|
Hello again thread! Firstly, from the old one: Magnetic North posted:New thread. I didn't see anyone answer that it was "PAIN", so here's me saying, it's pain. But actually NO! Depending on the theory of ethics you hold to It's arguably the opposite of pain! It's a lovely new thread with an amazing OP! Well done Magnetic North, it's really a fantastic thing. I feel I should point out, the Onitama link actually takes you to Codenames Duets on BGG, but, I don't want that to sound like a criticism, I used that OP to find stuff for friends, it was actually super useful, and thought you may like to update it. Orange DeviI posted:Lmao. Yeah, Spirit Island is one of those that whenever I pick it up after not playing it for a while, I pick it up a BUNCH, it's so good! If you haven't played with the different invaders yet, I'd say, don't be too scared about jumping in against them! I was, and put it off for ages, but actually they're a joy. I mean, they're not, they're horrid, but they present a really fun challenge, not an overbearing one.
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2022 13:24
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 16, 2024 19:59 |
|
|
MikeCrotch posted:Spirit Island is extremely accurate in that it depicts the English as being the worst and most annoying of all people Oh, sorry.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2022 15:42
|
|
|
I just finished the Sleeping Gods campaign. That game is great! Really compelling, really fun, just a beautiful experience. I wanna play it again and go see stuff I missed, but I feel like my wife will probably need a bit longer before she's keen to jump back in the boat. Anyone have any input about the expansion? It feels like it might be a great way to make playing it though again more palatable?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 13, 2022 01:58
|
|
|
gschmidl posted:One full playthrough? Or multiple? A full session of 3 event decks goes on for much longer than I expected, not that that's bad per se, but with the constant lockdowns... I've only played it through once. I do wanna play it again though, there's so much I didn't see. We actually didn't even get 3 full event decks, and had exactly enough time to gather 8 of the totems, yeah, 54 turns (48 in our case) is actually a long old time!
|
|
#
¿
Jan 13, 2022 10:14
|
|
|
Is return to dark tower good? The child in me thinks it looks like just the best toy ever, and I never even heard of the original. But it does concern me that the game is essentially just like a less flavoursome Arkham horror?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 24, 2022 15:58
|
|
|
My copy of Townsfolk Tussle arrived today! It's a really lovely production, and for once I feel like it's a Kickstarter where a bunch of minis is justified. Its basically a simplified KDM except instead of nods to rape, it's in a loveable Tex Avery (actually very cuphead) style, and the art and character design is just absolutely top notch! I haven't had a chance to play it yet, but it seems really fun. One cool element is that there are a bunch of differing bosses, and a game is you beating four of them sequentially. But they each have differing rules depending on when you face them, so they all get harder in different ways depending on how late you reach them, and then they all have a totally game changing scenario if you're facing them as the final battle. I think it's a really cool way of keeping things varied.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 28, 2022 11:55
|
|
|
armorer posted:I haven't taken my copy out of the shrink wrap yet, but hopefully I will get it to the table in the next few weeks. Just played it yesterday! I really enjoyed it! I was concerned I was gonna find the gameplay over simplistic, and actually I kind of did, many turns are just 'try to attack, fail, your go!'. But actually, that ends up being kinda fine? I can't really put my finger on how, but, it's just somehow 'fun'? It feels to me a bit like playing a wargame like Warmachine or Warhammer, but simplified? It's got exciting turns, and you can pull of cool and fun strategies. There's a bunch of randomness, but that somehow ends up not being a sore point but a joy as well? I dunno. The different ruffians are all REALLY different in how they play, which is great, and super super thematic. The 'co-op, but you often wanna dick each other over' aspect works out really well too, it's never really 'mean', it's just kinda silly and funny. Again, I have no explanation as to why it works, when on paper it seems like it shouldn't.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 31, 2022 01:17
|
|
|
