The New Board Game Thread (Newcomer Friendly)

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JetBlackPanda said:
Awesome! glad I could help.

The guy even sizes the printouts correctly so they can be laminated or printed on card stock and fit in the box.
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Yep, the previous owner of my Arkham included laminated copies of the player guides & the rules summary from Universal Head/and/ his nice "summary" sheet for the mythos cards, monster limits etc. Goes down /very/ nicely with new players.

Universal Head's summaries are essential for pretty much every game he covers.
 
So, I know I have my hearts set on a negotiation game like GoT, but man, Agricola sounds so complex yet simple, I am loving what I am seeing.

I stil dont understand the flow of the game though, like how turns work.

And as far as negotiation games go, how is Shogun? What's the name of the renamed game? I cant seem to find it in my local store's website, it looks pretty fun too (love the Japanese theme)
 
TimeEffect said:
So, I know I have my hearts set on a negotiation game like GoT, but man, Agricola sounds so complex yet simple, I am loving what I am seeing.

I stil dont understand the flow of the game though, like how turns work.

And as far as negotiation games go, how is Shogun? What's the name of the renamed game? I cant seem to find it in my local store's website, it looks pretty fun too (love the Japanese theme)
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The rules aren't the best at giving a sense of overal game flow, but the mechanics are quite simple. Each turn you place one of your workers on an empty action space and take that action. Then the next player places a worker and you go around until there are no workers left to place.
 
Played a game of cosmic tonight. I was locust which is always fun, but had 3 new players that all overreacted the first time I ate a planet and spent the whole game attacking me. Putting me in dead last and letting the other experienced player win in a landslide.

Still fun, but I kep telling them they were really over thinking it. Though, I get the horror the first time someone eats a planet you are on.
 
TimeEffect said:
So, I know I have my hearts set on a negotiation game like GoT, but man, Agricola sounds so complex yet simple, I am loving what I am seeing.

I stil dont understand the flow of the game though, like how turns work.

And as far as negotiation games go, how is Shogun? What's the name of the renamed game? I cant seem to find it in my local store's website, it looks pretty fun too (love the Japanese theme)
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Like Astrolad said, the game is what's called a worker placement. You send your workers out to perform various actions. The game can be played as a "family" game whet it just focuses on the workers and the farm management. The game really opens up with the improvement and occupation cards. It's a great game and ranked number 2 for a reason.

Shogun is a retheme of Wallenstein. I never played either so I can't really vouch for how good the game is.
 
TimeEffect said:
And as far as negotiation games go, how is Shogun?
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The Shogun that got renamed is an old 80s game thats an embellished Risk.

The Shogun that's really good is a retheme of Wallenstein, like Joey said. I own this one and it's really fun, although games don't tend to be very negotiable. It's more of a slow steady expansion and knowing when to strike an area. The cube tower (not to be confused with a dice tower) is a really unique way to handle the battles and makes the luck that comes with it manageable and fun.
 
Finally got to try a few games that have been sitting on my shelf yesterday. Decided my girlfriend and I are going to start playing some of these even if we can't get a group going.

Forbidden Island was first. I know it's a very light game, but we enjoyed it. As is her usual reaction, she found the ending "anti-climactic". I feel like video games have given her this silly need for a huge battle to end things. I really liked it for a quick light game though.

Then we played Rivals for Catan. It took us a bit to get a grasp of the rules, but once we started rolling, it was a lot of fun. I held back a bit so she could get acclimated and she ended up winning without realizing it. She was so focused on hoarding resources and expanding she had forgotten that the actual goal was victory points.

Then we played Lost Cities. People are right, this game does nothing with the theme, and I feel like it'd be better off not bothering. I really liked the strategy, she didn't like it because it plays to all my strengths.

Overall a good day for gaming, still need to crack Open Descent 2d, Arkham, and Dominion, but we have a con locally in a few weeks here in Buffalo where I've signed up for events for them, so that should make learning far easier.
 
Had a game night Saturday. First full game night in a *very* long time. Getting married, running a company and having my day job implode around me all at once seems to have taken a tole on my hobbies.

In any case, I played 3 games. Had a good time, would have liked to get a 4th game in, but the other table somehow managed a 4 hour game of Cyclades that prevented that from happening.

1) Galaxy Trucker - I hadn't played this before and really was looking forward to it. What an amazingly fun little game. I really liked it.. it had enough strategy but enough randomness to make me not overly mad about what was going on.. and watching your ship explode is probably a bit more fun than not.

