pastie: http://pastebin.com/V9c2a6wU
> What type of game does your group prefer Euro / Ameritrash / wargame?
> How often do you get to game?
> What's the one game you've had the longest without getting a chance to play?
> What type of game does your group prefer Euro / Ameritrash / wargame?
I have a massive throbbing hard-on for theme-heavy Ameritrash games. FFG's new policy is heartbreaking, because they were my absolute favorite publisher.
> How often do you get to game?
I have a group that meets every other Sunday for big complicated Ameritrash like Eldritch Horror and Firefly, and a group that meets roughly every Tuesday for smaller stuff, though we've missed a few Tuesdays lately.
> What's the one game you've had the longest without getting a chance to play?
I have had Anima: Shadow of the Omega since 2012. Picked it up cheap in a game store because it looked cool, read through the rules, now I just want to maybe eventually play it to say I did but I'm not exactly enthusiastic.
>>46275053
> What type of game does your group prefer Euro / Ameritrash / wargame?
We lean lightly towards Ameritrash. Still play plenty of Euros and the occasional light war game, but maybe 60% of our games are Ameritrash.
> How often do you get to game?
In the past I've been able to game once or twice a week; once guaranteed at the local University board game club meeting, and approximately once every other week with my friends. Lately classes have been downright insanely demanding so I've not been gaming hardly at all, but it looks to be letting up as the semester goes on, thankfully.
> What's the one game you've had the longest without getting a chance to play?
I've had a copy of Ogre: Pocket Edition for a couple years that I keep forgetting about and have never touched. It isn't even on the shelf, since it's so small I stored it in another game box, but that game rarely gets played and every time I open it up I go oh, I forgot I have Ogre.
There's a couple other freebie games from various KS's that are like that, too. Noir of Indines and L99 Microgame Collection are some examples. I didn't pay for those, though, so they hardly count.
The only regular box game that I have and haven't played for any appreciable amount of time would be Thrash'n Roll, which was a KS delivery a couple months ago just as this semester got crazy and my free time evaporated. But it'll get played. They all do.
> What type of game does your group prefer Euro / Ameritrash / wargame?
Ameritrash (I hate that term, but the last time I tried a different name I was called a board game SJW)
> How often do you get to game?
Ideally, once a fortnight. Usually, once a month.
> What's the one game you've had the longest without getting a chance to play?
Eurobäbble (party game) or maybe Mousquetaires du Roi (hard as balls co-op based on the Dumas novels)
>>46275273
>FFG's new policy is heartbreaking, because they were my absolute favorite publisher.
I have a lot of their stuff, but I don't know if I'll buy nearly as many from them going forward if their prices go mostly full retail or nearly so.
As for not gaming enough due to school - good man! Concentrate on your studies - the board games will wait.
>>46275511
> Ogre: Pocket Edition
I've got a ton of stuff for OGRE. Some time I'd like to play a full campaign of it.
>>46276416
>Ameritrash (I hate that term)
Heh! Most people don't realize the term 'vagina' isn't some scientific term. I had to explain to a college sex-education instructor once that it comes from old roman slang about sheathing one's sword. But it's hard to change 'culture' - at least not without a lot of effort. It's sort of like 'Deck Builder' vs 'Deck Drafting' games as opposed to trying to get people to use 'Constructed Deck' game for things like MTG or Netrunner.
>>46277336
I never said anything about school. I got my bachelor's in 2013. I've been working since then.
>>46275053
> What type of game does your group prefer Euro / Ameritrash / wargame?
I've always though they were more on the Ameritrash side of things (first introduction games were Betrayal and Descent), but then they surprised me when they enjoyed Castles of Mad King Ludwig, even wanting to play again. If they enjoy the next batch of euros, then they probably have pretty balanced preferences.
> How often do you get to game?
I've been pushing for once a week, but lack of a suitable place to play at really hurts. So it's looking like we're only playing during times when there happens to be no one else home at my friend's place, which fortunately is like once every other week.
> What's the one game you've had the longest without getting a chance to play?
We last played Flash Point a considerably long time ago, so probably that. Considering trading or selling it, but I'd be losing a pretty good introduction to board gaming though...
Oh, and also OGRE: Pocket Edition, which has never been played at all, other than a solo trial run.
>>46277363
>As for not gaming enough due to school - good man! Concentrate on your studies - the board games will wait.
Sorry. That was meant for >>46275511
![pic2915197[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/b6eOZAd.jpg "pic2915197[1].jpg")
Anybody here looked at Kharnage over at KS right now? It's a Devil Pig game (Heroes of Normandie), and I know they get respected pretty well around these parts. Looks like a cute, bloody, filler/introductory light strategy game. With, of course, cute art.
Anyways, thoughts?
Whats a good game for two or more that plays quick but isn't mindless? I'm in a perpetual struggle looking for games that have meat but aren't time vampires.
>>46282582
I've heard good things about Hive.
>>46275053
Euro, but they'll play anything. Ameritrash to wind up, Euro for the crunchy stuff, and then a party game to wind down. Power Grid is the definitive favorite around these parts, though to be fair I myself have not played it in years.
I used to go to game nights regularly a couple of years ago. Now I can go months without getting some boardgaming in. I usually do so at cons.
Lord of the Rings Risk.
>>46282582
Battlecon is primarily 2 player and matches can be as quick as 15 or 20 minutes, or an hour depending on how indecisive you are and the characters in play.
>>46282582
Ascension in any form, but combine all sets and you have a godly game.
>>46282694
Hive can be incredibly deep.
I like Brave Rats. It's got the same Love Letter-ish gameplay, but a little more complex.
Guy who just started playing Eclipse here, from the last thread. Got a couple more two-player games in - one as Terran v. Terran where I won 31 to 28, and one as Progress vs. Mechanema, where I got blown the fuck out 30 to 19.
Tonight we got our first three player game. Terran vs. Hegemony vs. Planta. I was the sentient moss, and pulled out a win 31 to 30 to 25. I won thanks to the Hegemony player trying to oust me from a system on his final turn. I just had an influence disk there, so I built a starbase a couple turns previous, and though he won the combat, the reputation I drew was a four point tile, netting me two more points than I would have gotten.
I can't wait to get into a four player game so we can introduce diplomacy.
>>46283316
Planta are a bitch to play against if they spread out a lot early on. With their explore 2 systems for 1 explore action special they can develop a hell of an economic engine early on.
I just picked up Specter Ops on a whim. Anybody here have any hot opinions regarding it? I know hidden movement games tend to be a bit divisive, but everything I've heard about this game has been very unfocused. A lot of positive views, and a lot of negative.
Kind of burnt out here, teeg...
Have you ever felt like there's just too much out there?
Gotten tired of keeping up with trends and new shit, learning rulesets for a game you'll play just 3 or 4 times?
Felt like the time and money invested is barely worth it?
>>46284411
Nah.
Much more tangible than a video game, and these will work long after the power grid fails and the world descends into chaos. Only took a couple hurricane seasons where power was out for weeks for me to see that in a powerless world, things like boardgames will be all to keep us sane.
Any thoughts on Ashes? Hoping for something CCG-like that want be too hard to teach to people unversed in the genre.
>>46284794
I haven't played Ashes, I've only read the rules.
It seems good, but I feel like Plaid Hat isn't putting in the effort needed to make it as big as they might want it to be.
Like most LCGs and CCGs to come out this decade, it seems very focused on solving Magic's land problem. For the last 20+ years, Magic players have had to deal with mana floods and mana screws even with a perfectly-built deck and they're fucking sick of it. Hearthstone solved it by making mana colorless and automatically hitting your land drop every single turn until you're at 10 mana. WoW TCG and Call of Cthulhu solved it by letting you play any card in your deck as a resource instead of playing it normally. Netrunner and Doomtown solved the problem by making credits a resource that exists outside of your deck, but which can be influenced by your cards. Star Wars LCG, Game of Thrones, and Force of Will solved the problem by having a separate deck provide your resources. Pokemon solved the problem by de-emphasizing energy so it was only needed for attacks and nothing else. Yu-Gi-Oh "solved" the problem by just not having resource management at all.
Ashes solves it with dice. It's an unusual solution that adds an element of chance, but it seems to have been playtested pretty thoroughly.
>>46275273
Anima is kind of shitty unfortunately.
> What type of game does your group prefer Euro / Ameritrash / wargame?
Ameritrash, but we're not against playing a good solid euro from time to time.
> How often do you get to game?
Depends, a lot, lately I've been able to play once a week which is fucking exceptional stuff. Usually, it's more like, once every two months (not counting solo play of course)
> What's the one game you've had the longest without getting a chance to play?
Shadow Hunters, for some reason I've had it for about 6 years and whenever I bring it out, we end up playing something else instead. It has become some sort of inside joke in the group.
>>46285423
I hate to be the one to tell you but you're missing out - Shadow Hunters is a weebtacular blast that takes maybe 10 minutes at most to explain and an hour to play, if that. You should just state before one gaming session that you're all going to play it, just to get it out of the way.
>>46275053
> What type of game does your group prefer Euro / Ameritrash / wargame?
We play both but heavy Euros don't hit the table at all (the heaviest is Dominant Species and last time we played was about 4 months ago) and we have more ameritrash games all in all
> How often do you get to game?
Playing on the weekened is pretty standard, this week being the exception as it's Easter, apart from that we sometimes play during the week
> What's the one game you've had the longest without getting a chance to play?
The aforementioned Dominant Species.
>>46284648
I'm with you on this one. Board Games don't require new operating systems or better CPU and RAM over time. So unless language changes to the point that the rules are unreadable, then the game will still be good. Pic related - it's a board game from ancient Egyptian times. That's some serious longevity.
>>46287153
>>46284648
It's not about tangibility or longevity, I know that if I pull out a box in 20 years, the game will play fine... It's just that there's so much stuff out there that even browsing through catalogs feels like a chore to me right now.
Look at this, shiny new! Look at that, oldschool cool! Are you hype now? Get it from here! No, from here! Kickstart it for bonus bullshit exclusives and promos! You really want that doncha? It is OOP or OOS and costs megabucks to get from secondhand sellers! S&H to your shithole country not included! Import taxes! Local game stores jacked the prices! Your currency is devaluated and inflation fucks you in the ass! Wait 3-5 months for interfuckingcontinental shipping! Yay, you got that thing you bled out the ass for! Friends not interested, box spends the next 25 years in the attic.
I'm just... tired, y'know.
>>46287659
I get where you're coming from. Honestly, once I stopped giving a shit about new releases, other than occasionally going "Huh, that sounds cool" and just sticking with what I have, my wallet and I felt a lot better about the hobby.
>>46284073
>I just picked up Specter Ops on a whim. Anybody here have any hot opinions regarding it? I know hidden movement games tend to be a bit divisive, but everything I've heard about this game has been very unfocused. A lot of positive views, and a lot of negative.
The reason you've seen such varied responses is that the game experience with Specter Ops is extremely variable. Sometimes the game is lightning in a bottle. Other times it is the most boring / frustrating thing you've ever played. It depends a lot on the skills of the players involved; if the two teams are evenly matched then the game is amazing, but if one team is more skilled than the other then that team will just waltz away with the win and there is nothing to be done about it.
>Having game night
>Planning on playing RPG with current group
>Guy outside of group who has never played an RPG shows up "<guy that hasn't shown up yet> invited me"
>Change over to boardgame that someone thankfully brought
>Epic multi-hour long space empire building game that takes forever to set up
>as soon as we get the game set up the same guy says "can I invite X?" we tell him that he wouldn't be able to play and we really want to play this.
>30 minutes later "Hey guys, X, Y, and Z are almost here!"
>they awkwardly play games by themselves for an hour and then leave
>guy says "thanks for coming out, sorry you couldn't play with the rest of us" and then scowls at us sitting around the table
What do I do about this?
