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Rudy Riot posted:If youve got one, theres an iPad version that just came out. Very basic but it's only 5 bucks and you can see if its a game you'd want to own. I ended up picking it up since I was at the store. We knocked out our first 3-player game in ~90mins tops, so not too bad I think. I really enjoyed but it having the hidden points that are possible in the expansion would make it better yet. Also played my new copy of Puerto Rico. Love that game, but the drat Mayor always forgets to restock the colonists ship so it was a little wonky. And played some D-Day Dice!
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Oct 12, 2012 08:59
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bobvonunheil posted:Ugh I have had this. Most of my AF games go for about 2 hours because there's always someone who doesn't know what the hell to do with his dice, or that the number on the opposite side of a 2 is a 5, or he works out his plan just right then realizes he's one energy short and spends the next 5 minutes working out how to get it in the same turn.
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Oct 12, 2012 10:43
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Tenderloin posted:CoolStuffInc is having a October sale with Descent 2E going for $42 with free shipping. Seems to be a good bit cheaper than I've ever seen it. 
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Oct 12, 2012 15:32
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Blamestorm posted:I think it's fantastic. It's really a lightweight tactical miniatures game with advancement rather than a dungeon crawl but it's easy to explain and learn (5 minutes to show people how to play) and fast and fun to play. Setup is quick and encounters take way less time than D1ed. I think it will have a lot of longevity with expansions I think this is spot on. Just remember it's a Fantasy Flight game - the rules are much simpler and tighter than Descent 1e but it's still a FF rulebook.
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Oct 12, 2012 15:36
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I was debating pre-ordering The Great Zimbabwe because I'm super psyched for that game but I decided instead of pre-ordering one game I'd rather snag up a few for the same cost. Grabbed the Brass re-issue and Caylus because it's been lacking from my library. Also threw in a couple smaller games I plan on handing out for gifts. I added in Grimoire to push myself over free shipping, never played it before, is it a fun light game? I like keeping stuff on hand for entertaining non-gamers.
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Oct 13, 2012 02:27
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Crackbone posted:I think this is spot on. Just remember it's a Fantasy Flight game - the rules are much simpler and tighter than Descent 1e but it's still a FF rulebook. True, but I actually think FFG are getting a bit better on this. If they'd only thrown in a one page quick start as well I think it would be pretty good. The clarity and efficiency of the rules themselves are miles past any of their other flagship releases and the manual is clearer than in the past. I think Netrunner isn't too bad either. They still could be better, but I think this is miles off Arkham Horror / Twilight Imperium / Descent 1e. They've got a simple ruleset and most of the variation on the cards and sheets rather than in the book. Actually, what's funny is I think I have been trained by earlier FFG games to never take any statement at face value - I've had big problems with both this and Netrunner reading a one line rule, then starting to root around looking for exceptions automatically rather than just processing the rule on face value. I spent twenty minutes googling a Netrunner card to see how it worked, but it worked exactly like it was written on the card - I just couldn't believe it was that simple. So I reckon they are getting better.
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Oct 13, 2012 03:03
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Admin Understudy posted:I was debating pre-ordering The Great Zimbabwe because I'm super psyched for that game but I decided instead of pre-ordering one game I'd rather snag up a few for the same cost. Grabbed the Brass re-issue and Caylus because it's been lacking from my library. Also threw in a couple smaller games I plan on handing out for gifts. I added in Grimoire to push myself over free shipping, never played it before, is it a fun light game? I like keeping stuff on hand for entertaining non-gamers. A friend of mine is getting me the Great Zimbabwe directly from Essen. Hopefully I'll have a report on it in a couple of weeks or so. I'm looking forward to it!
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Oct 13, 2012 04:10
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Is anyone going to Essen here? I'm planning to go for the first time.
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Oct 13, 2012 08:18
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Played Thebes today. A very fun thematic game that rewards timing - go too slow and you'll unearth an empty tomb, go too fast and you'll have a lot of spare time. I didn't know about tomb books or value ranks, so I lost, but my ambition got me a very strong 2nd place. I reccomend it. I also played Who Would Win (and LOST!), as well as coached three first timers in 7 Wonders. They sat next to each other, so I knew more than I should've about upcoming cards, but eh. Team Pangaea pulled off a very tainted victory (1st, 3rd, 5th?) Before that, I won as science Rome, going pretty much all compass and blues.