We had a few rules that I think we were taught wrong. The teacher was going off memory and hadn't played the game in 6 months or so... we didn't use energy cubes to power up our shields which made them way too powerful and made closing connections off on the edge of you ship less important.

I want to get the game, but 75 dollars for what amounts to a party filler game? YEESH! Looked at the expansion, but it seems like the 5 player variant is half assed and the rest of it just adds unneeded complexity to a simple game.

2) Farmageddon. pretty typical "Take that" card game with very little strategy and too much randomness to get too worked up over. I may play it a few more times since the playtime is pretty nice for what it is. The end game is a total mess though. I don't see the point in having additional turns with no ability to draw cards, and the rule limiting the playing of 2 action cards a turn while making you draw 2 more action cards means you can never use the action cards you pile up.. I'll try it with the expansion deck in it next time to see if that adds some extra chaos to it.

3) Glen More. The definition of a pasted on theme. It's a tile laying game where each tile does something. It either gives you a resource, gives you an extra worker or lets you cash in workers and/or resources for victory points.

Picking up tiles happens along a track where players pawns play hop scotch over one another to get the tiles they want. If you jump to the end of the line of tiles to grab one you need, it means other players behind you may get several turns before you get your next as the player who is last in the line goes first.

Tiles also have a cost to them occasionally. Mostly to build buildings or what not that requires you to cash in resources.

The "wrinkle" of the game is you can only place tiles adjacent to tiles with workers on them (along with a couple other rules about tile placement), and you only get to use a tile when it is "activated", and tiles are only activated when a tile is either first placed or a tile is placed adjacent to it. So you need to carefully plan what you do. If you pick up a tile that lets you convert goods to VPs you need to make sure you can 1) get the goods needed to exchange for VPs. You need to make sure you can do it several times before the scoring tile is surrounded and can't be used again.

I really liked the game a lot. It's a pretty short game, with decent strategy to it, though it has some fiddleness and one of the worst written rule books I've ever seen. It glosses over critical rules but spends 4 paragraphs explaining why it saves time to not actually take a good from the bag if you are only buying the good in order to pay for a tile right then.

Still, fun little game with a very nice price point.
 
Petrie said:
Forbidden Island was first. I know it's a very light game, but we enjoyed it. As is her usual reaction, she found the ending "anti-climactic". I feel like video games have given her this silly need for a huge battle to end things. I really liked it for a quick light game though.
.
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Oh man, I couldn't disagree more. I prefer Pandemic to Forbidden Island, but the one thing FI does better is the end game. Man, it's so tense when the island is sinking around you and you are trying to make sure no one gets cut off from the helicopter.
 
StoOgE said:
Oh man, I couldn't disagree more. I prefer Pandemic to Forbidden Island, but the one thing FI does better is the end game. Man, it's so tense when the island is sinking around you and you are trying to make sure no one gets cut off from the helicopter.
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I could see that. However it was just 2 of us, and we did play on Novice, so that tension was never really there for the most part.
 
Also, I'm a sucker and broke down and got the new Cosmic Encounter expansion on my way home last night.

We played with 3 of the new alien powers and I really liked them a lot. Not sure about using the "team rules", but I liked the aliens and the 8th player color is nice too. I wonder if FFG is planning on getting all the way back up to the 10 players that Eon had the game to at the end. Would be nuts. It would also mean the game would have 150 alien powers.... jeez

So, now I have a good beer and pretzels 8 player game. Not sure how well 8p cosmic will go, but I'll find out by forcing everyone to play it at my bachelor party!
 
...must resist urge to make new CSI order for Netrunner. Damn, I should have waited! Oh well, at least now I can wait for impressions, especially from non-hardcore CCGers.

re the above, yeah I quite enjoy Galaxy Trucker. It rarely gets play though because it falls in a bit of a rut of being not a gateway by any stretch but also not really being the game you'd pick out if you're looking for something meaty. Now that you reminded me about it though I'm sure I'll get it into the rotation in the next few weeks. :)
 
New game orders: 7 Wonders Cities. Not sure how this will go, I still really like 7 Wonders but my group seems to have moved on to King of Tokyo. Hopefully the new expansion will see some play.
The New Era, because I'm an idiot. I guess I want to give 51st State a second chance. 51st State feels like there could have been something good in there and The New Era seems to have fixed things and streamlined a few of the rules. Or maybe I am just an idiot. We'll see when I finally get the game.
StoOgE said:
Also, I'm a sucker and broke down and got the new Cosmic Encounter expansion on my way home last night.

