support them, so I just wanted to get an idea of which ones to look for there.

I heard there are certain ones that have a better cut so they fit the cards more snug? I forgot what they were called though.

 

[jstevenson]

Played Chaos in the Old World last night for the first time.

Was Khorne. I went Dial tick and was one tick away from winning when ruinations 2-5 all popped on the second to last turn and two people passed the victory point meter.

That tick went all the way back to my first turn, when I missed on every die roll and didn't get a dial advancement. My other primary issue was that a peace card was out and the two players Khorne can attack more easily were both hiding in those areas from me, so I had to attack the person who owned the game and was playing the race with the most counters. I missed a double tick at least two other times that could've won me the game as well.

Great game though. Probably only balanced for four players with the races the way they are, but exceptionally so.

 

[joelseph]

I know this is the board game / card game thread, but have any of the Magic: the Gathering players in here put together a Cube for drafting? (I cannot for the life of me remember if I have posted about this before.) We did a draft last night and it was lots of fun.

Having a fairly static (outside of new additions every so often) stack of cards to play with almost makes it feel like a contained card game on it's own, instead of the TCG that it obviously is. It also lets old players join in who don't keep up with the expansions but still know how to play and enjoy playing. One such player says he almost enjoys the drafting part more than the actual matches.

Anyways, I highly recommend it if you have a decent collection to draw from. You do not have to make it out of the very best/overpowered cards like a lot of people do, as long as it's fairly balanced overall.

My one trouble with it is that it's tough to introduce new players (who don't have much/any MtG experience), since the cards come from all kinds of sets with all kinds of different mechanics. I was considering making a Cube for "new" players but that somehow sounds like more trouble than it's worth.

I have a friend of a friend in one of my main MTG playing circles that has every MTG card sans a few and a playable paper power cube. Mainly play block limited in the circle but when he does break the power cube out feels like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.

 

[Gazoinks]

I've always felt like cooperative board games get short shrift among gamers, but I've always really liked 'em. A couple of weeks ago I played Robinson Crusoe with someone at my gaming group and that was a lot of fun, I've also played Castle Panic a couple of times. Does anyone have any cool co-op games to recommend?

 

[joelseph]

I've always felt like cooperative board games get short shrift among gamers, but I've always really liked 'em. A couple of weeks ago I played Robinson Crusoe with someone at my gaming group and that was a lot of fun, I've also played Castle Panic a couple of times. Does anyone have any cool co-op games to recommend?

I can only stomach coop games if they have a traitor mechanic.

Battlestar Galactica
Ghost Stories

 

[StoOgE]

Whats the playtime for Firefly?

I really love the theme and the game looks aces, but Ryan Metzler mentioned an hour per player. That may be too long for me

 

[BattleMonkey]

I've always felt like cooperative board games get short shrift among gamers, but I've always really liked 'em. A couple of weeks ago I played Robinson Crusoe with someone at my gaming group and that was a lot of fun, I've also played Castle Panic a couple of times. Does anyone have any cool co-op games to recommend?

I like coop games, but it's obvious an issue with many of them is that they really are single player games, and often the games break down to one or two players directing everyone else. Good coop games have mechanics where everyone does their own thing and reduces amount of shared knowledge. Players need to be able to keep secret info and make their own decisions.

Whats the playtime for Firefly?

I really love the theme and the game looks aces, but Ryan Metzler mentioned an hour per player. That may be too long for me

The recommended intro story the rulebook gives takes a long time to play, it says 2 hours on the card but for four players it took us about 4 hours. Other scenarios are supposedly quicker playing but game is not a quick playing title and players can get stuck with good amount of downtime between their turns as there is minimal player interaction.

 

[Gazoinks]

I like coop games, but it's obvious an issue with many of them is that they really are single player games, and often the games break down to one or two players directing everyone else. Good coop games have mechanics where everyone does their own thing and reduces amount of shared knowledge. Players need to be able to keep secret info and make their own decisions.

Very true. There's definitely a balancing act between making it a good multiplayer game and a game that can just be run by one person.

 

[StoOgE]

Played Chaos in the Old World last night for the first time.

Was Khorne. I went Dial tick and was one tick away from winning when ruinations 2-5 all popped on the second to last turn and two people passed the victory point meter.