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Oct 13, 2012 10:43
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Finally got my girlfriend to play Space Alert. Turns out what she didn't like about it the first time was going through the (admittedly long) tutorial. It should be better next time, once we get through the bit about internal threats. We even cleared all the threats pretty quickly without taking on very much damage our last time through. Now we really want the expansion.
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Oct 13, 2012 12:01
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mikeycp posted:Finally got my girlfriend to play Space Alert. I highly recommend it. Even if you use nothing else from the expansion, the Specializations are a good enough improvement over Hero Actions to warrant getting the expansion.
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Oct 13, 2012 18:24
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I got in a few games yesterday. It was my second time playing Libertalia which remained very fun to play. I highly recommend checking it out, for those unfamiliar; each player has a nearly identical deck of 30 different pirate character cards that have different abilities and are ranked to both resolve those abilities and allow you to select treasure in order. Each player gets to choose from an identical set of 9 characters that changes each round and it's pretty fun trying to guess which ones your opponents are playing and when, so you can get out on top. Not really enough strategy to keep me going but it's a blast for being a relatively simple game. There was some filler of Flower Fall and Incan Gold and then I played my first game of Netrunner. It was alright, didn't excite me enough to make it a must-get. I'm sure it was just my unfamiliarity with the game but it was a lot of boring waiting. I was waiting until I had a good combo of cards to do anything. I would definitely like to play it again though. Lastly I played Farmerama the latest game by Rosenberg. On the lighter side, Farmerama has you managing 4 different types of crops on a series of plots of farmland. You use the crops to feed animals and then advance a scoring track for each animal. The whole thing is controlled by a spinner on your board that permits you to plant/harvest/place animals on specific farm plots. You decide what you'e going to do each round by selecting one of five action cards. If multiple people choose the same action card, one of them gets a bonus tile that nets them free resources. However it's typically more beneficial to be the only one taking that action as it lets you perform it more efficiently. I enjoyed it a good amount, but I definitely need more plays to really tell how good of a game it is. I appreciate that you can approach it in a pretty strategic way but it remains pretty accessible for all types of gamers...as in you're doing one of 5 things each round by playing a card corresponding to that action, and the board itself is very good about telling you how you can perform that action. I feel like it would probably make a good 2 or 3 person game as well (we played 4).
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Oct 14, 2012 14:10
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Played Yggdrasil with my family last night. I could be one of the worst board game teachers of all time and my family certainly doesn't have a knack for catching on quick, but this game was really easy to learn and very, very fun right off the bat. I think Ygg takes over as our favorite co-op game.
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Oct 14, 2012 15:55
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Chiken n' Waffles posted:Played Yggdrasil with my family last night. I love this game too. Very fun and can be difficult. The abilities are varied and fun. I've purposely tried to not metagame it so we lose a lot even without the difficult cards. And  ragnarok cards...those look scary.
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Oct 14, 2012 16:03
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I do sort of like the resource management system of Yggdrasil but it pretty much suffers from some of the heaviest quarter-backing I have ever seen in a game. I think this is mostly due to the difficulty of the game (i've only won once), making it almost impossible to win if you just let players do their own thing. Also, more than 3 players makes the game even harder, mostly due to the "oh crap, we need to push this guy back but only you have the specialised weapon that beats such-and-such". I would say that the whole specialised weapon thing makes the game a lot worse than it should be. I like co-ops but I only really enjoy ones that feel like solitarie with other players, like Space Alert, Hanabi etc.
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Oct 14, 2012 16:11
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Tekopo posted:I do sort of like the resource management system of Yggdrasil but it pretty much suffers from some of the heaviest quarter-backing I have ever seen in a game. I think this is mostly due to the difficulty of the game (i've only won once), making it almost impossible to win if you just let players do their own thing. Also, more than 3 players makes the game even harder, mostly due to the "oh crap, we need to push this guy back but only you have the specialised weapon that beats such-and-such". I would say that the whole specialised weapon thing makes the game a lot worse than it should be. I like co-ops but I only really enjoy ones that feel like solitarie with other players, like Space Alert, Hanabi etc. Well I win more then 50/50 with teen kids doing their own thing and minimal qbing. I tend to use my turns in bag management (spend initial turns getting white bag in good shape so you can get there quick after it resets) I will say that it's a really fun game to solo with multiple gods and I win a lot. This is all on 'easy' mind you. I bet using the hard would necessitate a lot more strategy. Other big hint is to KILL FROST GIANTS use the...upper right thing...to get the last ones to make the set. The giant powers are devastating. Especially 3 quiet turns and move everyoneback. Hell they are all great. Kill giants. Thor just instakills them for 2 Vikings anyway.