Llyranor posted:I'll just leave this here NO. BAD. AAAGGH. We've had 8 player games of TWILIGHT IMPERIUM take less time. I personally think that AP is bad manners. I mean, obviously, you're wasting everyone else's time somewhat. But there's a social contract says we're going to wait for each other to play, and yeah it pushes that contract. But more so, it inherently comes with a kind of disrespect for the other players, in that there's this assumption that given enough time to think, you'll win. That "this turn" is critical because if you get it right, then you'll win. Sometimes that is the case, which is fine. But if it isn't, why act like it is? Either: To save face, or delusions of grandeur. But, ultimately, both suggest that you think you're better than others, and that not performing that way is embarrassing. Which I think is disrespectful, and doubly so because you're saying "your time is less important than me proving I'm better than you". You can make a choice based on how it makes you feel instead of how well you think it performs. Obviously, none of this goes for anyone with any kind of cognitive difficulties, social impairment, mental health issues of any kind etc. Which I get is probably a lot of people. I'm not actually angry about it despite how this post might come off! Just I often hear people in my group blanket defending it, and I disagree.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2022 11:15
|
|
|
golden bubble posted:On a completely different note, the developer diaries make it clear that Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest is nothing more than Libertalia 2nd edition: now with a brighter colored them. Libertalia is a good game, and it appears Winds of Galecrest just rebalances some of the cards, adds a reputation track for tiebreakers rather than using the old tiebreaking system, and makes an actual attempt to work at two players. Oh cool, I love libertalia a lot, I think it's one of those that I could play forever. But a big problem I've found with it, was that I won more games than I probably should have because green wins all the important tiebreaks and I always play green in everything. That was really the only thing I thought was imba. Though I think they're fine, I could see arguments for some of the cards being imbalanced I guess, so interested to see what they do.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 7, 2022 22:37
|
|
|
There's a magic the gathering variant called Commander. It was created by a bunch of fans, (who called it Elder Dragon Highlander) but became so popular that WotC started officially supporting it. A huge part of it's appeal, was that it was, by its nature, very casual. So WotC left the guys that invented it to handle the banlists etc. One of the things they came up with was Rule 0, which essentially boils down to, "before the game, discuss how powerful of a game you want, and how powerful your decks are, and reach an agreement". Which is to me just kinda codifying healthy social behaviours. But all the Catan talk, reminds me of an issue, and it's something Citizen Keen touched on, that somehow gets missed often, which I find baffling. And it's that apparently rulebooks need a rule that says "you might play with the same players again in the future, and so in a way this is a legacy game, because your actions will have consequences across multiple games". And that's not like, a threat. That's just a truism. For some reason, people seem to think "they always go for the point rush strategy, I'll try and stop them by doing warfare" or whatever, is somehow like clever pattern recognition, but "he completely hosed me over last game with a last minute backstab, I can't trust him this game" is 'holding a grudge' and bad pattern recognition or something? Like if in that one Catan game, the boyfriend had just given his girlfriend really bad offers for four turns, so she just stopped ever trying to trade with him, that wouldn't come across as dickish for some reason? !Klams fucked around with this message at 10:44 on Feb 8, 2022 |
|
#
¿
Feb 8, 2022 10:42
|
|
|
Infinitum posted:Yeah nah you're missing out. Magic maze, escape form the cursed temple and captain sonar are all games I'd love to play again but can't, because they all reduced the sanity points of my friends to zero. In MM there comes a point, either from a power up mid game thing, to just the end of the game, where suddenly you can talk again, and I always immediately started laughing, because to me it was really funny. One of the other players immediately started shouting at the top of his lungs and another one started having like an anxious suttering fit.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 9, 2022 10:47
|
|
|