>>46287941
Don't invite the person who phantom invites to your next game night. Or tell them that doing so is not acceptable. Or you could get more board games and run with a huge crowd.I'd highly suggest you sperg the fuck out next time and make everyone uncomfortable so that you no longer have a game night.What RPG was it? Could it really not take the additional load or was the GM just unwilling to deal with the added bullshit of rando's?
>>46287941
Let me see if I have this straight...
1. Someone the host didn't invite shows up thanks to someone else who was going to come and either showed up late or not at all.
2. After asking the host if it's OK to invite another and being told 'No', said "Guest Dude" invites 3 others over anyway?
Wow! That sounds like a total 'Game Night Derail' right there.
Here's your solution. Have a long talk with your friends about what is and *isn't* acceptable (like inviting extra people without clearing it with the host in advance) when you're hosting a game night. And make it clear to the individual that invited "That Guy" that you were very unhappy because of 'That Guy's behavior and his inability to listen or follow your wishes not to have even more people invited over. (Personally I'd tell your friend that 'That Guy' doesn't need to come back any time soon after that stunt.)
I had a player do this more than once during an RPG campaign I was hosting. The 2nd and 3rd time it happened I made the guilty party spend his time helping his friends (who he knew were only going to show up once) make their characters. Which meant that he essentially missed an entire gaming session thanks to his own bullshit, while the game continued without him. After the 3rd time, he realized he was just penalizing himself (because I'll be damned if I'm going to punish the rest of the group or myself for his bad behavior) and he finally stopped doing it.
>>46284794
>pic related
I have been playing it since last summer, and although playtime fell off a bit during the fall, a friend and I got back into it a few months ago through deckbuilding. We were having such a blast we got a second copy. Sharing cards/dice is for chumps.
The dice mechanic works really well, as you can either take up precious card slots to run mana fixers, or kill cards to change dice when you need to, or just make do with what you rolled. The idea of choosing your first five cards leads to some mind games, as you change your opening round from game to game, and try to maximize your opening board presence/trades with whatever your friend picked.
Starter decks are well tuned and all feel different, although some matchups are terrible and just do not work. (avoid Noah vs Aradel base decks at all cost, especially for demoing).
Pretty easy rules until you get into some specific interactions where timing does not feel as intuitive as magic's stack, but they have since resolved/clarified things in faqs.
Currently testing out the first wave of expansion stuff, and boy are there some entertaining goodies on the way.
When I was delving into deckbuilding for the first time, I figured the card pool would be too small. But the 30 card limit gets over that issue.
All in all, fun game, great mechanics, play feels fun, and deckbuilding is a hoot. Go for it.
>>46284411
I sort of stopped following the new hotness and Ks's a year or two ago. I follow a few publishers, and look more towards filling in my wishlist backlog or playing things that never get brought to the table. Speaking of which....
>>46275053
> What's the one game you've had the longest without getting a chance to play?
Struggle of Empires. Love everything it is doing, but we've only played twice, and that was 5-6 years ago. I wanna round up 6 other people and exploit non-whites for their influence points, dammit!
>>46282582
Neuroshima Hex! Go to quick duel game on mobile with the wife.
Games I played this weekend: Small World, Agricola, Splendor, and Wits and Wagers. Nothing new here, but good nonetheless.
>>46287941
Charge a cover
>>46288019
>What RPG was it? Could it really not take the additional load or was the GM just unwilling to deal with the added bullshit of rando's?
That begs the question:
"What GM and player group want to spend a bunch of their limited game time helping a "rando" who wasn't invited (and 99.9% of the time won't come back) generate a character. And then have to spend even more time trying (and probably not succeeding) at teaching a complex RPG rules set to said uninvited "rando"? That shit sucks, and does nothing but derail the campaign by wasting session after session with that tiresome bullshit. It's one thing if a player finds someone that's a good fit with the group who will be there for the long haul and gets approval from the GM. But what we're talking about is just someone being inconsiderate to everyone else in the gaming group.
After all these years, I shouldn't be surprised by stuff like this, but you'd think more gamers would know how to be good friends / guests.
1. If you want friends - be a friend. Offer to bring food or beverages or otherwise help ease the load on the host.
2. Don't invite people to someone else's event / home without clearing it with the host *before hand*. (And no, that doesn't mean calling 10 minutes before things are scheduled to start and saying "Dude, I just invited more people. You're cool with that right?") Ask the host first, and then extend invitations if you're given the go ahead.
3. Don't expect the host to wait on your guests as if the host is a butler at a full service hotel. Show up with your invited guests or get there before them. Either have the guests bring something (like food or beverages) to share with the group, or bring enough to cover for the guests yourself.
Nothing pisses off an otherwise reasonable host like having uninvited strangers show up and free-load off the host's time and efforts as if they're long lost friends or otherwise entitled to it simply because they showed up.
> What type of game does your group prefer Euro / Ameritrash / wargame?
Got a few groups to play with. my family like simple family games, can't have anything to taxing for step-dad. Alambra and Carcassone are their favs.
When just me and the gf we play some euros and easy card games. Patchwork, forbidden Island and New York 1901 are favs
GF and her friends like party games when together, usually end up playing Love Letter or Cards Against Humanity.
When really lucky, friend's boyfriends sometime invite me to play more involved games, played Talisman a lot with them and been invited to try Battlestar Galactica.
> How often do you get to game?
with the different groups once or twice a week. try to game with the gf to chill at the end of a day
>What's the one game you've had the longest without getting a chance to play?
coup
>>46284794
adding to the previous answers.
they take too much time to release new cards/decks/material.
>>46288808
Meh, they were waiting to see if the game would actually do well before even greenlighting expansions, which then have to go through a heavy amount of playtesting. FFG with new packs every month and overlooked infinite combos (looking at you, warhammer invasion), this ain't.
They are looking at 3 waves a year, 2 pairs of playable decks and a small box expansion (around four decks), with a big box expansion every odd year or so. We are expecting the next decks at gencon, and then the deluxe box in December (knowing them, I would put it more at January or February)
Mind you, I have been playing Summoner Wars since 2011, so I am used to things trickling out. But when it comes to Plaid hat, I find it worth the wait.
I do wish they would stop with the way they are handling promos, especially as they want to make this a tournament worthy game. Some people just can't justify the shipping for online purchases, and not every gamestore will run organized play events, where players still have to do well enough to obtain the cards via prize support. They have not made any statement on the legality of proxies to tackle this sore point either. I have all of my stuff, but it feels lame for other people not in North America.
>>46275053
> What type of game does your group prefer Euro / Ameritrash / wargame?
Euro all the way. I think the ameritrashiest game we play is Fury of Dracula.
> How often do you get to game?
At least once per week, but I've been getting the odd night in between and then some gaming with my girlfriend.
> What's the one game you've had the longest without getting a chance to play?
Race for the Galaxy. I've played it hundreds of times against the Keldon AI, but haven't gotten my physical copy to the table.
>>46288976
I see also who in the fudge thought that was a good idea that thing with the promotional cards? hey I heard people from Europe complaining about it.
>>46284411
Just do what you enjoy. I don't care about KS games and new releases. If it's a good game you'll know about it in due time because everybody will be talking about it. Just learn to separate the hype from the legitimate love.
>>46288976
Question since you are the Ashes "representative".
is necesary to have 2 core boxes or with one I'll be alright?
>>46289145
Two only if you want more dice.
Ashes isn't a Fantasy Flight LCG, so every card in the box comes as a full 3-card playset. There are six pre-built decklists in the rulebook, and all six decks can be built at once. The only thing limiting factor is that using all six decks at once would require 15 of each die, and there are only 10 of each die in the box.
Plaid Hat is also going to sell 5-packs of each of the four types of dice separately for $5 each, at some point, but the dice packs are just in pre-order right now.
>>46289315
I'm so erect right now.
not for talking shit about FFG but fuck them and their policy or being needed to have more than one core if you want to go competitive. (no seriously 3 core sets for aGoT 2.0?)
>>46289392
>have more than one core if you want to go competitive. (no seriously 3 core sets for aGoT 2.0?)
Is this really a thing? I've heard of people wanting to buy more of certain cards from the Netrunner core too. I've got Netrunner, but never felt the need to get extras of anything. That said, I don't play competitively.
>>46289392
It's a bit of a trade-off.
If you build all six Ashes prebuilt decks, you'll use every card in the box. Ashes decks are 30-card decks exactly, and each prebuilt deck is made by just taking ten cards and using 3 of each.
As such, there's very little variety to the cardpool. Not counting the Phoenixborn themselves (basically Commanders) and the Conjurations (tokens), the core set gives you 3 copies each of only 60 cards.
Still, they went all-out making sure you have playsets. Obviously each Phoenixborn is only a 1-of in the box, because 1 is a complete playset for a Phoenixborn, but any card that can create a Conjuration displays an upper limit on how many copies of that Conjuration can be in play at one time, and the game comes with a number of copies of each Conjuration equal to the limit, so you even get complete playsets of the tokens. Still, the low variety is frustrating.
FFG's incomplete core sets do serve one purpose: it allows them to have a greater variety of cards in the core set without needing to put more cards total in the box. Netrunner's core set contains 113 unique cards, for instance. That's rather better than 60. It also means the prebuilt deck lists can be more interesting and feature more complex interactions.
>>46289471
for aGoT, yes this is a thing. the core box only contains 1 single copy of each card but as an exchange there's the game comes with all the factions from the beggining.
first time posting here.
tomorrow i am out with friends for a day, but we have nothing to do aside playing Munchkin, which is bad for more than 1 hour.
we are 6, some are "nerds", some are casuals. no one is a board game lover and i got death threats after suggesting something as lenght boring and difficult as monopoly.
do you have any suggestion on what we could play? i am ready to pirate and print stuff.
i was thinking about secret hitler but i fear i can't put all my hope into that social game.
>>46289471
Being competitive in Netrunner basically demands 2 cores. 3 if you really really want to run certain specific decks, but there are tons of tournament-winning decks you can build without needing a third Core, so not many players spring for it.
Game of Thrones, on the other hand, includes most of its cards as 1-ofs. GoT 1.0 did the same thing. The result is that if you want a playset of damn near ANYTHING, you need three cores.
Star Wars has very different deckbuilding where you can run up to 2 copies of any given pod. The Star Wars core set includes 1 copy of every pod, except, bafflingly enough, the two core set pods which are Limit 1 per deck. You get two copies of each of those pods. The reason is that the four pre-built decks in the box each use one of the Limit 1 per deck pods, so they needed two of the light side one and two of the dark side one so you could build all four pre-builts at once, but it still makes things frustrating. Still, only two core sets to have a complete playset of the entire core. But then they did the same shit with the Edge of Darkness deluxe expansion, which was basically an extension of the Core Set, so you need two copies of that box too.
Lord of the Rings, being a co-op game, doesn't really NEED a second core, but you're gimping yourself without one, because those scenarios can really kick the shit out of you. A few cards are only 1-ofs in the core set, but they're nothing to write home about, not enough to justify a third core.
Doomtown: Reloaded, which is made by Alderac Entertainment and not FFG, ALSO does incomplete core sets, because fuck you, pay me. DT:R does this by just giving you two copies of every single core set card, in a game where a playset is four copies, so you need to buy two cores.
I don't know anything about 40k Conquest, CoC, or WH: Invasion, but I bet they do/did it too.
>>46289617
If you're willing to spend money then grab a copy of 7 Wonders.
If not, then, uh... Secret Hitler probably is the only good PnP game that supports 6 players, at least that I know of.
>>46289664
isn't there any good place to download, legally or illegally, many classical board games? i am pretty sure 50% of the board games i've played in my childhood could be homeprinted even if not avaible in a nice format and requiring some home-editing.
>>46289728
>>46289617
Love Letter and Resistance are both easy to PnP and simple to teach.
Resistance is social but depending on the group you could play it all night.
>>46289617
>i got death threats after suggesting something as lenght boring and difficult as monopoly.