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Oct 14, 2012 16:21
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I...I played a game of Through the Ages. Four players. Full game. Everyone but me was new. People were playing slow. It took ten hours.  I...I just don't know anymore.
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Oct 15, 2012 01:39
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Good lord man, that's the kind of experience that will make you avoid a particular game for a while. Did any of the new players even have an enjoyable experience? That's why I've become extremely selective about who I play TTA with in-person. I had one game with both AP issues and 2 of the players arguing over optimal strategy during their turns. As if there's not enough down time between turns.
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Oct 15, 2012 02:48
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Just paid 100 dollars for Warhammer Quest. Best purchase ever. This has been my grail for a while now!
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Oct 15, 2012 03:34
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Admin Understudy posted:Did any of the new players even have an enjoyable experience? Actually despite the absurd playtime, all people involved seem to enjoy the game enough to play it all the way through, and no one was sour afterwards. Still, I don't think I'll be bringing that game up to that particular group again, and I feel a little worn out with TtA for a while. The next big thing I'm trying to organize is a game of Virgin Queen, but with different people. Hopefully with a day beforehand to teach the game AP won't be slowing the game down.
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Oct 15, 2012 03:47
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Subparr posted:Just paid 100 dollars for Warhammer Quest. Best purchase ever. This has been my grail for a while now! Now you just need to get all the models for all the level lists 
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Oct 15, 2012 05:06
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Trynant posted:The next big thing I'm trying to organize is a game of Virgin Queen, but with different people. Yeah, if TtA took 10 hours with that previous group then god only knows how long Virgin Queen would take.
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Oct 15, 2012 05:25
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Cocks Cable posted:Hmmm. Considering to go for this. What's the consensus on Descent 2nd Edition? Have only played the 1st edition game once and it was kinda fiddly. It's really good. The game is properly balanced so both the overlord and the heroes can just go balls out and have a good game. The rules are lightweight and the scenarios are fun. Totally worth it especially at that price (I had to pay 80 euros for mine here in Finland). In other boardgaming news, played some yesterday. Thunderstone Advance with Caverns of Bane. Still love the hell out of this game. We had one Thunderstone veteran, one complete newbie and two guys who have played some games. Had a good mix of original TSA and CoB cards on the table and we used a monster shuffling method we came up a while ago (shuffle half the level 2 monsters with the level 1 ones, the other half with the level 3s) which worked well. The game flowed smoothly and for the most part monsters were killable with the occasional big guy wandering in. Also had amazing luck with the Thunderstone keeper when he finally appeared. It was Belac, who has the global ability to make every other monster's Battle effect activate twice. The monsters in the hall at the time both had "Discard 2 heroes" as their Battle abilities AND neither could be fought without having two monsters present, so it was a while before anyone could even poke them away. It's still a really good game. We also played some Flash Point which I was finally able to pick up last weekend... only to discover days later that a 2nd edition is coming out any time now. FML. The game itself is really good though. We first played with the family rules (first game for everyone) and they really lived up to their name. With those rules the game would be simple enough to play with little children, so we graduated to the pro rules for the second game. It's a really fun game. The idea is that the players are firefighters trying to rescue trapped people from a burning house before it collapses. Things can quickly spiral out of control because the fire spreads after every player's turn and one bit of bad luck can produce a disaster when a large area suddenly ignites or an existing fire explodes. Our game went right down to the wire: the building had two structure points left when we pulled the last victim out of the house. Just for funsies we decided we wanted to see if we could get all the firefighters out of the house before it burned down, and we did. Just. Literally as the last firefighter stumbled out, a bunch of gas canisters ignited and blew up the whole loving place. Some of the characters (like the fire truck operator) feel a bit overpowered, but the game is balanced around that power level and we literally couldn't have won if one guy hadn't picked the truck operator at the last second. The fire truck's deck gun saved our asses numerous times.
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Oct 15, 2012 08:08
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Trynant posted:I...I played a game of Through the Ages. Four players. Full game. Everyone but me was new. People were playing slow.