Hello, it's me with my only contribution to the thread: DUNE CHAT. The new expansion for GF9 Dune came in, CHOAM and Richese. Much like the Ixian & Tlielaxu expansion, it has two new factions and a handful of new treachery cards. Where IX & T had the new Technology tokens that I felt were a bit of a misfire, CHOAM and Richese has new Leader Ability cards and Stronghold cards, both of which I think play fantastically. Leaders and Stronghold cards are both totally optional, but I think we'll always play with them going forward. With the leaders, you assign a particular leader to that card. The card then gives you some small benefit permanently, and some benefit when you use that particular leader in combat. They're all pretty situational, you might get a couple of spice every few turns with the passive and then have +2 to a combat at one point, for example. And I think that's basically ideal. They seem if anything underpowered, but I think that's the best place for them; just a few more options, a few more chances to make good or bad decisions. But probably the best part is that you all pick which leaders will have the powers first, as open info, THEN you all pick traitors. This means that you've got a lot more to think about when picking a traitor. It's a really nice new interplay that doesn't hamstring anyone or really super buff anyone but means you get a few more of those big exciting moments. The strongholds are pretty similar, if during the mentat pause you control a stronghold, you get its card. They then give you static abilities if you fight there. They're all pretty innocuous, like paying 2 spice toward your troops from the bank for free or meaning you always win ties there. But they give the different strongholds more identity, and the art is REAL nice for them, which makes the strongholds more desirable. It's more of a game-feel thing than a big strategy shift, but it feels cool to win combat that you wouldn't have otherwise because you were entrenched in your stronghold, but as is more often the case; it feels good to physically TAKE something off someone for successfully invading them! The expansion is around 15 pounds, and it's very nearly worth it for just these two. (It isn't, definitely, but at half price, it would be!). The new factions are definitely interesting! I played as Richese, and my wife as CHOAM. (She's an accountant, so it felt only right). I can only say what it was like to play as Richese, but CHOAM certainly seemed an odd fish. With CHOAM, you take 2 spice per player (!) every CHOAM charity phase, but then anyone who takes charity takes it from that pool. They get a chip that lets them deny any charity (including to them) for a turn, or double it for a turn, which will then flip and do the other next turn, that they can play once per game. They can use worthless cards to do cool stuff for each different type (because when you own the market, nothing is worthless!) and they can bring back as many people as they want from the tanks for 1 spice each. You can also audit people, which is hilarious. On paper, to me, that sounds like they should be utterly SWIMMING in cash, but in practice, they didn't seem to be? I think because she wasn't auditing people. The auditor is a leader (worth 2) that lets you look at two random treachery cards from your opponent if it survives (Which would usually mean you know all their cards) unless your op pays one spice per card. But then you could turn around and sell the info of what they're holding to other players, so I think this should have been a little money spinner she wasn't taking advantage of. The Richese have a separate deck of unique treachery cards (although one is a Karama) that they auction face up each auction round (with one less regular auction). They can ALSO before this auction a card from their own hand, face down. For both of these, they get the cash. Their auctions are either once round (so you have to bid higher or you're out), or a blind spice-in-hands-in-the-middle auction, so they're always over really quick, so it speeds up the auction round, which is always good. Their fancy cards can be really quite fancy, and then because it's known info, it really changes up the power dynamics of people buying cards. Then their other ability is to deploy a no-field, that is one of three tokens, face down, that represents either 0, 3, or 5 troops, with the caveat that you can't use the same one twice in a row. You only pay for one troop to deploy it, and you can reveal it any time (even during combat in the reveal step) and get that many troops instead. I really enjoyed being this wheeler-dealer guy, it really feels like you're the weirdo on the street corner with a jacket full of pocket watches. You quite quickly make a bunch of money, although obviously nothing like the Emperor, you only need a bit because you can deploy a bunch of troops at once. You've got this constant game going on of having a bit of hidden information and a bit of open information, so you have to bluff hard ALL OF THE TIME even when it doesn't feel like you need to (to support future bluffs) which I think is just peak Dune. On the first turn of the game, I sold a card from my hand, bigging it up to the Fremen as a card they needed for their leader ability. He wouldn't take it, assuming I was trying to dick him over, and someone else ended up with it. I did it again a second time, and once more they didn't buy it. In both cases, it became apparent I'd told the truth. The third time, when they did buy it? Donkey. I could have stopped playing right there. GotY. But then I'd have missed out on getting someone to commit a whole heap of troops to my 0 troop no-field token. AH DUNE !Klams fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Mar 21, 2022 |