Monopoly is a bad game - it was designed simply to show off the evils of unbridled capitalism, not to be a good board game. The fact that it gets reprinted over and over (and that most people don't play by the actual rules) is nothing short of ironic. For what Monopoly delivers in terms of fun, I'd fully agree with the 'lengthy and boring' label. But complex? Not so much.
Games that might help you out:
Citadels
Once Upon A Time
Saboteur 1 & 2
Telestrations
Code Names
The Resistance
One Night Revolution
One Night Ultimate Werewolf
Funemployed
Dark Moon
Sentinels of the Multiverse
>>46289728
There is no repository for board game pirating, no. Mostly because it typically costs more to pirate games than it does to buy them. Ink ain't cheap, plus card sleeves and cardboard and time and blood and sweat and tears.
The games that have PnP versions are not very complicated and almost never scale up to 6.
>>46289800
Also I should add: Love Letter doesn't support more than 4 at a time, and you could also PnP Coup and Hanabi, but Hanabi is only 5.
What are some good alternatives to pic related?
>>46289728
>isn't there any good place to download, legally or illegally, many classical board games? i am pretty sure 50% of the board games i've played in my childhood could be homeprinted even if not avaible in a nice format and requiring some home-editing.
That play 6 or more players at once? Not so much. Once you find the game files (or make your own), download a copy of the rules, print out the board, print cards, print rules, make game pieces, and add up all the costs - you come out on the losing end. Many of the games I suggested in >>46289807 are under $30. If you can't afford a game, I can understand that. But if your friends aren't willing to all pitch in a few bucks to get a game for the group, then you need better friends. And I don't mean 'wealthier' friends - but ones who know how to share. Places like CSI and Miniatures Market (see pastebin link in first post) offer 30% discounts on vast selections of games.
>>46289885
> If you can't afford a game, I can understand that
it's more about the fact i need games for tomorrow morning and, since today and tomorroware holidays, there won't be any shop open.
>>46289617
Look for the Metagame, it's a free PnP which lets you play multiple games using the same cards. Plenty of Kickstarters let you test their games via PnP too, so if you're willing to play games with little to no exposure or reviews, there's that.
>>46289953
>implying game stores close for holidays like Easter
Christmas and Thanksgiving I can see, but at least in the US all Easter is is an excuse to stuff your kids full of chocolate.
Hey guys, I have a question.
I played this one board game where the object is to advance to the tenth room of a dungeon, and the game is played through opening doors to the next room and drawing a card. There's monster fighting, various races, weapons, and male/female pieces that actually affect how the game is played. For the life of me, I can't seem to remember the name of this game. Can anyone help me out?
I've been interested in get one of these LCGs.
I would like to hear some thoughts if is possible.
I've been considering Warhammer 40K Conquest, Doomtown Reloaded, A game of thrones 2nd edition and Lord of The Rings (why there's so many packs!?). I would also add Ashes but I already have an answer for that game.
>>46290025
Cooperative or competitive?
Miniatures or standees?
Any idea on age?
>>46290025
if it's just cards it should be munchkin.
> What type of game does your group prefer Euro / Ameritrash / wargame?
No strong preference really, we enjoy all three types. Time spent on games are about euros = ameritrash >> wargames, seeing as wargames either support only 2-3 players or they're too lengthy. Or both.
> How often do you get to game?
Usually once a week.
> What's the one game you've had the longest without getting a chance to play?
Here I Stand. People generally get scared off by a dense 40-page rules book...
>>46290058
That's the one! Thanks.
>>46290035
Doomtown is very cool but also very strange. It's not hard to learn, though, it's just does a lot of things other card games don't, like the fact that every card has a poker rank and suit and you use your cards to play lowball poker several times a round.
Conquest is good if you like 40k's lore, otherwise it's sort of like a lobotomized Doomtown that's a bit more expensive to get into because it's been around longer.
AGoT 2.0 is fresh and new so now's the time to get in before the cardpool gets big, but you need three copies of the core set to have a complete playset of anything. That's a steep barrier to entry. It's also a slow, kind of grindy game; you're looking at a good 45 minutes to an hour for a single game, and you don't get a lot of huge "stunning upset" kind of plays.
Lord of the Rings is a co-operative game that can be played solo. You and the other players build your decks and then play against an encounter deck full of monsters and other threats, while trying to complete a quest scenario. The core set has three scenarios, and each pack adds some player cards and a new scenario. It's one of the best co-op games on the market if you're into card games, but if you want something competitive it will very much not scratch your itch.
Android: Netrunner has been the hotness since it released. In the last year or so, it's developed some mild balance issues, but nothing unsurmountable. The asymmetric gameplay means that even if one deck is too good, plenty of other decks can still be totally viable, so balance issues don't just wreck the game.
Star Wars is my personal favorite, because I'm a huge Star Wars fan in general. It's full of big flashy plays every turn of the game, start to finish, and of course lots of familiar characters tearing shit up. Where Netrunner is like two ninjas fighting in the dark until one of them finds the other and starts wailing on him, Star Wars is basically Wrestlemania.
let's say i wanted to print secret hitler...but i am not satisfied with the standard edition's illustrations.
is there anyone who has reskinned it yet?
>>46290379
what do you mean with "strange" when you talk about Doomtown? I mean is funny because that is the idea behind all the setting.
Conquest then is kinda Out.
I didn't knew that aGoT was that slow, I might have to leave it in the meanwhile.
LoTR sounds good, also great timming, I have a friend that owns the core and a few expansion packs, so this willl be fun.
Netrunner and Star Wars don't make a click on me but hey I'm happy to hear that people enjoys them (also you gave me the very weird thought about what would actually look a Wrestlemania featuring Star Wars characters [commentators included])
>>46289807
>>46289808
>>46289800
>>46289664
thanks everyone...i will definitely look up secret hitler and telestration as they seem simple enough to print and present to my friends.
>>46290580
In Doomtown, each player plays deed cards (locations) to build a "street". The middle of the table is town square. You then play dude cards at your home base and move them around between deeds and town square, in order to claim the deeds for yourself. Each dude has an influence value, and each deed has a control value. The game ends when one player has more control than any other player has influence, at which point that player wins.
You gain control of a deed by having more influence on that deed (from your dudes at that deed) than any other player. Obviously, this means you'll sometimes fight for control, so you get dudes together into a posse for a shootout, which means the two players in the shootout draw poker hands off the top of their decks and whoever gets the better hand wins, forcing the loser to get rid of some of his dudes based on how much he lost by.
In addition to shootouts, you also draw poker hands to determine who goes first in a round, and for all kinds of other effects too. This poker shit is EVERYWHERE.
So the result is a card game that sort of thinks it's a board game and also thinks it's poker.
40k Conquest cuts out all the poker stuff and just has you fight over planets in the middle of the board.
AGoT is slow because it's for fans of the books. If you know anything about the books or the TV show, you know George R.R. Martin likes to take his sweet time getting anything noteworthy done, and prefers to fart around with subplots instead. If it wasn't slow, it wouldn't be AGoT.
If your friend owns the LotR core and some packs, you could play with him and share collections. That should make things easier on both of you.
>>46290922
I see. I have another bud who is hooked with Doomtown and something he explains to me is that Dudes are more valuable than in other games even the ones with 0 influence or brass bullets since dudes that are dead are really difficult to make a comeback unless you play Circus or Bandits.
any particular reason about the pacing in aGoT? I mean here you're explaining the reasons why the writer likes to take his time to do absolutely everything but I kinda don't see how this is reflected in the game.
>>46291612
>any particular reason about the pacing in aGoT?
Other anon here. As far as I'm concerned, the game is slower because you tend to err on the side of caution, especially with more than two players. Few challenges are issued, and power pools slowly, at first.
>>46291612
I was kind of joking about it being because of the writer, but also kind of not.
Game of Thrones goes in rounds, rather than turns. So during round one, everyone does their plot phase, then everyone does their draw phase, then everyone does their marshalling phase, etc. Winning the game is a matter of reaching 15 power, and all players start at 0 power.
During the challenges phase, you can make a military challenge (loser kills characters), an intrigue challenge (loser discards cards). or a power challenge (winner steals power from loser's faction card). You can make one of each challenge each round. If you succeed on an unopposed challenge -- your opponent has no characters to defend, or the combined strength of their defending characters is 0 -- you get 1 bonus power from the bank, placed on your faction card. If you win a challenge and any of your participating characters have the renown keyword, you put 1 bonus power from the bank on each participating character with renown. This power does count towards your victory, but if the character is killed, the power is lost.
After the Challenges phase comes the Dominance phase, where each player adds up the total power of all their standing (i.e. untapped, ready) characters, plus any gold they still have, and whoever has the highest total gets 1 power from the bank on their faction card. If there's a tie, nobody gets anything.
So power only enters the game through winning unopposed challenges, the dominance phase, and renown. The dominance phase will almost always inject 1 power per round, but that's only 1, and it can be stolen. Unopposed challenges help, but you have to get a dominant board position first to start doing that, and it can also be stolen. Renown is the fastest way to gain power, and that power can't be stolen since it's on characters, but it's also the most risky since your characters can die and then the power is just gone.
And that's why the game is slow and grindy.
>>46289523
In this case, might it not have been an intentional design feature that there's only one of each card since they're unique characters? Or are we also talking about things like basic military units like infantry, archers, etc?
>>46289663
Hmmm, I might have to look at picking up a 2nd core game on the cheap. I have a ton of the expansions, and I don't play with uber competitive folks, but it might be worth it to make better decks...
>>46290035
Foolish question: I know what LCG stands for Living / Limited Card Game (no rares, etc, everyone gets the same cards in a set). But what does ECG mean?
>>46292195
is the other name given the companies that are not FFG (since they have the trademark for Living Card Game). Shit means Expandible Card Game.
same thing other name
>>46292163
>In this case, might it not have been an intentional design feature that there's only one of each card since they're unique characters? Or are we also talking about things like basic military units like infantry, archers, etc
The later one, there's one of each card, Uniques and simple generic units, supports and whatnot
>>46291955
>>46291997
I see, I've never took this into consideration. so is either play risky and let your uniques heroes hog all the power or play slow but have more chances to recover from loses.
>>46290116
My gaming group likes to do massive all day game days (which is typically 2-3 plays of something like eclipse in a row) every few months, do you think Here I Stand would be a good game to try with them?
>>46292330
Thanks, that makes sense.
>>46292471
Ok, that kind of sucks. Are there expansion packs or do you end up having to essentially buy more copies of the core to have a really playable game? Because if it's the 2nd option, them I'm glad I went with Netrunner.
>>46289982
That's weird considering Easter is the biggest christian holiday.
Anyway, a friend of mine saw a game connected to Drizzt Dourden and drows and Forgotten Realms somewhere and was thinking of buying it. I only had a quick look at the picture of the box so i forgot the exact name of the game. Any of you know about something like that and if yes is it any good?
>>46292729
Both, I mean there's expansions packs and these packs comes with the full playset (thanks god) the only sour thing about this game is the whole 3-core-rule thing. the game can be played with one core if you play casual and just that.
>>46292699
I can't say Tbh. My group tried playing it once a long time ago, and not enough of us had read the rules, so it went kind of belly-up unfortunately.
That said, you could have a look at the rules here to get a feel for the game I guess:
>http://www.gmtgames.com/p-508-here-i-stand-2015-reprint-ed.aspx
There's also an extended example of play in the scenario book.
Anyway, if you have 6 guys willing to plow through the rules and to try a card driven wargame I'd say it's worth a look at the very least.
Also I gotta take this opportunity to shill GMT Game's Triumph&Tragedy, a 3 player block wargame. Perhaps not an "all-day" game, but definately potential for like 4-6 hours of 2nd world war grand strategy fun!
>>46292774
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/91872/dungeons-dragons-legend-drizzt-board-game
>>46275053
> What type of game does your group prefer Euro / Ameritrash / wargame?