We played with 3 of the new alien powers and I really liked them a lot. Not sure about using the "team rules", but I liked the aliens and the 8th player color is nice too. I wonder if FFG is planning on getting all the way back up to the 10 players that Eon had the game to at the end. Would be nuts. It would also mean the game would have 150 alien powers.... jeez

So, now I have a good beer and pretzels 8 player game. Not sure how well 8p cosmic will go, but I'll find out by forcing everyone to play it at my bachelor party!
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8 player Cosmic sounds like madness to me.
 
AstroLad said:
...must resist urge to make new CSI order for Netrunner.
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YOU"RE not first in line to nab this? I'm shocked! I can't wait, CSI needs to get that damn stock in!

joeyjoejoeshabadoo said:
The New Era, because I'm an idiot.
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I've just found out I really dislike Ignacy Trezoijslkjfeijeipoop's designs. Stronghold was probably the worst game i've played since Galaxy Trucker (<--yeah, shots fired! [not necessarily at you]).
 
Neverfade said:
I've just found out I really dislike Ignacy Trezoijslkjfeijeipoop's designs. Stronghold was probably the worst game i've played since Galaxy Trucker (<--yeah, shots fired! [not necessarily at you]).
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I was going to say that Neuroshima Hex was good but he didn't design it. So I guess the only game I've played from him was 51st State, and we know how that went.
 
So what makes Netrunner so special? Remember the game back from the CCG boom but it was mostly ignored game that got little notice. Seems odd that it's being treated with such a frenzy suddenly when it was a failure originally on the market.
 
BattleMonkey said:
So what makes Netrunner so special? Remember the game back from the CCG boom but it was mostly ignored game that got little notice. Seems odd that it's being treated with such a frenzy suddenly when it was a failure originally on the market.
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It's long been regarded as one of the more underrated CCGs ever, which is why the old version went for crazy prices until the reprint was announced.

I'm no CCG expert though, just passing along what I've heard.
 
AstroLad said:
It's long been regarded as one of the more underrated CCGs ever, which is why the old version went for crazy prices until the reprint was announced.

I'm no CCG expert though, just passing along what I've heard.
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Yea I played a ton of CCGs but never touched netrunner, nor really ever heard anything about it, it was always just one of those other CCG's at the time that didn't have a chance. Was odd seeing it just come back out of obscurity and suddenly was so hot with the geeks. Think there was alot of good CCG's back in the day that didn't get a fair shake, they just couldn't compete with Magic
 
I like the asym and the theme a lot myself. I like the old cards better -- really cheesy and awesome cyberpunk stuff -- but the new cards are aight.
 
Astro, haven't you mentioned before that you've gotten CSI to edit your order, removing and adding something new? How does that work? Do they do a partial refund of the removed game and recharge the remainder?

Just got a trade request for a game I have sitting in an upcoming order.
 
^ So then... is Agricola more like Mancala in a sense? Is there a lot of strategy and thought? Can you interfere/screw over other players or is it like a secluded race of some sorts?
 
TimeEffect said:
^ So then... is Agricola more like Mancala in a sense? Is there a lot of strategy and thought? Can you interfere/screw over other players or is it like a secluded race of some sorts?
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I wouldn't say it's like mancala personally. There is a very high strategic element and you can definitely screw someone over by taking a spot on the worker placement board that they need.
 
TimeEffect said:
^ So then... is Agricola more like Mancala in a sense? Is there a lot of strategy and thought? Can you interfere/screw over other players or is it like a secluded race of some sorts?
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Agricola has nothing in common with Mancala. The way the game works is you start with two discs, these discs represent your workers. On your turn you take a disc and place it on an action space on the shared board. This space cannot be occupied by another player so in a way you can screw someone over by taking a spot just to block that player from taking it. However, in Agricola you only have so much time (and actions) to do things so playing a hate game will get you nowhere.
 
Gaming Truth said:
Smash Up!

Smash Up! is a card customization game where the customization basically happens at the beginning of the game when players draft their team combinations. As an owner of Puzzle Strike, that's already strike one because new players have a significant disadvantage against advanced players. As experience grows amongst players, it'll probably level out.

With your two race combinations, you will spend each turn playing an action and deploying a minion to a location. The goal is to overrun a location and the participating players will be rewarded with points based on their contributions. The locations are varied and you can tell that some are themed towards specific races.