|
#
¿
Mar 21, 2022 16:34
|
|
|
The Eyes Have It posted:I recently finally got to play DUNE with a good group for it. It's some of the best gaming I've done. Dune is so good BECAUSE you're playing the other people around the table perhaps more than you're playing the board, but yeah, if means it lives and dies on the players. It takes a while to learn its not a dudes on a map game. Fighting is ALWAYS bad for you, but it might also sometimes be good, and incredibly rarely, that good may outweigh the bad, lol. So you want to fight as little as you possibly can. Thats really hard to grasp, and even people I've played ten games with will still fritter a lead on pointless battles. The combat system is so good, but yeah, I think its a bit too clever for its own good. Also the whole paying spice for troops is made annoyingly complicated because they pander to simple version players. To my mind the only thing I'd change about the game (apart from a slight nerf to tlielaxu) would be to double all the powers of leader tokens, and have the dial go higher. Because then, you just say, troops are worth one (or two for specials) and can double any with a spice. The math is the same but it's so much easier to grok.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 22, 2022 10:39
|
|
|
Joe Chill posted:I found advanced combat annoying too but I found a way that works much easier. It similar to what you suggested but without doubling the leader's strength. It best to just ignore the numbers on the battle wheel and turn the wheel based on increments. So if I have 5 forces I would turn the wheel 5 increments. The wheel shows 2.5. I can now add spice to gain more power, so I pay 2 spice and turn the wheel twice. The wheel now shows 3.5. That's it! No dividing or confusion by saying your forces are "half-strength." Yeah, that's the way we explain it, troops are worth a half, spice is worth a half. You can't play more spice than troops. It's just, why is it halves? And it messes up this way for Sardaukar and Fedaykin
|
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2022 10:04
|
|
|
Hey, so, me and the other best man are organizing a stag do for my mate. There are about 25 of us, and we're going to Nottingham. I had some questions for you lovely lot, if you might be able to help? First up, just a kind of rundown of what we got. Quite a lot of his friends are through surfing, and they're not really gamery types, but he very much is to the degree that it is expected we do more 'geeky' games than typical drinking games. We've considered just a few of us going to Warhammer World afterwards, for example, but certainly that wouldn't be appropriate for the main event, if that gives some indication of the vibe? I've picked up 3 copies of 'Dont Get Got' (Well, two, and then one copy of the SUSD version) which I figure factors well into pub crawl / drinking games. We're going to play liars dice, and ideally we're gonna do it in a pub called Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem, because it's a fuckin' awesome old pub, but also has a glass case with a model ship in it, that is supposedly cursed, (it definitely is) and if you touch it you die. So the loser of liars dice not only has to down the dirty pint but do so while touching the cursed ship. So they die. We're also gonna do werewolf at some point. There's a guy coming who essentially lives for DnD, that runs just the BEST games of Werewolf. We also wanted to do like a dress up pub crawl, DnD style. We'd have two giant foam dice to roll, but we haven't quite worked out if it's to decide what drinks to buy, where to go etc, or if its just for rolling on tables for drinking penalties? I was thinking we could combine it with don't get got, and when you complete your three, you roll on a table for what penalty the stag has to do? My question to you guys is if you had any ideas of how we could spice it up, or if you had any cool ideas for similar stuff? One thing I was wondering was if anyone knew where I could get a bunch of old wooden dice, for the liars dice? Or any good ideas for cups? I'm not that fussed about budget but money is an object here. Its happening in August, so I've got a while to sort stuff out yet!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 29, 2022 13:14
|
|
|
silvergoose posted:Skull is exactly the vibe you're looking for, it's similar to liars dice. Maybe cockroach poker, if you want everyone bluffing constantly. Ah yeah, both good shouts actually, I own both of these too, lol. I'll take them along for sure. Infinitum posted:Potentially look at a PNP version of Blood on the Clocktower if it could be organised. These are all really really good ideas. I'm like legit 50 / 50 on the last one.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 29, 2022 13:38