Euro, for sure.
> How often do you get to game?
Couple of times a month (at least x1 two player and x1 four or more)
> What's the one game you've had the longest without getting a chance to play?
I've played them all (my collection is meagre)
We definitely are Ameritrash...which isn't to say Euro is bad, I just generally buy Ameritrash for my group.
We've been playing Pandemic Legacy every Saturday or so. Yesterday we got Conquest of the Empire out but we only did two campaign seasons and then tallied VPs.
I bought Race for the Galaxy six months ago, has never hit the table. Never even read the rules on it.
>>46292729
AGoT 2nd is a playable game in its own right straight out of the box. All LCGs are. That's part of the point of the core set: the core set is supposed to be a complete game in its own right that you can just have in your collection like a board game if you don't want to get any expansions or do organized play or anything.
If you want to play in any sort of competitive fashion, you'll need the expansions and multiple core sets. The AGoT 2.0 core set has 62 unique characters and 39 non-unique, divvied up with only 4-5 non-unique units per faction compared to 7-8 unique units per faction. Your deck will be mostly uniques.
You CAN be competitive in Netrunner with only one core, but you would have to otherwise have a complete cardpool so you can find substitutes to fill in for the cards you would otherwise be taking from a second core set. It's generally accepted that three cores isn't worth it unless you absolutely MUST have that third SanSan City Grid or whatever singleton card you're jonesing for, and you can usually make do with only two of any of the singletons.
Now that I think about it, several of the current top decks in Star Wars almost entirely eschew core set cards. My own tournament-grade mono-Jedi and mono-Navy decks use absolutely nothing from the core set OR Edge of Darkness. I guess the cardpool is now big enough that you can play Star Wars competitively with only one of everything rather than needing to double up on Core and Edge.
Can anyone recommend a game like Quantum? I love the shifting strategy in particular.
>>46292527
Not really. You can't make a deck that's chiefly renown characters, because most factions currently only have one character with renown each. There are ways to give characters renown, but they tend to be temporary. If a character loses renown, they don't lose any power they claimed, but they stop being able to get more.
So you will default to playing slow, but try to use your renown characters to speed things up a little. Once they've got power, you have to make sure you don't lose military challenges. The loser of a military challenge decides who dies, so you can prioritize killing off little chumps instead of losing your big guy, but as your guys die off you become more vulnerable to future military challenges because you have less strength on the table, so if you make a habit of losing military challenges you'll eventually have no choice but to kill your big dogs.
Currently, renown is like this:
Baratheon: Robert Baratheon has renown, Stannis can gain it if you play Lightbringer on him.
Greyjoy: Balon Greyjoy and Euron Crow's Eye
Lannister: Tywin, Ser Jaime, and Ser Gregor Clegane
Martell: Maester of Starfall
Stark: Eddard Stark and Robb Stark
Targaryen: Khal Drogo and Ser Jorah Mormont have it natively, The Silver Steed can be played on any Dothraki or on Daenarys Targaryen to give them renown during power challenges only, and Drogon gives Stormborn characters renown (Daenarys is the only Stormborn character in the game so far)
Tyrell: Randyll Tarly and the Knight of Flowers
Night's Watch: Longclaw can be attached to any Night's Watch character to give it +1 STR and renown
Neutral: the plot card A Tourney for the King gives all Knight cards you control renown for one turn
So renown's a neat trick but it's not quite something you can build a deck around, except via A Tourney for the King. There's a neutral non-unique knight everyone can use, and four factions have non-unique knights of their own. Greyjoy's the only faction with no knights at all.
What are the most complex games you've been able to enjoy with a 'non-gamer'? Seems to be a trend people struggle with games that give you multiple tactical choices and phases to a turn, though that's the sort of thing I love.
Also, unintuitive rules are even greater hurdles than usual. Playing Omen: a reign of war with dad. When two armies fight the loser always end up with more units than the winner, though they get the victory point. Its clear to me how it maintains balance but its disorienting for others.
>>46294870
I've had a surprisingly easy time teaching Dead of Winter, and most people really like it.
>>46294870
I actually managed to teach my sister how to play BattleCON recently. And she likes it.
Probably not your normal result, but yeah.
>>46294870
My dad was surprisingly receptive to Ankh Morpork.I'm still rather miffed at him for making fun of me when I pronounced Mr Teatime's name correctly.
I know I'm asking very general things but do you people know any figurine type game that instead of being set on a fantasy world (like Warmachine/hordes) is set on a sci-fi kind of setting (not 40K/Starwars)?
>>46295242
Just to clarify: are you looking for a sci-fi miniatures wargame that isn't 40k or Star Wars? Is that what you are asking for? I'm just sort of trying to figure out what you mean by "figurine type game" because all kinds of games use figurines whether they're wargames or not.
>>46295406
>are you looking for a sci-fi miniatures wargame
yeah I forgot the category if you can call it like that.
something that is still receiving expansions or new miniatures.
if isn't Sci-fi then historical/modern based maybe?
>>46295477
Well, there are a lot of different types of wargames out there. Let's see if we can narrow it down a little.
What wargames have you tried so far? What did you like about them? What do you NOT want in a game?
>>46295242
>>46295477
What exactly is it that you want out of this? There are potentially dozens of games depending on you interpret that question.
>>46295477
Have you tried Infinity? It's made by Corvus Belli, seems to have decent-sized following.
>>46295637
Shiiit
>What wargames have you tried so far?
Does something like D&D attack wing counts? (I think not, if that's the case then none)
>What did you like about them?
well this is related to the first question, for D&D AW I kinda like that none us (players) could knew what would be our next movement.The incertitude.
>What do you NOT want in a game?
difficult to know, emm, since I don't have much experience in the genre maybe loads of rules about X and Y?.
>>46295643
I know, I'm sorry for not being more detailed with my request.
>>46295747
looking that.
>>46295772
If you liked D&D Attack Wing, you might like Star Trek Attack Wing, but you'll almost certainly LOVE Star Wars X-Wing, even if you hate Star Wars.
They're all basically the same game, except FFG is way better at game design than WizKids ever was.
If you didn't like Attack Wing, try Infinity maybe. It's good if you're looking for something like the X-COM video games, but on a tabletop.
Mantic Games is working on a game called Warpath that's sort of like a simpler and much cheaper version of 40k, with different fluff.
The more we know about why you don't want 40k/Star Wars, the better we can help you, but honestly from what you're describing about wanting simple rules and enjoying the uncertainty about movement, I feel like X-Wing might be a good fit for you if you can deal with the fact that it's Star Wars.
>>46295890
I have nothing against 40K the thing is that I keep hearing that 40K the actual game have more cons than pros, either way that doesn't stop me from enjoying the lore or other related stuff (Vidya or /tg/)
about Star Wars, well is just beacuse the brand I mean everyone knows what's Star Wars and since I keep hearing about them I just want to try something that is outside that bubble, that's all.
>infinty is like if you're looking for something like X-OM but on tabletop
there's Ayys?
>>46295890
I forgot to ask. what's wrong with Wizkids? (and kinda by relation D&D AW?)
>>46296100
>infinty is like if you're looking for something like X-OM but on tabletop
>there's Ayys?
I just meant gameplay-wise. Infinity has individual character movement rather than squad-based movement, and is meant to be played with lots of scenery that creates blind corners and stuff. A good game of Infinity resembles an X-COM battle, except with no grid. No Ayys; it's set in the future, but on Earth, with no ayy lmaos.
>>46296146
WizKids in general has a pretty weak budget for anything that isn't HeroClix. Their game balance, component quality, and just about anything else you can think of suffers as a result. I'm sure they're doing their best, but in the board gaming market they just don't have that much market penetration, and consequently don't have a whole lot of money to invest in their products. X-Wing, by comparison, has ludicrously gorgeous, detailed, well-painted miniatures. Imagine if every 40k model came pre-painted to look just like it does on the box. That's the kind of quality we're talking about here.
Star Trek Attack Wing started strong but became notorious for being extremely unbalanced. D&D Attack Wing has so far avoided this problem from what I've heard, but the troops units seem very strange to me and I don't really get why they're in the game. Seems like an extraneous element. X-Wing is very focused on ships fighting ships, but D&D Attack Wing doesn't seem to be quite as tightly focused on dragons fighting dragons, considering the ground units.
WizKids in general has a reputation for low-quality components and poor balance ruining a lot of their games long-term. D&D Attack Wing might suffer the same.
The other thing that's hurting D&D Attack Wing is that X-Wing came out first and is WAY more popular, so it's just a lot harder to find a game for Attack Wing, while it's trivially easy to find X-Wing players in almost any game store.
>>46282582
Tides of time, 2 player drafting
>>46296678
>WizKids in general has a reputation for low-quality components and poor balance ruining a lot of their games long-term. D&D Attack Wing might suffer the same.
Oh God no. I also fear for this other game I like, DiceMasters. they started exactly like you explain, unbalanced as hell but they plan to start a rotation that will likely to change the Meta almost completely.
is that and also they have been lately releasing a lot of sets one after another too soon.Fuck Heroclix
Here's a question /bgg/
What do you guys do with your expansion boxes?
I just got home from a convention where I picked up a few more games for my already way too large collection, and I've realized that unless I rearrange my setup, I'm almost completely out of space in my standard places, and part of that is due to expansion boxes. For example, I have 4 thunderstone expansion boxes on my shelf that literally have nothing in them aside from the foam inserts, and a huge line of Ascension boxes which do have all of their individual sets intact, but frankly I could easily combine them all into one or two boxes. I don't have it in me to get rid of the boxes though; I like seeing them on the shelf too much even if I'm only ever pulling out one box.
Pic related is the desk in my room where I keep all of my solo-able games, currently in a state of disarray as I try and move stuff around to where it looks alright. All my strictly multiplayer games I keep under a table in the living room and that's it's own mess. But you can see how much room the thunderstone and ascension boxes take up, in addition to a few other empty boxes.
New games I've actually found the time and people to play with recently:
Haleakala (Seriously? Do they not want people to be able to talk about the game?)
Tsuro
Both are nice and simple. Haleakala is two player only, but is a lot of fun. Simple, but the main mechanic is pretty neat. Your tokens (numbers) are used in two different ways, but they interact and you need to be careful about which numbers are available for you and your opponent.
Tsuro can be played with a bunch of people and even my non-gamer friend liked it, because there are basically 3 rules total. Though, some of the people I was playing with didn't really pay attention, which sucks.
Anyway, I recently ordered two games for kids, because my brother really wants to start playing board games with me. He's 4 though and has very little attention span and patience when you don't have direct feedback.
I ordered Cartagena which was described as Candyland for adults and a game called Sequence for Kids. Anyone know anything about those or other recommendations for games for really young kids?
Just played some Cosmic Encounter for the first time this weekend, and it was by far the best board game experience I've ever had
Simple rules, awesome interactions, really engaging gameplay. I think you'll love this game unless you're heavy on the autism spectrum.
>>46301675
In what way is it not just like any other FF game (ie. bad, complicated for no reason, full of miserable politicking or co-op)
Played Viticulture for the first time tonight (w/ Mamas and Papas only). It was dreadfully slow-going for how straightforward a worker placement it is. Sure, there were a few things that each of us definitely misinterpreted, but in terms of worker placement mechanics it's dead simple. So why so slow? I've seen it take forever at other tables previously...
I won with a little bit of privilege and a last ditch, neat play at the end. My Papa card started me with a tasting room, so I made ample use of it in the beginning to keep a steady lead through the early rounds. My wine engine didn't get off the ground until practically everyone was filling orders, but I had max workers because tour money. Eventually they caught up on points, and the last year was upon us. I had to make a yoke, rip up a very valuable white vine to plant a full red field, all so I could harvest, make wine, and fulfill the winning order in a single year. Felt like a goddamn genius.