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Oct 15, 2012 10:36
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The General posted:How many chapters of your book did you read? I had to spend time between my turns answering everyone's questions and checking to see if they weren't forgetting things on their turn (like that Masonry doesn't reduce costs of mines and farms...). Also I think that it got to a point where I was taking longer than normal on my turns because by the time it got around to me again I had difficulty remembering my strategy  So only like eight or so chapters.
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Oct 15, 2012 11:44
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I ended up getting The Resistance yesterday; it's an awesome, lightweight hidden role game in the vein of Werewolf/Mafia. One of my friends called it Battlestar Galactica Light. My group planned on giving it two plays, but it ended up taking over our gaming night. If you're into those games, you should definitely give it a try- and it's only $20 (or around $13 online).
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Oct 15, 2012 15:16
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My kickstarted copy of The Resistance: Avalon showed up this morning (with two Operation Flashpoint expansions and some more firefighter minis  ). I want to break it out at my Thursday casual group but I'm a little worried. We tried vanilla Resistance a couple months ago and after two games, only 4 of 9 people had been spies. The folks who were spies really liked the game but everyone else seems to have hated it and now I can't get consensus to give it another try. Any advice for easing new players in (who are pretty light gamers and tend to prefer Cards Against Humanity/Dixit/Wits and Wagers type party games) other than just forcing them to play until everyone's had a chance at being spy?If I can't get them interested in vanilla, I'm worried about ever getting any significant plays of Avalon or Werewolves of Miller's Hollow, much less BSG.
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Oct 15, 2012 15:31
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I got my Kickstarter copy of Escape:The curse of the temple on Friday and was able to get a few games of it in yesterday. This is a cooperative real time game that uses a CD (or sand timer, MP3's, like Space Alert does, to keep the game short and fast. It is a dice rolling game that is fast, hectic and FUN. You are adventures that are in a temple and have to escape. In the basic game (no curses or treasures) you only need to worry about 3 things. The time limit, the gems & finding the exit. The Time Limit: It is a 10 minute timer. The catch is that around 3 minutes in there will be a countdown that tells you that you need to get back to the starting space of the map. If you fail to get back before the countdown is done (a Gong sounds on the MP3/CD) you lose one of the dice you are rolling. Losing dice makes it much harder to get the symbols you need to do stuff. This happens again around the 6 minute mark. The Gems: During the game you have a Depot that has some gems on it. You need to activate some altars on tiles to place a gem (or multiple gems) there which removes them from the Depot. The less gems on the Depot the easier it is to escape when you find the exit. The Exit: The exit tile will be in the bottom 5 tiles of the stack. You must explore the temple to turn over new tiles. When the exit is found you can go there to try to escape by rolling an amount of Keys (a symbol on the dice) equal to the number of the gems on the Depot PLUS ONE. So the more gems you get off the depot the easier it is to get this done. The Dice: Each die is a standard 6 sided die with symbols on the faces. The symbols are used to do things like moving around the temple, exploring (turning over new tiles) and activating altars. There are 2 sides with a green man (running) on it, 1 each with a Torch, Key, Black Mask, Golden Mask. The Black mask is a bad thing to roll. It causes you to "lose" that die until you can cure the curse. You cure the curse with the Golden Masks. You can cure up to 2 black die with a single Golden die. You can also cure another player's black die if they are in the same room as you. The game is frantic because you do not take turns. You are all rolling and doing your own thing (basically on the honor system) to move around and do what you need to in order to get out. You will have to help each other either to activate larger gem pillars (some take 7 or 10 symbols and you only have 5 dice) or you may need to go help someone that has all black die and nothing to roll. There are a couple of "modules" in the base game that add Curses & Treasures to the game but we have not used these yet. You get them when you explore a new tile that has a curse or treasure symbol on them. Curse are bad, treasures are good. By doing the Kickstarter I also received 2 promos that add a couple more tiles and some other new stuff I haven't read the rules for yet. I also got the first expansion, which adds a 6th player and a couple more tiles. Overall it took us a mock play through to understand the mechanics enough to play with the MP3. Then it took another play or two to figure out that we needed to play fast and hard to get everything done. Our last 2 games we all (3 players) managed to get out of the temple with about 1 minute remaining. After we teach this to the rest of our group, 2 more players, we will add in the curses and treasures and probably all the promo and expansion stuff too as it is not a whole lot really. Definitely a good fast paced game. The dice rolling can screw you but that is part of the fun. I left out a few things but it is pretty easy to pick up and learn after you play a game. And the games take about 11 minutes, including setup.