Our demo game went to 7 points (a full game goes to 15+?) and &#8230; I won with 13 points in 5 turns. Pre-draft, I had guessed that the Robots and Zombies would make a strong team, but had no idea it'd be game-breaking (again, without prior experience, my opponents stood no chance). I think the score ended up 13/4/2/1.

Summary: It was fun to play, but I really hate it when I break a game. It has "Quarriors" written all over it for me, which is a heavy strike two because I just don't see the balance between the races in this game (don't get me started about Quarriors ...). Basically, I'd have no problems playing it if someone else had it but I'll never buy this game.
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Just to push back a little, last night I watched a three person game, in which an experienced player choose Robots and Zombies. She did not win, though it was close.

I also played a 3 person game, choosing Zombies and Pirates. Though it was my first time, I did pull ahead a good deal and won by ~4 points. I think that Zombies are well suited to new players and when complemented with minion-heavy deck, since they are all about pulling minions out of discard. I would recommend not pairing the two action-heavy decks (Spellcaster + Trickster), but otherwise I felt most combinations had real potential. It might be too early to say for sure though. If Zombies turn out to be overpowered, I might just take them out, or institute a house rule that minions played from the discard do not get their text activated.

I think it could fill a niche as a simpler, quicker Bloodbowl:TM. Though King of Tokyo might be preferable in most situations. My main complaint with Smash-Up was how so many creatures and bases had special powers. It makes for a lot of reading and remembering, but for $20 (@ CSI) I'll be happy to try it more when it's released.
 
Pepboy said:
Just to push back a little, last night I watched a three person game, in which an experienced player choose Robots and Zombies. She did not win, though it was close.

I also played a 3 person game, choosing Zombies and Pirates. Though it was my first time, I did pull ahead a good deal and won by ~4 points. I think that Zombies are well suited to new players and when complemented with minion-heavy deck, since they are all about pulling minions out of discard. I would recommend not pairing the two action-heavy decks (Spellcaster + Trickster), but otherwise I felt most combinations had real potential. It might be too early to say for sure though. If Zombies turn out to be overpowered, I might just take them out, or institute a house rule that minions played from the discard do not get their text activated.

I think it could fill a niche as a simpler, quicker Bloodbowl:TM. Though King of Tokyo might be preferable in most situations. My main complaint with Smash-Up was how so many creatures and bases had special powers. It makes for a lot of reading and remembering, but for $20 (@ CSI) I'll be happy to try it more when it's released.
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I can see that too. If I didn't mention it earlier, my impressions were from two plays at GenCon. My Quarriors fear is one where I bought the game because it was fun to play and a wonderful idea, but after a while, everyone declared it to be broken and it sits now, collecting dust.
 
Hello BGGaf, I am a miniatures gamer and painter who recently started getting more into board type games and card games. So far I am very into LOTR:LCG which I have played with 2 people some and many many times solo. I really enjoy playing it solitaire because its so hard that it actually makes you meta-game style deck build.

My current new obsession though has been war-games. My favorite system so far is Lock N' Load, and I bought Band of Heroes 2nd Ed. and Day of Heroes. I have gotten more gaming out of these games than any miniature I ever owned. I play almost every night solo (playing both sides.) Usually I would hate that but LnL has no hidden info in any scenario so you can effectively play both sides. A Day of Heroes in particular is amazing because its about the Black Hawk Down incident and the two forces gain VP in such different ways. The American troops are much better units, but what you start the scenario with is usually all you get and the enemy gain a big chunk of VP for offing your units and generally getting in the way. The Somalis get random reinforcements and the US gains nothing for killing them (they give VP away for firing through civilians even.) No one at the shop I game at seems to play hex and counter war games but I have played once with another person and it was a great experience.

I also just picked up Field Commander: Nepolean. I haven't played it yet but my reads through the rulebook make is seem like a fun solitaire game.

Played some game up at the shop which involved bouncing dice on to a dartboard looking thing. It was a Co-op dungeon crawl game. I forget the name but I had a pretty good time even though a dexterity type game isn't normally my cup of tea.
 
There is a deck of cards called the interactive deck. It has stuff like 'pass this to your neighbor when used" and you can benefit from others actions, etc. It's all very indirect.


Have you watched a video review of this? There's about 4 million of them on BGG, I think they'll answer a lot of your questions on how the game works.
 
The cards usually entice you to go for certain things as they give you a bonus.
It can lead to you focussing on livestock or baking or expanding your huts and so on.
You won't be able to burn down someone's fields or rustle their animals. (unless I've missed those ones).
 