>>46299279
I started the painful process of breaking them down a couple weeks ago, and I couldn't bring myself to break down the Dominion boxes. It's nonsensical but I feel attached to them
>>46301675
CE falls flat unless you have a shit-talking, cutthroat group. Most of my euro-centric group need not apply, but it's probably the favorite among the friends I grew up with
>>46301675
Personally, I find Cosmic to be a very fun experience but not the best game. In most games of Cosmic you're just along for the ride; there's not that many meaningful decisions involved, and whether you win or lose usually comes down to turn order and card draws. It's a rollicking amount of fun and a great rollercoaster, but if I'm sitting down and want a real meaty game then I pass on Cosmic Encounter.
anyway to play any of these online, like jinteki for netrunner
>>46301783
It is those things, except it's not miserable.
Playing CE definitely feels like a mess at times because of how effects intermingle. My friends, who are seasoned Magic players, still get confused by what some artifact cards do and when they're allowed to play them. We have a massive bitchfest over rulings at least once a game. We also argue about bullshit alliances, and feuds get started over fucking nothing. Then more bitching about what so and so did last game, which leads to aggressive metagaming and fucking each other (and ourselves) over on a fucking whim.
Maybe it is "bad." But that's exactly what I want to be doing with my friends. It's fun. Luckily for us, the shitshow is over when the game ends.
>>46302195
OCTGN have modules for all of them (just get used to play with hidden art) now something I could complain about is the number of players but I guess that's another thing.
>>46302185
>>46301848
Well, I am glad my completely arbitrary and unfair stereotyping proved right this time.
I actually looked at that box a lot because I liked the art, but I stopped myself from getting it because I knew it was like the other FF games.
I shouldn't be too harsh, I know lots of people like that sort of thing, but christ, it really isn't for me. I've grown to be such a eurogame snob. Though, I am sure most proper eurogame snobs look down on the stuff I play.
Anyone tried Burgle Bros? It looks tempting and I love the theme and coop angle, but I need confirmation.
>>46301848
That game sounds kind of nice. Though, I don't know anything about it other than you know, worker placement.
I am always itching for more good worker placement games. I've only played like 6 or so.
>>46301783
>>46302333
It's published by FFG, but it was originally made by Eon Games back in the 70s. It got flipped from publisher to publisher, to Mayfair, to WOTC Avalon Hill, and now to FFG.
Cosmic Encounter takes about an hour to play and is very simple. You're an alien race. Your home system has five planets and four ships per planet, all of which start under your control. The other players have like setups. You win if you establish five colonies on planets in other players' home systems.
You have a hand of eight cards. Some of these are attack cards of values between 0 and 40. Some of them are negotiate cards. Some of them are artifacts, which can be played for special effects. Attack and negotiate cards are called encounter cards.
At the start of your turn, you recover one dead ship if any of your ships have died. You then draw a card from the destiny deck. This tells you who you are having an encounter with this turn. You point the hyperspace gate at one of their planets, grab 1-4 ships from any of your planets, and put them on the gate.
You now invite allies to join you on the attack. If you win, you'll kill all the defending ships and establish a colony with your invading ships, and anyone who joins you will also establish a colony, which you will all share. The defender now invites allies to join him on the defense. If the defender wins, all the attacking ships will die, the defender will keep his planet, and the defender's allies will get to recover dead ships and/or draw cards (any combination) equal to the number of ships they pitched into the fight.
The other players now decide whose invitation they'll accept, if any. They pitch in 1-4 ships to help the side they ally with.
The attacker and defender each play one encounter card facedown, then reveal them. If both are attack cards, the attacker adds all attacking ships to his card, the defender adds all defending ships to his card, and whoever's higher wins.
Contd
>>46302711
If one player plays an attack and the other player plays a negotiate, the player who played the negotiate loses automatically, but steals cards at random from the other player's hand equal to the number of ships he lost.
If both players play a negotiate, all allies go back home, and the two players now have one minute to work out a deal. The players may give each other cards in the deal, and/or peacefully give each other up to one free colony in their own home system without any ships having to die. The players may add any other terms they like, but either cards or colonies must change hands for the deal to work. If no deal is reached by the end of one minute, both players must each sacrifice three ships, then any remaining attacking ships go home.
If you were the attacker and you won or made a deal and this was your first encounter for the turn, you may have a second. Otherwise, your turn is now over, play proceeds to the right.
As for drawing new cards: at the start of your turn or when you need to select an encounter card as the defender, if you have no encounter cards in your hand, you may play any artifact cards you wish, then show your hand to everyone else to prove you have no encounter cards, discard your hand, and draw a new eight-card hand. Other than that and drawing cards as a reward for being a successful defensive ally, you don't draw new cards at all.
Pretty simple, yeah? The part that makes the game fun is the alien races. Every single race has a special power that's REALLY strong. The Pacifist automatically WINS if it plays a negotiate against an attack. The Parasite can ally whether it was invited or not. The Machine can keep having encounters as long as it keeps winning and still has cards to use. The Zombie's ships can't die. The Masochist instantly wins if all its ships are dead. Stuff like that. The core box alone contains 50 such races. At the start of the game, each player is dealt two random races and gets to pick one.
>>46302906
This sounds incredibly familiar. Like, really really familiar. I might've actually played this before.
Not my thing though. Not even a little. Hell, even the main draw (the unique faction powers) is one of my least favorite game mechanics. I've played maybe three games that have done it well.
>>46302993
I don't know if CE was the first game to do unique faction powers back in its original Eon Games release, but it was certainly one of the first.
I think it does it very well by keeping the powers fairly simple. The logic behind every Cosmic Encounter power is "each race breaks a rule of the game". So you look at the existing game, look at its rules (both the explicit ones and the implicit ones), break one, there's your race. Pacifist, for instance, breaks the "negotiate vs. attack is an auto-loss" rule. The Machine breaks the limit of how many encounters you can have in a turn. The Parasite breaks the rule that you can't ally unless you're invited to. The Zombie breaks the rule that ships die when they are killed.
Some races go about breaking the rules in more complex ways, but every well-designed race follows the principle of "this race breaks a rule of the game".
If you just dislike faction powers in general, CE's not for you, but if you just think most games do it poorly, CE will most likely fall into that "does it well" category.
>>46302906
I was tempted about to click the "buy" button on CE out with how much that Vasel dude shills it and all. Not sure I'm interested after reading how it works, thanks anon, you might have saved me a bunch of dollerydoos.
>>46303500
It really is a wonderful game, it's just very random. If you have a crap hand, you have no recourse; you just have to play it out. If your race is in a bad matchup, too bad, you just have to play it out. Even so, it's a bit like poker: the other players are also fighting the same random forces you are, and if you can outplay them you'll generally do better.
Most of the strategy is in knowing when to invite allies, knowing who to invite, knowing whether or not to accept an invitation, and of course deciding what card to play. You'll have a pretty good win rate if you can figure out how to not only play the game but also how to game the players.
The stuff unique to FFG's edition is that the core box is a mix of classic races and brand new FFG-designed races. Also, the box has 50 races where prior editions usually had no more than 20. There are five expansions that add more races, again a mix of classic and new, as well as new mechanics like a special defender rewards deck. The last expansion is unique in that not only are all the races new (like the Tourist, pic related), they were also all designed by fans. Surprisingly enough, it wound up as one of the best expansions the game has ever had.
>>46301848
I can't imagine playing ANY game without shit-talking (in a nice way of course :) )... What kind of people would play with anything less?
Any good co-ops for 2? Considering pic related.
> What type of game does your group prefer Euro / Ameritrash / wargame?
Ameritrash mostly, although no one is against Euros we all just like strong theme in our games
> How often do you get to game?
Once or twice a week for 3-4 hours
> What's the one game you've had the longest without getting a chance to play?
Nothing worth mentioning, if it's worth playing we'll find time eventually
>>46304752
Most coopsthe ones without traitors, at leastcan be played with just 2 regardless, anon. If larger teams are required, each of you can take a second role.
>>46303680
>he has one hat for each eye
>>46303500
The game has a lot going for it, there's negotiation, bluffing, there's a bit of strategy/tactics in figuring out how/when you're going to play the cards in your hand.
It's also the next step up from Munchkin, a lot of what happens in your standard game of Munchkin, happens in Cosmic. There's no question which is the better game, Cosmic doesn't use stale humor, and while they both take about an hour, Cosmic doesn't feel like it's dragging quite as much.
It does share the same pitfalls though, if you don't want to sit around laughing at some whacky shit that happened, it's not gonna work. Your perfectly planned strategy is going to be busted up by some random bullshit, which might annoy you. And it does often have the same "we gotta stop the guy in the lead, can't let him win" problem, where being in 2nd or 3rd place often can assure you a victory once everyone's played off their best card blocking the guy about to win. It's not as bad as in Munchkin, but I've still seen it happen often enough, and that's a problem.
The biggest killer for me on Cosmic, was the price tag since FFG's reprint. It's definitely the best produced edition, and the game works for me in some situations, but I can't square with the $60 msrp, it really feels more like 45 to me.
>>46307470
Man, I love how even-handed you are. Like, even when you are praising it, you make it clear the kind of game it is.
I want more of that in my life. Tell me more about games you like. For an idea of my preferences, Village is currently my favorite board game.
>>46289826
Playing a fullblown RPG is probably best. Can be completely free if you use PDFs, and well... its an RPG, you can do whatever you want in it.
Or Descent 2e.
>>46307470
>The biggest killer for me on Cosmic, was the price tag since FFG's reprint. It's definitely the best produced edition, and the game works for me in some situations, but I can't square with the $60 msrp, it really feels more like 45 to me.
And this is why places like MM and CSI are a huge success. That and learning to be patient looking for deals on Amazon, the BGG Geek Bazaar, and Ebay.
And I'd agree with >>46307623 - Nice review. I've got a great review saved of the various C.E. expansions if anyone wants me to post it later.
>>46303680
You can mitigate a lot of the randomness except for draws with a few house rules. You can allow people to pick their starting race and extra flares etc.Which is completely wrong and awful.I never really understood the randomness complaint, to me a good game has to have some form of randomness or chance involved. Cosmic isn't so random as to disallow a good strategic edge given to a knowledgeable player. If a player can mitigate risk, and read their opponents intentions efficiently there is no reason that random draw should cause you to lose. Naturally a player should keep track of the powerful cardsShip zapped before a victory by an ally before the round is resolvedbut when you can reliably count the cards and take low risk colonies you will typically win more then naught.And yes some powers are indeed inclined to randomness like the classic Filch, or classic Schiz. I can't argue against this so I fully endorse the hate if you allow classics to run a muck.
>>46307623
Ok so let's talk about Istanbul which is one of my favorite next step euros from TtR. You're doing pick up and deliver, trying to find optimal routes others don't see, do I upgrade my cart now so I can do more trade-ins or go for quicker turnarounds and upgrade after I'm ahead? It's not overly complex, I can teach it to anyone who can handle Splendor or TtR, but it's got lots of little things that make an economic game fun. Best of all it's like 45 minutes for the short game setup, 90 for the long game, and you can throw tiles out variable too, fuck yeah replay!
But it's got what lots of economic games have, if ONE person is doing something that no one else is, that guy's gonna win, so you've gotta watch everyone very carefully all the time, which isn't great in a lighter/middleweight game. You want new gamers to be able to just focus on themselves and not have to watch everyone like a hawk; no way they can do that and win. Younger kids get pissed at this.
It's worse as a gamer who isn't new, where if you're 4 or 5 turns out from the end, often you can see who's won. There might be a way to block them, or delay it, but if one player has their strategy locked in and you didn't see it ahead of time, that's it. I will say I've found myself coming in second a lot while playing this with my brother in law, and I still have a hell of a time, because then I get to go back and reverse engineer his strategy, and how to play against it next time. You have to enjoy that puzzle to enjoy this game.