That tick went all the way back to my first turn, when I missed on every die roll and didn't get a dial advancement. My other primary issue was that a peace card was out and the two players Khorne can attack more easily were both hiding in those areas from me, so I had to attack the person who owned the game and was playing the race with the most counters. I missed a double tick at least two other times that could've won me the game as well.

Great game though. Probably only balanced for four players with the races the way they are, but exceptionally so.

I played it for the first time last month and *loved* the game. Its definitely a game where I feel I need to play it a lot more to really know the strategy of what I'm supposed to be doing to keep other players in check.

Really fun game though.

 

[StoOgE]

The recommended intro story the rulebook gives takes a long time to play, it says 2 hours on the card but for four players it took us about 4 hours. Other scenarios are supposedly quicker playing but game is not a quick playing title and players can get stuck with good amount of downtime between their turns as there is minimal player interaction.

May not work for my group then. Long games can be an issue, but downtime is almost a deal breaker.

I may buy it and try and get it to game night instead.

 

[BattleMonkey]

May not work for my group then. Long games can be an issue, but downtime is almost a deal breaker.

I may buy it and try and get it to game night instead.

I liked it but found it flawed, to me it reminded me of Merchants and Marauders, but not as good. Some theme elements involved which are nice and obvious fan wank material will make it a hit though.

Played Chaos in the Old World last night for the first time.

Was Khorne. I went Dial tick and was one tick away from winning when ruinations 2-5 all popped on the second to last turn and two people passed the victory point meter.

That tick went all the way back to my first turn, when I missed on every die roll and didn't get a dial advancement. My other primary issue was that a peace card was out and the two players Khorne can attack more easily were both hiding in those areas from me, so I had to attack the person who owned the game and was playing the race with the most counters. I missed a double tick at least two other times that could've won me the game as well.

Great game though. Probably only balanced for four players with the races the way they are, but exceptionally so.

Love the game, always good time and plays out differently each time for us. We have also used the expansion and done the 5 player variant before and found it still held up. Skaven are a fun faction to play with their own flavor.

 

[platypotamus]

I know this is the board game / card game thread, but have any of the Magic: the Gathering players in here put together a Cube for drafting? (I cannot for the life of me remember if I have posted about this before.) We did a draft last night and it was lots of fun.

I've got one. I am basically a limited-only player, so any of the fun cards I get from limited go into the cube, slowly upgrading it over time. My wife and I do a lot of winchester drafting out of it. We've been having a blast with it.

 

[SCHUEY F1]

My Arkham Horror board split. What is the chances that FFGs would send me a replacement?

 

[fenners]

My Arkham Horror board split. What is the chances that FFGs would send me a replacement?

FFG's customer service rocks historically for replacement parts but the lead employee behind it left a while back. Email them & see. I know they've replaced parts for my games that I didn't expect with no troubles, unlike certain other publishers now asking for photos & scans of receipts etc...

 

[SCHUEY F1]

FFG's customer service rocks historically for replacement parts but the lead employee behind it left a while back. Email them & see. I know they've replaced parts for my games that I didn't expect with no troubles, unlike certain other publishers now asking for photos & scans of receipts etc...

Cool, thanks. I will give it a try.

 

[Chipotle]

Very true. There's definitely a balancing act between making it a good multiplayer game and a game that can just be run by one person.

It's especially annoying when the person taking a lead isn't good. I've played so many games of Pandemic where I've had to bite my tongue in order that nobody is offended.

Has anyone got any experience with Risk Legacies? I've heard good things but am a bit fearful of only being able to use it for one set of games and having to throw it away afterwards.

 

[hat_hair]

Has anyone got any experience with Risk Legacies? I've heard good things but am a bit fearful of only being able to use it for one set of games and having to throw it away afterwards.

We enjoyed it for a while, but never actually finished our game.
If you do buy it, make sure you have a group that will play regularly, and get everyone to chip in. That way, even when you're done, no-one is out a huge amount of money.

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

Has anyone got any experience with Risk Legacies? I've heard good things but am a bit fearful of only being able to use it for one set of games and having to throw it away afterwards.

Also the idea of Risk Legacy is not just to play it for 15 times, then destroy it, it's to play 15 then have a fully customized Risk board. The game is still playable after all the stuff is unlocked.