Gaming Truth said:
I can see that too. If I didn't mention it earlier, my impressions were from two plays at GenCon. My Quarriors fear is one where I bought the game because it was fun to play and a wonderful idea, but after a while, everyone declared it to be broken and it sits now, collecting dust.
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I think it's a reasonable fear -- I had the same issue with Quarriors. For me, the difference stems from a desire to play SmashUp again (trying other deck combinations) and the lower initial cost. Even if it's pretty broken, I feel I could get my money's worth discovering that. And I think expansions have at least the potential to unbreak it (e.g. if they add 5 cards to each of the 20 card decks or come up with new decks for better combinations), while Quarriors feels unsaveable.

That being said, I don't feel like it's a "necessary" purchase by any stretch. If I had a regular group, I'd probably prefer BB:TM + expansion, and if I was playing with casual gamers/family I'd probably prefer KoT for it's simpler ruleset. So really only breaking this out at irregular meetings of somewhat-experienced boardgamers. If it was $30-35+, I'd probably skip it.
 
Pepboy said:
I think it's a reasonable fear -- I had the same issue with Quarriors. For me, the difference stems from a desire to play SmashUp again (trying other deck combinations) and the lower initial cost. Even if it's pretty broken, I feel I could get my money's worth discovering that. And I think expansions have at least the potential to unbreak it (e.g. if they add 5 cards to each of the 20 card decks or come up with new decks for better combinations), while Quarriors feels unsaveable.

That being said, I don't feel like it's a "necessary" purchase by any stretch. If I had a regular group, I'd probably prefer BB:TM + expansion, and if I was playing with casual gamers/family I'd probably prefer KoT for it's simpler ruleset. So really only breaking this out at irregular meetings of somewhat-experienced boardgamers. If it was $30-35+, I'd probably skip it.
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The other reason I was so harsh on Smash Up! was because it justified not buying it in my head. The purchases I made at or after GenCon are:
  • Spartacus - The Board Game (bought it, 100% home run)
  • 7 Wonders - Cities (already planned)
  • Power Grid (loved it when I played at GenCon)
  • Kindgom Builder (liked it a lot even though I thrashed my opponent)
  • Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game (a solid maybe. The cost is what's holding me back)
 
TimeEffect said:
^ thanks. What about things like interaction card and all that? Is it mostly just taking spots?
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Were you asking about card interaction in Smash Up! or replying to someone else? =)

In Smash Up!, there's heavy interaction between players. Some factions are all about board manipulation, some are about surprises, etc. If all players are experienced, this would be very true. The heavy advantage I had my two playthroughs was due to my familiarity with these types of games and my dead-on initial assessment of the synergies.

Over time, two things could happen with experienced players. The flaws could be exposed (a la Quarriors) or the depth of the game could lead to deeply satisfying slugfests (a la Innovation).
 
^Thanks guys.

Yes, I've extensively looked at the games before asking here, I know how they work and stuff, but haven't seen live gameplay for something like Agricola.

Such a tough decision to make because these games are expensive as hell, but I guess I'll stick with GoT before getting Agricola

And no, I was asking about Agricola, Truth :) Thanks anyway lol
 
I'm not making PAX this year, but will be going to Strategicon in LA.

If any So.Cal folks are making it would love to sit down with a game.

I plan to table: Antiquity, Ora et Labora, Mage Knight and Automobile.

Ambitious, I know.
 
Flynn said:
I'm not making PAX this year, but will be going to Strategicon in LA.

If any So.Cal folks are making it would love to sit down with a game.

I plan to table: Antiquity, Ora et Labora, Mage Knight and Automobile.

Ambitious, I know.
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If I can sneak away (convince the wife to let me go) I'll try to go Saturday. What day were you planning on going?
 
Neverfade said:
Astro, haven't you mentioned before that you've gotten CSI to edit your order, removing and adding something new? How does that work? Do they do a partial refund of the removed game and recharge the remainder?

Just got a trade request for a game I have sitting in an upcoming order.
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Yep just respond to the email and tell them -X +Y and they'll fix it.
 
Not sure if this would be an appropriate place to ask but anyone know if the CCG game Shadowfist aged well? On that note, anyone selling Shadowfist/Doomtown cards?
 
I just stayed late at work to secretly abuse the company laminator to make those rules summary sheets for Arkham Horror and Pandemic. They fit inside the boxes and everything.

Also, Back To The Future arrived!
 
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