Components wise, it's what you want a game to be, good thick tiles, colorful art, solid wood pieces, the wagons/carts are a cool player board. The dice are nothing to write home about but how often do you find a d6 that makes you say wow? And the rubies are just Ascension gems but that's kinda industry standard nowadays. It sells it to new players though, and while I'm not thrilled about $50 msrp, it's out there online for 30, which is loads of game for cheap.
Going to get my dad a board game for his birthday. Torn between Terra Mystica, and Twilight Struggle. He does have an active gaming group, so that's not a problem.
Which do y'all think would be better for a fa/tg/uy guy in his late 40's? Suggestions are also welcome.
>>46307703
Yeah my buy list uses MSRP, amazon, and CSI (plus BGG sold item data) to determine what's a good sale price, what's good for a used game, and then I don't buy anything unless it crosses that threshold. Cosmic on CSI is definitely an acceptable price, but it's been known to go out of stock a lot. Plus you also have to factor in shipping costs. I might get it on CSI for $39.95, but shipping for that one game is $9.68, which is above a good buy price by maybe $5. Now five bucks doesn't seem like a big deal, but it adds up if you ignore it every time you order a game. So MM becomes the winner with $5.95 flat shipping? Maybe but they've swapped to air bag packaging and have been known to deliver dented games since swapping carriers last year, and if you don't order regularly the rewards program isn't as good as CSI. Gotta stretch that gaming budget to get max reward outta every penny, especially since ANA wants to phase out the poors.
>>46308188
Twilight Struggle is great, but if he games with a group of friends, I'd go for something other than a 2 player game.
>>46275053
> What type of game
Ameritrash and hybrids alldayerryday.
> How often do you get to game?
Used to be at least once a week until the start of the year, now more like once a month.
>What's the one game you've had the longest without getting a chance to play?
I think I've played everything I own at least once. Current longest without a play is probably Mage Knight or Fortune & Glory. Or Sequence, but who gives a shit about sequence.
>>46281965
Eh, looks alright. I like DPG, but probably can't be bothered to throw money at them for non-HoN stuff. Hell, I haven't even managed to work up the enthusiasm to get shadows over normandie.
>>46282582
I've been pleasantly surprised with Melee as a potent little dose of hate and loathing in a box.
>>46283316
>I can't wait to get into a four player game so we can introduce diplomacy.
Don't get your hopes too much, diplomacy in Eclipse is generally about as interesting as a condom in porn.
>>46284073
Very inconsistent game, but as the other anon said, when it's good it's REALLY good. And when the agent screws up and throws the game It's really bad. I don't think it's as good as Fury of Dracula, but it's a noticeable amount quicker even when the game goes long, and it's also got more interesting player abilities.
>>46284411
Have too much fun learning new rulesets and mechanics to get burnt out. Mildly depressed over lack of people around to play with these days, but that's not the same thing.
>>46284794
Played a couple times, pretty fun, but not enough to seduce me away from Netrunner, and I can't be bothered to invest in more than once LCG-esque game.
>>46286163
Had fun with shadow hunters the one time I played it, but didn't really feel compelled to add it to my collection. Might just be over-saturation of hidden role games.
>>46287941
Casually tell him to stop being a moron.
>>46289826
Level 7: Omega Protocol bretty gud.
>>46299279
If I don't need them for storage, into the recyc.
>>46302495
Gameplay is dry but the art/components take the winemaking theme a verrry long way. The visitor cards help too. They are like Intrigue cards in Lords of Waterdeep, except none of them hurt other players. And while it seems like a card might be overpowered at the time, later you realize that playing it may have cost you the game.
The engine building is very satisfying. The goal is filling orders, and the steps to get there are cut and dry, but there's strong incentive to cash out early each step along the way. I'm not sure if I like how money works. It's absolutely useless once you've maxed out your vineyard.
The actual worker placement is well thought out. Lots of choice between taking special bonuses now or taking the chance that it's still there later. If it gets taken it's usually not the worst thing in the world, because the main action will probably still be available. Special grande workers allow for even more flexibility. Having to plan ahead for winter makes for very thoughtful play. Friendly variant keeps players from specifically fucking someone out of an action.
The expansion brings tons of variation/customization to the game. I think there's 7 or 8 independently-working modules that tweak different parts of the game.
>>46309147
>I'm not sure if I like how money works. It's absolutely useless once you've maxed out your vineyard.
Expansion game board adds a market space where you can trade money, grapes, victory points, and I think cards interchangeably. So you can trade excess money for whatever it is you need, our or vice versa.
>>46308118
I fucking love Istanbul, but I must admit, every time I've played with my friends, I've won, by sheer virtue of having played the game the most.
It doesn't help that we always have new people so I always use the short routes board setup. I am sure if I changed that, I would immediately lose. So fun and clean though.
>>46309147
This sounds pretty great. I love dry themes. My favorite flavor from a game so far was Morels, a game about collecting mushrooms to eat.
I'll ask my shop to order me a copy. How does it compare to say, a Caverna? It sounds pretty traditional.
>>46309853
>How does it compare to say, a Caverna?
Caverna has you try to meet the basic minimum for your tribe to survive every turn, you WILL get fucked over. Viticulture doesn't really give a shit if you get your order in this turn, or even the next. Obviously, you should get it done sooner rather than later... but there's no pressure from the game itself, only the other players.
>>46309853
It's terribly underplayed for winning kennerspiel, I don't think AEG did a very good job promoting it, but I don't think they do a good job promoting anything but Smash Up and Love Letter. On the other hand, they have done a good job of finding and picking up distribution/publishing licenses for some solid games outside those two. Checking out Greedy Greedy Goblins this weekend, which I'm hoping is a less enraging Galaxy Trucker, with a better price tag.
okay guys I think I'm going to pull the trigger on this one
>>46310115
Interesting. That sounds fun. Cool. Appreciate the info.
>>46310571
Haha. That's like a fraction of my student debt. Ha. Haha..
>>46310160
>>46310160
I keep wanting to buy galaxy trucker, but the setup is intimidating. My friends are usually patient, but there are limits to how long they are willing to wait before you start a game.
>>46311253
I can't justify it, based on how polarizing it is, for the massive cost that it is. Coolstuff/amazon have it for ~$50, and it's a big game with lots of bits, but it's also a game that a lot of people hate playing past the design/build phase.
I think of it like all the arcade ports that came back in the NES days of console gaming. They were crazy hard, didn't have save options, few checkpoints to start your 2nd/3rd life on in each level, and you'd have 1-2 hit points. They were designed to milk quarters out of kids, and when ported over didn't get the fixes that a game that's not charging you each time you hit enter should.
Galaxy Trucker is Ghosts and Goblins, which I still have a copy of, and still play at least once every time I reconnect the NES to the tv, but after 3 or 4 attempts, I say fuck it I'll try to beat this in 6 months. I'm not sure that makes for a good sell on a board game, and especially not at a higher price point.
The app however, is probably the best one to own for a phone/tablet, and the campaign mode makes it so that getting blown up on turn 2 is no longer a pain in the ass to reset the whole board, and mix tiles, and shuffle decks, it's automated and a fun challenge (although unlike Ghosts and Goblins, I can win). I love Vlaada's games, but I think he designed an arcade game and did a shit job porting it to analog format.
>>46311526
I want to play fucking Space Alert, but after two attempts of getting through all of the tutorial missions, my friends just think it is a bad game.
It is so fucking cool though! I swear, if I had a regular group full of people I like, I would really push for that game.
>>46311667
Yeah same symptom different game, it's great but crazy frustrating and can turn people off; I've had a lot of success with Escape though. Easier yes, and some people have very high win statistics against it, but the expansions can up the complexity a bit, especially the newest one.
Played this for the first time this morning, Id give it a C+.
A bit heavier on rules than we are used to, but we were able to get a smooth run on our first playthrough.
Lots of momentum changes, Chaos won in the end mostly due to incredible cards, while the Imperium couldn't draw anything useful to save her life.
Anyone know any board games for young young kids that have a kind of modern sensibility to them?
>>46313717
How young do your young have to be in order to be young enough to be young young?
>>46313717
>a kind of modern sensibility
just load up angry birds on your phone and hand it to them
>>46313717
You might want to give us an age range rather than 'young young' which is vague to say the least.
Im strongly debating on buying Star Wars Rebellion. Im actually not a big fan of star wars but the game looks fun, bu that combat looks needlessly clunky and fiddly. Its $75 on Amazon.
I was also debating on picking up War of the Rings instead, ive heard nothing but outstanding things about it, but I watched some of Ricky Royals videos on it, it looks very meh.
Also looking forward to Star Trek Frontiers, Star Trek Ascendancy and mildy looking forward to Star Trek Panic.
I was going to get Fury of Dracula, ive been looking for a cat and mouse game (why SW:R caught my eye) but heard that if you have a Dracula that does nothing but run it gets a little boring.
tldr: is there a game thats similar cat and mouse as Star Wars Rebellion?
>>46312279
>2016
>still using GW products
Why?
You should really stop liking things I don't like.
It's for your own good.
>>46312279
Ive played it twice, I really enjoy the game but setup takes like 30 mins.
It seems like in our two games that the Imperium of Man has the advantage. But overall we really enjoy the game.
>>46284794
I played it last night. Seems okay. I like it better than any other not-Magic I've played. Seems like a high investment game (in terms of attention, not money), like all card games.
>>46314357
>SImilar Cat & Mouse to Rebellion
Fury of Dracula / Specter Ops really are probably your best bets. You're right that occasionally Fury changes tone from "WHERE THE FUCK IS HE?" to "HOW THE FUCK DO WE CATCH HIM?", but there's usually an answer, especially in the base game without Dracula's toolbox of special moves - which I recommend playing without until the hunters are usually winning the base game.
Also if you're that excited for Frontiers / Ascendancy, you really should be checking out Fleet Captains.
>>46314610
I have fleet captains, love it. I still need to get the Dominion expansion.
Im a boarding Federation player. Pic is my Fed ships I painted.
So one of my buddies has become a huge board game snob as of late. He designed a game (with some testing help and design advice from our gaming group) and had a more or less successful kickstarter, which is great. But now he sours on games super quick and constantly complains about anything he finds to be less than perfectly designed, especially but not only when he's losing. I understand some of his frustration, but not only is it a real mood killer, it's becoming increasingly difficult to find new games we can play more than once (he will play anything once).
Any suggestions about this? Cutting him out isn't really something I'd like to do - he's been my friend for a very long time and he's roommates with one of our other regulars. I'm not sure what to do besides tell him to stop bitching, which doesn't seem likely to end well.
>>46284794
How about Epic?
>>46314785
not Epic enough.
>>46313819
Ugh. He's already always watching YouTube or Netflix. The fact that he shows interest in traditional games is something I like to support over staring slack jawed at a screen.
>>46314195
>>46313754
I did earlier and got no replies. I was hoping being vague would get me something, rather than people second guessing themselves by thinking "well, this is good for 6 year olds, buuuut...". The kid is 4. Turning 5 in May.
>>46314741
You could only buy good games.
Or more likely, talk to him about his tone. Me and my friend always critique games as or after we play them, but as long as you aren't miserable about it, it really is fine.
>>46314357
>tldr: is there a game thats similar cat and mouse as Star Wars Rebellion
You're basically looking for asymmetrical wargames. A quick search of BGG brings up a few possibles;
Ogre/G.E.V.
Andean Abyss & the COIN series
Insurgency
Labyrinth: The War On Terror
Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan
This is a formula that GMT games is really good at. War of the Ring is something I've likewise heard great things about.
I guess just find one with a theme that appeals to you and read more about it?
>>46314909
Romance of the Nine Empires?
It's a one-box re-theme of Legend of the Burning Sands - one of the most mechanically interesting 90's CCGs. It's pretty fucking sweet.
>>46314909
There's also Blue Moon Legends
Which might be easier to grasp for someone not familiar with CCGs, while retaining all of the depth & counterplay of a really good one.