As for the gameplay, Risk Legacy is basically Risk with extra stuff thrown in. It plays quicker, which is plus, because you are going after points rather than total domination. If you like Risk than pick it up. If you are not a fan of Risk the game itself may not appeal to you.

 

[Angst]

My group played some more games of Pandemic and we finally managed to win - on easy. I've seen people mention that co-op games are essentially single player games (where one person tells the rest what to do), but in my group everyone was engaged and debating what the best course of action was. Looking forward to playing on normal later this fall.

Ordered Power Grid, hopefully my group will like it. I've also discovered Math Trades and will hopefully get to trade my GoT board game for something that I actually get to play from time to time.

 

[SCHUEY F1]

Finally will be getting Zombicide Season 2 next week. Finally! Looking forward to Lost Valley shipping soon, hopefully.

 

[Angst]

Finally will be getting Zombicide Season 2 next week. Finally! Looking forward to Lost Valley shipping soon, hopefully.

I've been eyeing Zombicide, The Last Night on Earth and City of Horrors for a while now. What is you guy's take on these three?

 

[SCHUEY F1]

I've been eyeing Zombicide, The Last Night on Earth and City of Horrors for a while now. What is you guy's take on these three?

Others should hopefully be able to comment on the others, but I love Zombicide and the co-op nature of the game. It is my wife's favorite game as well.

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

I've been eyeing Zombicide, The Last Night on Earth and City of Horrors for a while now. What is you guy's take on these three?

Zombicide - Pure Co-op. The zombies are controlled by a deck of cards and a simple AI. Each game is setup using scenarios and there are 12 (I think) in the base game, but there are a ton of free downloadable scenarios online. The game itself is a lot of fun and pretty simple to play.

Last Night on Earth - Team based. One side plays the zombies the other is the survivors. Depending on the scenario the win conditions change each game. This game is pretty much a b-movie in a box. The art is kind of cheesy but really fits the theme.

City of Horror - from what I gather, mostly a negotiation game. You aren't fighting zombies off so much as tossing your buddies in their way. I've never played it, but it looks like it could be fun.

 

[daevv]

A few of us played The Resistance, King of Tokyo, and Zombie Fluxx over the weekend. Other that one player not getting The Resistance (causing the spys to win) and having way too many people playing Fluxx (game lasted over an hour) all games were fun!

 

[Karkador]

I played two fairly recent Japanese games last night, impressions:

Machi Koro: This was a very eye-catching game with bright, colorful design and graphics. The theme of the game is that you're building your little modern town, and you do this by buying cards with with different types of buildings (industry, shops, restaurants, stadiums), and gaining money through them to have enough money to build all four landmark cards in your town.

Essentially, it plays a lot like an accessible Dominion, choosing a new card each turn from a communal pool in the middle to add to your town, but rather than going into a deck, they are all laid out in front of you to activate whenever you (or in some cases, any other player) rolls a die. So you might want to buy a variety of buildings to cover all your bases and get something, but then curve of the game will then shift when people buy their first landmark, which unlocks 2-die rolls in- which lets people activate the late-game cards that also take advantage of having stacks of one type of card rather than a spread of all of them.

Overall, it was a fun, accessible game that could serve as a very good intro to gaming.


Sukimono: This is a game about thrift shopping in Japan in Edo-era Japan. You are employed by your master to go find him a bunch of cups and bowls and pots that he collects. Every round he gives you some money and you choose a region of Japan to go search for the items he's looking for (which come up randomly on a sliding market board with scaling prices). If you find the item, you get to keep the difference between the price you found it for, and the price he's currently paying for it.

The premise of the game is pretty novel, but what's really neat is how it's executed. Each region of Japan is a randomly shuffled deck of cards. Each turn, every player picks up a deck and then, at the same time, you all sift through your deck, looking for the wanted items to pull out. There's a "racing" element in that the order of who gets to sell their items is determined by who stopped searching first.

On the front of the card is the picture of the object, so you have to carefully (and frantically) compare to see if it's the same one...and then you have to check the back of the card to see the price- there are multiples of each item with different prices, so it could be a good or bad deal. Also, if someone found the same thing you did and sells it to the master before you, it lowers the price he'll pay on subsequent sells, possibly making your end of the deal worse.

I'd love to see this game out in English, rethemed or otherwise, as it's quite a neat variation on auction games.