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Oct 15, 2012 16:04
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Trastion posted:I got my Kickstarter copy of Escape:The curse of the temple on Friday... I got that before last weekend, and I enjoyed it a lot too. It gets more fun with more players, since you have more people shouting about what help they need to get rid of masks or get more gems. We didn't play the Illusion expansion either, but I've looked over it since. The illusion tiles replace the normal cursed tiles; when the countdown finishes the illusion tiles are removed from the map and placed back on the bottom of the tile stack. The gems on those tiles stay out of the Depot, so it doesn't undo your work there, but it might cut off one or more tiles. There are other tiles that have the gems in a back room you can't get to directly from the tile; you have to explore around the back to reach the gems. There are yet other tiles that are linked; you can't get the gem on them unless someone else goes to a seperate linked tile and activates the gem there, too. Finally, there's a treasure chamber that has a golden goblet/chalice (don't remember what the game called it); moving with the chalice costs and extra torch, and getting it back to the starting chamber is an extra win condition. We did play with the curses and treasures, and they definitely add some spice to the game. There's no text on either, but they did a really good job of making it obvious what they do at a glance. Curses can just be a slight hinderance (there's one that makes you play with one hand on top of your head; I got that one, but I roll dice one handed anyway so it didn't really do much), to potentially devistating (there's one that keeps you from speaking, which can be a big problem if you get locked by black masks or the like, and another that steals one of your dice until you break the curse- which makes it harder to break the curse, since you have to roll a set by yourself to break them). Treasures are also neat; the lesser effects include getting two of a particular die roll for free, creating a passage where something is blocked by a wall, or letting everyone reroll their black masks.
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Oct 15, 2012 17:25
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Trynant posted:I...I played a game of Through the Ages. Four players. Full game. Everyone but me was new. People were playing slow. That's about how long my last game took. All but one of us had played before, and even the one who hadn't was an experienced boardgamer in general. My group is analysis paralysis incarnate 
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Oct 15, 2012 18:12
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Tom Vasel could take a lesson or two from this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7tGUwg5JZc
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Oct 15, 2012 19:15
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Kiranamos posted:Tom Vasel could take a lesson or two from this guy: Everything about this video is 
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Oct 15, 2012 20:12
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Kiranamos posted:Tom Vasel could take a lesson or two from this guy: Is... is that supposed to be a parody? I'm honestly confused. At times it seems seemed like a very amature review, and then he starts getting into philisophical BS about "And then you start questioning why you're going into the dungeon" and the nature of reality and
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Oct 15, 2012 20:29
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Kiranamos posted:Tom Vasel could take a lesson or two from this guy: That guy manages to sound like his psyche has been completely destroyed after playing a horrible game. I felt his despair and I couldn't stop laughing.
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Oct 15, 2012 20:49
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Oh, I see we're posting Hello Gregor vids. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92HHP357x70
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Oct 15, 2012 21:16
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Shut Up & Sit Down play Twilight Imperium http://vimeo.com/51447727 I just skimmed this because I'm still at work and I can already tell its going to be amazing.  It looks like they did interview cams between the turns, I hope they do this with something like BSG next.
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Oct 15, 2012 23:39
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Calandale for life.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25_d9pQhN9E
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Oct 16, 2012 00:13
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I like how Calandale is just gradually changing his appearance. You can't tell the difference between video to video but one day he's going to look like a civil war general and it will suddenly hit you.
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Oct 16, 2012 03:32
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Fellis posted:Shut Up & Sit Down play Twilight Imperium This makes me really want to play Twilight Imperium. How long does the game normally take to finish once people know it? We normally play with 4 people, is there an optimal number that it works well with? Also, these guys rock...I'm totally watching more of them. EDIT: While I'm posting, it annoys the hell out of me to have my draw piles for cards and discards all askew. What sort of products exist out there to help keep them straight, without taking up a ton of space on the table? All I find on google searches is things to hold my poker cards in a nice fan... Yarrbossa fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Oct 16, 2012 |
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Oct 16, 2012 05:19
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Twilight Imperium really depends on how prone your group is to AP. There are a lot of decisions to be made, and if everyone adopts the "I can't think ahead because
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Oct 16, 2012 05:31
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