So this past weekend we played the shit out of Lords of Waterdeep, in total we played 20 hours. I'm really surprised that my wife liked the game so much that wanted to continue well after 5 a.m.
I know Lords is a gateway game so what is the general consensus on what is next after Lords of Waterdeep?
What games were you guys surprised that someone in your group liked?
>>46315030
My problem is im a sucker for space themed games. and even tho I find Star Wars very meh, its still a theme I can get behind. Its really just the combat system from what I see feels clunky and not fun, and the fact that pretty much every event will be out every game.
>>46314964
Kinda depends how advanced he is compared to his age. Lots of games say 8+ but I've seen 6yr olds take them on with no problems. Pic related is my next project, because I'm not getting any work done on it this week. Games are organized by weight/recommended age, the lighter stuff is at the left of each category, and might work for you.
>>46315030
>>46315068
what I said was actually a really lame joke. but hey new games to explore.
I think is interesting Romance of the Nine empires. is related to Legend of the five Rings?
also could the other one explain me Blue Moon Legends?
>>46315115
Might want to check out Risk: Star Wars Edition
It's not actually Risk. It's a re-theme of a well liked game called Queen's Gambit. I don't know much else though.
>>46315090
You looking for more Worker Placement games?
I recommend Village. It is a bit different, but fun and cool and nowhere near as complicated as say, Caverna (which I adore).
>>46315149
Hm. I'll look into some of these. A lot are pretty advanced for my brother. It is hard to tell what level he is at. He plays a lot of video games and seems to comprehend a lot when it comes to shows and whatnot. But he doesn't seem to have the patience for most stuff.
It is frustrating how adamant he is that school is boring and reading isn't fun. Hopefully, seeing as he is the one asking to play board games with me, he'll be a bit more patient.
>>46315276
lol... have it too.... lol
Basically what mainly intrigues me about SWR is one player having to hide the rebel base and the others having to find said base. that combined with the missions and trying to throw the other players attention somewhere else.
>>46315317
Alright, I'll look into Village. Yes, my end goal is to get them to Caverna. What about Stone Age?
>>46315006
If we were only allowed to play games he thought were good I'm pretty sure we'd do nothing but play vanilla seven wonders and mad king's castle ever. I like those games, but after N+1 weekends in a row of nothing else, I get pretty bored. I should mention that any significant chance element sets him off.
We do too, I don't mind it. In fact we'll do it during games too - I don't mind that either. The biggest issue is that every game is one play and done.
>>46315204
As I understand it, Legend of the Burning Sands was a spin-off/distant cousin of L5R.
Burning Sands was the better game mechanically but it never caught on quite as well. Romance of the Nine Empires is just a re-theme with some balance tweaks, all in one box.
Blue Moon is Knizia card game. It's pretty different from MtG style CCGs. It's a sort've tug-of-war/CtF style game. Deck size is small, and there are no redundant cards.
Basically you are using creatures to combat each other. Each creature has two power values printed on it - one in the element of Fire, and one in the element of Earth. Whoever starts a fight chooses either earth or fire, and you have to find ways of exceeding your opponent's declared power in successive rounds of bidding. You play out stronger creatures and enhance them with various things. Sometimes you're able to switch the element the fight is in.
So the basic mechanics are quite simple, but it's all very mindgame-y in much the same way that a close match in a CCG would be.
There are a number of factions and some deckbuilding options which are reminiscent of Netrunner - you have a limited amount of influence (Moons) to spend on bringing in out-of-faction cards.
>>46315512
Ah, that sucks. A hobby as expensive as this can't afford that. Those games are admittedly pretty good.
Maybe you could ask him to provide games, but say "but I don't want to play BLAH, we played it pretty recently". This way the picky fucker can get what he wants and you guys get variety.
>>46315464
I admit to only have played Stone Age on my phone, with very bad AI, but the dice thing and the very very limited number of real choices you make during the game turns me off a lot. I played it a bunch, but there really are only a few places you can place your dudes sensibly for most of the game.
>>46315317
If he's not that advanced I highly recommend any of the first 4 dexterity games, and Chupacabra. It is great for kids, all it requires is being able to count, and roll dice; and since everyone rolls at the same time, and the game lasts all of 5-10 minutes, it's easy to do without the kids getting bored. I once spent 30 minutes playing with my sister and her kid after I'd been at Gencon all day and gotten free 1-player samples of the game. Taught them each in 30 seconds, played one handed while eating pizza for dinner.
If you go the dexterity route, Coconuts prolly has the most longevity, while Rhino Hero is best bang for buck.
>>46315389
So you're looking for a space-themed asymmetric wargame with secret unit deployment.
I can't think of anything else quite like that.
It sounds like a game I'd like to play though.
>>46315276
If it's not risk, why the heck did they call it risk?
>>46315970
Brand recognition. Marketing 101.
>>46315970
There are quite few non-Risk games named Risk these days. Some of them are really good.
I suspect that Hasbro has discovered a market in casuals that will buy & play something named Risk that would otherwise intimidate them.
>>46315608
I'm personally interested in RotNE but I promised myself that I'll not bring more card games until I stabilize myself and my games.
>>46314366
It's a Fantasy Flight Games product, not Games Workshop. In fact, Games Workshop won't even allow it to be brought in to their stores.
Funny story abou that. I had bought this game about 2 years ago at the flgs. I left there, and stopped by the GW on my way home for something (I forget what, probably paint).
I was on my motorcycle, and the game was sticking out the top of my backpack - which I always set down by tgecash out counter. A couple guys there asked about it, so I decided to open it up so we could all check it out. Nope. The store manager told me it wasnt allowed in the building, and that I had to leave it outside.
>dude, I'll put it away, but I cant just leave it sitting outside. Im on my motorcycle.
>sorry mate, you have to leave
Forget that I'd spent ~$2k there in the past year, probably more. I had another incident there shortly after; I don't go there anymore. And I only buy GW products second-hand, out of spite.
>>46317457
That's fucked up.
>>46314357
Maybe look for EFTAIOS? Hidden movement game with one half of the players being spacemen trying to get to the escape pods, and another half being aliens trying to eat them, and nobody knows who anybody is. It's cat and mouse (one side chasing the other?) with plenty of bluffing using the cards (which determine if you make a sound from where you're currently standing or not). No idea if it's still in print though.
>>46314741
Just tell him in advance before game day whenever you're playing a game you think he won't like, if he doesn't want to come he doesn't need to. Next session you can let him decide on a game to play.
>>46317457
I've heard a lot of stories about GW stores, and having never even seen one, I can't believe they're like that.
>>46317892
You could be mature and talk about this issue with him, or could do what I'd do, which would be to suggest playing the game that he made every time he starts complaining. Either that or just stop inviting him to board game nights, but otherwise maintain good relations with him.
>>46317892
EFTAIOS? I cant find that in BGG? Got a link or the full name? That sounds cool as hell
>>46318236
Escape from the aliens in outer space.
>>46308768
>I've been pleasantly surprised with Melee as a potent little dose of hate and loathing in a box.
Tell me more. I love take that! games that can be just brutal, but have so few of them, not many played for multiplayer.
I've seen it in stores several times, but nothing about it stood out to me.
I remember a few threads ago someone decided to coat their Starcraft tokens with something to protect them (varnish?). As someone who recently played a few games of Forbidden Stars, I can definitely see how this might be a good idea. Anyone know what that fellow might have used?
Anyone else gotten to try the glory that is Pictomania? The cutesy box art betrays the fact that this is one of the best drawing games I've ever gotten to play. Mostly because, unlike Pictionary, everyone gets to draw and guess at the same time. You get points for speed, but get them taken away if no one guesses your drawing or if people guess incorrectly.
It's a blast. The only thing it needs is more cards.
>>46320177
Speaking of the cards, here's an example. When you draw, you'll get to draw one of seven clues on one of six (I think) cards that are drawn for that round. There are a couple twists. Everyone will be drawing off a different card and everyone will have a different number of clue they have to draw. On top of that, the clues are all very similar on each individual card, meaning you'll have to think hard about how you're going to draw.
The Green cards are very basic, with simple clues that are fairly unique from one another. The Orange are a little harder. The Blue harder still. And the Purple ones veer into the almost abstract.
>>46319401
no idea but I do know that lots of people use a thin coat of something like Mod Podge on the edges of thick cardboard tokens to prevent them from fraying apart
>>46275053
What is the best WW2 Wargame that comes entirely in one box and isn't Axis and Allies?
>>46321018
Memoir'44?
don't judge me, is the first thing it came to my mind.
>>46320177
is this game really popular in east europe? for some reason a lot of the videos seem to be east europeans playing it or explaining it
>>46321276
The game designer is Czech. He also made Galaxy Trucker, Dungeon Lords, and the quite popular at the moment Codenames.
>>46321018
Too broad a category. Theater, campaign, scale, infantry, armor, air, or sea? Mechanics? All depends on what you're looking for.
Most likely you'll want something from GMT games though. They make such nice things.
Letters from Whitechapel or Fury of Dracula?
>Oh look, I'm being so mean/munchkin-y/evil/brutal
>Playing a game like munchkin/betrayal/uno/any game with a take that mechanic that is the whole point of the game
Why are people so dumb?
>>46322324
Admittedly, if you don't roleplay even a little bit, Betrayal gets pretty dull pretty quick.
>>46310571
You'd think those cheap bastids could at least cover the shipping at that price.
>>46318160
>I've heard a lot of stories about GW stores, and having never even seen one, I can't believe they're like that.
You can believe it. They've had shitty attitudes towards customers, independent retailers, and just about anyone else along the way for a couple decades. It's why over the last 4 years they've had: repeated prices hikes to prop up revenue, rules systems with quality that's rapidly declining, and ever shrinking sales numbers. Faced with ever greater competition in minis gaming, board gaming and video gaming - the good ship GW-Titanic has been homing in on a suitable ice-berg to ram on its quest to reach the bottom.
>>46322121
I haven't played either but from what I have heard Letters from Whitechapel is more visceral and Fury of Dracula is getting a bit dated.
>>46323664
>the good ship GW-Titanic has been homing in on a suitable ice-berg to ram on its quest to reach the bottom.
The good part about this is that they will inevitably sell off the IPs in order to shore up debt, which means we might actually get a GOOD game out of them.
>tfw no one wants to play power grid with me
>even if I start in priciest region.
>>46317457
Fucking GW...
>>46322121
Fury of Dracula, there's more going on and there are more options for clever plays. With LfW, it becomes a math puzzle in the late game, with the police guys counting how many steps you could have made since the start. It's not tense, it's boring as shit.
I know some of you guys have a weird deep seated hatred of dice, and I've been doing some game design, so I'm curious.
Suppose you have a 20 card deck of results. When the trigger occurs, you draw a card, then resolve. Return the card, to the stack, shuffle.
Do people prefer this because they want more control or is it some odd aversion of chucking shaped plastic?
I've heard mention that rolling a really bad roll can be very immersion breaking (like a trained swordsman stabbing a friend every 20 swings), but if you use cards, and you don't shuffle them, you're garunteed to get that odd situation sooner more often than later vs what dice do.
>>46326589
People don't mind the randomness of a deck as much as they mind dice.
>>46326589
I'd say that is actually less preferable due to more work per result, unless you get multiple draws without returning cards to the deck. That's only because I know about how the probability changes when using a deck of cards though, and because I find rolling dice fun.
>>46322472
Role play in the sense of LOLSORANDUM stuff is happening to me!! It's a shitty game for creating a narrative and any game that makes me do ALL of the work for it to not be a festering pile of wasted money isn't a good game.
>>46324059
Probably got it backwards, or maybe you're talking about FoD 2nd edition? 3rd Ed came out late last year
>>46326589
>return to the stack after each result and shuffle
Never do this. Cutthroat Caverns has us reshuffle and deal a deck of initiative cards each round. I just use the random.org app because fuck that
The reason to prefer a deck is because you can't get the same result too many times, whereas on a die you can get a shit roll X times in a row. Reshuffling cards back in every time defeats the whole purpose of a deck.