|
|
|
Infinitum posted:Potentially look at a PNP version of Blood on the Clocktower if it could be organised. Well gently caress, now I'm all about trying to get myself a copy of this, but it doesn't seem to be available anywhere? I mean, hell, I'd pay for a PnP version, but that's not possible either? Any ideas?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 29, 2022 14:01
|
|
|
It sounds like a dryer version of sidereal confluence? Which is still probably great.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 30, 2022 00:14
|
|
|
Admiralty Flag posted:Dune with expansions will play 8 but probably not a good idea for a beginner group. Dune is my absolute favourite, I'm always up for a game of it whenever. But I'll never play it 8 player again, for any reason. Just a wholly unpleasant experience.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 4, 2022 01:05
|
|
|
Infinitum posted:Twilight Imperium chat. Oh man, am I too late to weigh in? No one ever talks about TI! I personally think Hacan are kind of ... dull isn't the right word, they're really cool and fun, but you're fairly railroaded into what you're gonna do all game. I think because what they do is big and splashy and obvious, I've never actually seen them win. Like they're one of those faction where everyone at the table is watching them do their thing and get bigger, y'know? So it's kind of like, "Its got to that point where we have to stop Hacan" and everyone sagely nods and stops them going bonkers. Nekro is kind of the same, except I honestly think that just going for constant fights with them is wrong. If you're seen as a parasitic enemy by everyone on the table, it's actually really hard to win. You've gotta be more than just an opportunist rear end in a top hat, and actually play to their strength of having a billion command tokens to get work done, I think. I see more nuance in Nekro than Hacan. L1z1X is sort of the opposite of both. Sure they're good at taking planets, but taking planets is kind of the name of the game. It means you're really good at gunboat diplomacy, and that I think is where they shine. In the first few turns you can convince people to let you take juicy planets, but from then on, no one is really gonna look round the table and go "OH poo poo l1z1X is doing their thing!" like they do with the other two despite the fact those planets are still buffing you. And then you turn that diplomacy into concrete gunboats with your mad tech abilities. I agree with Triskelli, that actually the 'blandness' is actually more exciting, and would go with them.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 11, 2022 15:03
|
|
|
Ohthehugemanatee posted:I demand more TI4 chat. Sorry, no idea what Naalu should do turn one, but on the above point, I'm saddened to agree with your group. I hate writing anything off as 'OP' because it feels like your criticizing anyone who plays it, and they're one friend's favourite faction. But in the case of these dudes, it really does just feel like they get to have Christmas every turn, right out the gate. In my opinion, the design mistake with them, was giving them both better payoffs for exploring AND making it easier for them to explore. I haven't played them myself, so maybe I'm wrong? Anyone able to weigh in on that?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 13, 2022 17:25
|
|
|
djfooboo posted:gently caress that’s alotta sushi I find it always ends up that way when you make it yourself, because it's fun to make, and lends itself to being made collaboratively, and really cheap. On the subject of talisman, I had like 6 expansions, and I've always known it was a bad game, but it was a game I could get people to play, and so a MUCH better game than everything else. Periodically I like to ask this thread if you've heard of any new dudes on a map / 4x games I should know about?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2022 01:01
|
|
|
Mayveena posted:Let's assume that this was supposed to be a beginner/entry level Warhammer game and neither had played before. I'm going to guess that the person with the beginner level army will play a lot better than the person who downloaded an army and has no clue how to actually win with it. Top level 'stuff' generally requires top level play and many times you can really shoot yourself in the foot trying to start with the 'best' army or whatever. With Warhammer that's not so much the case though. It's like bringing your A-game for ludo. I had a stupid list for 40k because I liked the models, played a few games and never lost because I got lucky. It literally didn't matter that my opponent knew what countered what or whatever, if you just roll sixes you win.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 30, 2022 07:46
|
|
|
Jarvisi posted:Anyone have any ideas for smallish semi easy to learn games? I'm going out on a trip in a couple of weeks with some friends and I need something.