 

[TumblingHippo]

I've decided to auction off my copy of Manhattan Project. I love the theme and some of the gameplay, but it just doesn't work well for me and I've sort of fallen out of love with it. Dungeon Petz has replaced it and hits all the things I love about worker placement while still having some levels of mean-ness.

The two things that kind of disappointed me with Manhattan Project are the plane bombings and length of play. The air strikes were kinda cool, but I just see them as prolonging the game and aren't a really meaningful way of having player interaction. The espionage track, however, is a fantastic way to do it, and I feel is much more meaningful and doesn't slow the game. I wish the game just focused on the espionage for player interaction instead of "Oh well, guess I have to waste turns rebuilding these bombed buildings..."

As for the play time, yes it did speed up as we played the game more, but for how simple the game is, it still took way too long. I think the game not having a set end time really contributed to that, which is why I prefer games with rounds like Agricola and Petz.

I'll miss the theme of it, but oh well. I hope someone else enjoys the game when they pick it up.

 

[AcridMeat]

A few of us played The Resistance, King of Tokyo, and Zombie Fluxx over the weekend. Other that one player not getting The Resistance (causing the spys to win) and having way too many people playing Fluxx (game lasted over an hour) all games were fun!

Could you go into more detail about King of Tokyo? That's a game I've been considering getting.

Had my friend over to play Ascension: Rise of Vigil. Neither of us had played Ascension so set up was a bit confusing with the included instructions (how many cards in the center pile?) but we got the hang of it a lot quicker once we started playing. We're just super dumb when it comes to written instructions until we start actually playing.

I think I may get that Star Wars miniatures game again. We'll see.

 

[Flynn]

I've decided to auction off my copy of Manhattan Project. I love the theme and some of the gameplay, but it just doesn't work well for me and I've sort of fallen out of love with it. Dungeon Petz has replaced it and hits all the things I love about worker placement while still having some levels of mean-ness.

The two things that kind of disappointed me with Manhattan Project are the plane bombings and length of play. The air strikes were kinda cool, but I just see them as prolonging the game and aren't a really meaningful way of having player interaction. The espionage track, however, is a fantastic way to do it, and I feel is much more meaningful and doesn't slow the game. I wish the game just focused on the espionage for player interaction instead of "Oh well, guess I have to waste turns rebuilding these bombed buildings..."

As for the play time, yes it did speed up as we played the game more, but for how simple the game is, it still took way too long. I think the game not having a set end time really contributed to that, which is why I prefer games with rounds like Agricola and Petz.

I'll miss the theme of it, but oh well. I hope someone else enjoys the game when they pick it up.

I found the military track very useful (especially in our group) as a means for balancing different play-styles. IT worked well in our group where some were very military focused and others were more systems oriented.

 

[Dreavus]

I have a friend of a friend in one of my main MTG playing circles that has every MTG card sans a few and a playable paper power cube. Mainly play block limited in the circle but when he does break the power cube out feels like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.

Some of the interactions you get in games with a powered cube are flat out ridiculous. In a good way!

I've got one. I am basically a limited-only player, so any of the fun cards I get from limited go into the cube, slowly upgrading it over time. My wife and I do a lot of winchester drafting out of it. We've been having a blast with it.

Good stuff! I am mostly an infrequent limited player, but usually get some cards of each new set and check out the pre-release just for fun. This past week, though, I've been looking in to trade a few decent money cards (Thoughtseize and Stormbreath Dragon) for a whole bunch of stuff to fill out the archetypes in my cube. As with most people's first cubes, aggressive strategies aren't that great at the moment in mine. I am usually not one for buying singles, but checking out other people's cubes and finding cool stuff to add can be all consuming.

My resulting list is huge though, and those couple cards are not going to be enough to cover it! I figure I'll count this purchase in place of my usual "get a new board game every two months or so" habit. Yeah, that's how we'll justify it!

 

[Karkador]

Could you go into more detail about King of Tokyo? That's a game I've been considering getting.

King of Tokyo is a pretty reliable crowd-pleaser and I've never seen anyone come away from the game disappointed. It's not a very complex game, but it's executed very well in terms of the mechanics being simple but requiring some strategy, and the quality of the components being nice (I love the energy cubes, and the feel of the dice is quite nice).