>>46327529
I won't defend most of those games, but I'll defend Betrayal. It is a bit rough around the edges, but the scenarios are usually genuinely fun and exciting.
>>46314690
Awesome job, wish I had the patience and skill to do the same.
Or wish Attack Wing had decent enough prepaints to make it worth importing models from there. Fuckin' WizKids.
Dominion expansion is great, but probably not quite as good as Romulan. Maybe just because I haven't played with it as much.
7 player playtest to learn the game so we can better teach everyone on Saturday. Look good?
>>46328398
>7 player learning game
>4 ring galaxy
>With Domain Counters
>>46328534
I'm actually really surprised at how fast it's moving. We set everything up yesterday and today we just jumped right into it. A little over an hour in and we're almost through the first turn! Lol
>>46328627
Once you know the game it goes fairly quickly. We recently had a game with 5 players with all the expansions and extra modules and it lasted just over 7 hours, with a break for lunch in the middle.
Anybody picking this up? I loved the original Evolution but thought it was kind of simplistic.
>>46328627
Assume you mean Round instead of Turn.
But yeah, great job if you can keep that pace up. First few turns on a map that roomy are pretty quick in my experience.
Personally think the game is a lot more interesting, especially for the first 4-5 turns, if you keep it to around 4-5 players on as small a galaxy as you think you can get away with, but that's just me.
>>46328652
>>46328699
We're using shock troops, space mines, distant suns, artifacts, mercenaries, all strategy cards, preliminary objectives, sabotage runs, facilities, space domains, wormhole nexus, all hazards, leaders, representatives, promissory notes, flagships, and I think that's it. Anything in that list of stuff that isn't really worth playing? We're dedicating 2 full days to playing and have a solid group that's pretty good on picking up on rules and long games.
>>46328801
>All Strategy Cards
I really hope that's not what you meant.
>>46328801
I'd add Mechanized units to the list.
>>46328821
Yeah, we're using all of them. Like I said, we're learning everything about it that we can. Should we not be using all of them for some reason?
>>46328928
You might be thinking about action cards. Strategy Tokens are those big shits you only use 8 of.
>>46328801
For a real response:
Shock Troops are great, always use.
Mines are okay, but have them occupy a border instead of an entire system. TI3 is turtle-heavy enough as-is, especially large games.
Distant Suns isn't BAD, but it does slow down an already slow game. I use it on small maps and avoid it on big ones.
Artifacts are great, but keep an eye on them. Most games with artifacts included are won by someone grabbing several in the same round.
Mercs are fun, but generally not worth the extra bookkeeping. Worth playing with once so you can decide for yourself.
All Strategy Cards, if you mean that literally, is problematic, they are not balanced against each other. How are you actually running this? Normally you should be using one strategy card of each number, so 8 total.
Preliminary Objectives are fine.
Sabotage Runs are fine but super minor, let us know if one ever works.
Facilities are okay, though I advise changing their cost to "the upgraded planet does not refresh on the round you build the facility". Subtle but significant.
Space Domains are about equivalent to distant suns for added game value.
Wormhole Nexus is great, but Creuss are just going to camp on it and be unassailable.
Leaders are good.
Representatives are a lot of fun, but add enormous length and unpredictability to the politics. Use at own risk.
Promissory Notes are great.
Flagships are also great, if not super well balanced. Nekro flagship especially can be a real tactical puzzle to play around, and not always in a good way.
>>46328914
I knew we missed one! Yeah we have that already.
>>46329011 nah, we're using all of them, but we made it so you exhaust the pile of that particular strategy when whoever picks one from it picks it.
>>46329025 wow. Thank you so much for that. The strategy thing is more of an experiment. Gonna see how everything works out and we're going to be pretty liberal with the rules to make everything flow smoothly.
>>46329212
My thoughts on your Strategy Card experiement:
1. Initiative vs Leadership: Leadership is more interesting, but situationally not as powerful in large games. Initiative manipulates the speaker token while Leadership does not - having more than one card in play that claims the speaker token may be a problem.
2. Diplomacy vs Diplomacy II: D2 will help speed the game up more, but don't see a huge problem with both.
3. Political vs Political II vs Assembly vs Assembly II: Here's where I start seeing real problems. Only P2 and A2 use the representatives. A1 and A2 assign the speaker token, conflicting with initiative. P1 has you drawing political cards off the deck to vote on. P2 assumes there are faceup public ones from which you choose. A1 and A2 assume that political cards are kept in your hand and played from there to be voted on. While these don't directly conflict, they're likely to get very confusing.
4. Logistics / Production: Logistics is mostly redundant with Leadership. Including both means Logistics only gets picked if someone really needs free CC's and someone else already took leadership, or someone took Initiative. Production will help speed the game up.
5.Trade vs Trade II vs Trade III: Only T3 allows you to hire mercs and only T3 requires you to pay them, so as long as no one is picking T3 mercs are free. Noticeable buff to mercs. Other than that most of this is okay to run in parallel.
6. Warfare / Warfare 2: Pretty similar effects, but Warfare 2 is just better outside of very niche situations.
7. Tech vs Tech 2: No one's ever going to pick Tech 1. Pointless to run both.
8. Imperial vs Imperial II vs Bureaucracy: Virtually never going to see anything but Imperial picked, no one is going to pass up 2VP. Enormously upvalues the speaker token, making the conflicting speaker token assigning cards a bigger issue. Occasionally may see the guy in the lead picking Bureaucracy once it's got a few tokens in order to dig for Imperium Rex and win.
>>46326589
People prefer cards because you can refine your example quite easily by doing the following;
You have a deck of 20 cards.
At the start of the game the player draws up to their starting hand size of (whatever) and replenishes those cards as they are used.
Now where you had pure randomness you have resource management. There are games that use dice in a similar way, but usually cards work better for this - you can put more rules and art on them and the player's hand is hidden from others, which heightens drama.
Games are about interesting choices.
Rolling dice doesn't offer any choice.
It just punishes the player for less-than-perfect risk management.
>>46329769
Addendum: depending on how you're handling bonus counters on strat cards, someone might pick obviously worse options like Tech2 at some point.
>>46329769
Wow, thank you so much for going into detail like that. We were thinking about just not including imperial 1, but we don't want the game to go so long that the two days ends up not being enough lol.
What would you say would be good to just outright remove/what are your thoughts on possibly allowing selections from the same stack of strategy cards?
>>46329025
Does base TI3 suffer from any major problems that are fixed by the expansions? Considering picking up one of the expansions before the price probably goes up.
>>46329979
Not enough dice rolls.
>>46329935
I'd absolutely remove Imperial 1. But then, I'd also strongly advise you to decide on a set of a single card in each slot that you like and just run those. I understand wanting to teach everyone as much of the game at once as possible, but all the strategy cards at once really isn't necessary or beneficial, and the consequences for balance are a difficult to predict - exponentially more so if you allow multiples from the same slot to be picked on the same round.
If you're really feeling this ambitious and want to teach the game once and then be done with it, one option would be to just jump straight into adopting the Shattered Ascention fan rulset / patch, but there's a noticeable amount of component-making to do there - replacing the race sheets, strategy cards, racial tech cards, flagship cards, many of the political and action cards, etc. Probably not something to attempt before this weekend, but maybe look at it going forward, I think it's a decent - if not quite obligatory - improvement on the official rules.
>>46329979
Eh, some. Fighter swarms are a bit too strong in base, for instance. Mostly the game just feels more complete with everything included.
Managed to win a Starcraft boardgame auction for $90. Pretty happy with that.
Dude sold it off to clear room after is spent years in the closet with just 2 or 3 plays from his kids, so it's supposed to be in really good condition. Fingers crossed, /tg/.
I'll ask here...
Where can I get images of Warhammer 40K CCGs from Sabertooth games? Some nostalgia.
>>46333099
Google.
>>46333144
Doesn't give a shit.
>>46333173
And yet somehow you think boardgame general does.
>>46333215
I believe that anon delivers.
>>46333099
Look for some card trading website that still has it, they tend to have all the scans.
This weekend I'm going to play Eclipse and I get to try Pyxis Unity, I've only played once against them and they really struggled, also i was Shapers of Dorado and got pretty lucky with the time distortion tiles, and kind of wrecked every body.
So I would love to receive some tips about this race because I'm not even sure how to play it. First thing that comes to me is try to get the most of the first turn starting with 8 materials or 8 science seems pretty good like get hull build a cruiser go towards the center. So i think it's a rather aggressive race but I'm not really sure if that's the correct approach to it.
Thoughts and tips are welcome.
>>46334555
Krosmaster Arena sucks!
>>46334604
It's pretty expensive and I think still sells blind boxes. Is that what you mean, or does the game itself suck?
>>46333362
The problem with a one time 'resource' bonus as a racial ability is that it'll be spent and gone while others will still be reaping their racial ability benefits. If you are going to buy a cruiser early, you'll want to use it to kill 'Ancients' sitting on top of 'tech advancement' tiles in the sectors your explore rather than going after the sentinel at the center of the map. Particularly early game where it'll just out gun you and wear your fleet down. Also, if there's nothing really good to buy tech wise early on, avoid the urge to spend 'just because'. You will want some basics to decrease the cost of the more advanced stuff later, but I see lots of players go nuts spending and then get killed when they can't produce ships or pay upkeep costs.
>>46327614
>The reason to prefer a deck is because you can't get the same result too many times, whereas on a die you can get a shit roll X times in a row. Reshuffling cards back in every time defeats the whole purpose of a deck.
Not to be pedantic, but where it life is it guaranteed that you'll achieve success by simply repeating an action long enough? Dice rolls do indeed mean that you can otherwise make sound strategic choices but still lose. Short of using lots of hidden information, it's simulate this real world environment in a game. You can make ideal choices as a business leader or a military leader, and things beyond your control like market forces or weather can still cripple or defeat you. I'm pretty sure that many game designers are intentionally not designing games where 'perfect strategy / play always equals win' because they become boring and stall quickly.
>>46334664
I didn't like it when I played it. It was a one time thing though.
It just seemed tedious and complicated. Video game IRL, with all that entails.
>>46335422
A deck of cards or other forms of randomization also guarantee that every game won't be the same, just less likely to have extreme streaks of bad or good luck.
Take everyone's most hated game, Catan. Remember all those times someone gets fucked because somehow, 3 is rolled more often than 8? And it drags the whole game out? Yeah. That.
>>46335750
I can fully understand the Catan example and wouldn't disagree in the least. My points probably weren't clear in my other reply.
1. By not shuffling cards back into the deck of 20 - the system guarantees that you'll see ever result (good or bad) if play goes on long enough. I.e. if you weed out the bad card draws early you're guaranteed the good cards later.
2. With the Catan example - it's an example of a bad choice of game mechanic for a vital part of the game, and not due to 'dice rolling as a mechanic'. Stone Age uses dice to determine the amount of a given resource you get (including the possibility of getting none for your efforts if you roll badly). However it's up to the player to choose which resources they attempt to gain - only other players could block you from a specific resource on any given turn, and they can't block you for an entire game as who goes first changes each turn. So, I don't think RNG as a game mechanic is a bad thing - I simply think it's a game mechanic that's used badly by a lot of game designers. (It's like a crutch for when they get stuck trying to resolve a mechanics issue or a balance problem.)
>>46336021
I admittedly don't like Stone Age because of the dice thing. That and the fact that there are usually only about 4 reasonable places to chose from when placing guys.
I dunno. Honestly, worker placement games don't really want lots of randomization, some is fine, but like, you don't need much of it.
Stone Age already has the huts and the boats. That's random enough for Lords of Waterdeep. Why does it need dice?
The tools are by far the most useless thing of the three main huts.
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