|
|
#
¿
May 4, 2022 23:31
|
|
|
Oh hey, so, you lovely awesome people often chat in here about Root, so when I saw it at the bring and buy sale, brand new for 25 quid I thought I'd give it a punt. I noticed its only 4 player, and our group is usually more. I thought I'd have a look and see if there's an expansion, and if there was an expansion, if it raised the player count. Well. There certainly IS an expansion! Wasn't quite ready for that! I haven't had time to do a deep dive yet, (still haven't even played it yet!) but, if any of you wouldn't mind giving me a run down I'd love to hear your opinions on them / which ones are actually worth it? Obviously I'll play the game some first, but I suspect some of our group will object to some of it and it would be good to know in advance which aspects can be'fixed' with expansions!
|
|
#
¿
May 10, 2022 22:30
|
|
|
Bottom Liner posted:Plenty of good play out of the core box. The game only really works at 3 and 4, so skip the solo bot clockwork expansions and 2p. It’s still great at 3p, use all factions but the vagabond. Amazing, thanks so much! Will have a look at the river folk then!
|
|
#
¿
May 11, 2022 02:26
|
|
|
Anyone have any good resources for learning thunderstone quest, specifically the Co op mode? I dunno why but I'm bouncing off the rule book real hard.
|
|
#
¿
May 20, 2022 14:08
|
|
|
Magnetic North posted:Care to elaborate for the rest of the class? I apologise in advance because this probably comes off as snarky and I really don't mean to be, it just sort of tickled me, BUT: There's kind of an irony in you having to ask where to find a puzzle hunt, no?
|
|
#
¿
May 31, 2022 11:33
|
|
|
My sister got me Unfathomable for my birthday! Played a bunch of battlestar, but is there anything we should know going in?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 20, 2022 09:02
|
|
|
Every so often I get some board game money in my pocket and I wonder again to myself if there are any new assymetric games with leveling up / tech trees out there. I realise, specifically, what I'm after is a game to replace Rune Wars, the boardgame. (not the miniatures game). Kemet doesn't, because you are all choosing from the same menu. Spirit Island is co op. Root doesn't really have level up choices. Oath looks pretty amazing, but still not quite right. Dune is the greatest game ever, but there's no tech tree. I guess TI is baaaasically it. I just want to play warcraft 3, but as a board game. (but also not that board game). Im always surprised with the billions of kick starters that none of them are ever it. I guess, be the change, and all that, I should probably just design it at this point.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2022 12:48
|
|
|
Blamestorm posted:
All awesome suggestions, thank you! If forbidden stars had an expansion with ANY other, non boring af races, I'd snap it up. Loved SC but it was always hard to get to the table because of the fiddly combat, sounds like they cleared that up! But, yeah, Space marines, space marines, orks and elves... Sigh. Come on. Suddenly Susan posted:You might want to check out Ares Project. It is RTS the board game. Heavily inspired by StarCraft and has 4 unique factions. This looks pretty interesting, but from the reviews it sounds pretty dry? Rockman Reserve posted:
No! Let's have a gander!
|
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2022 17:26
|
|
|
Crashbee posted:There are actually several fan expansions, such as Galaxy in Flames (adds Tau, Imperial Guard, Tyranids and Necrons) and Darkest Dawn (the four different Chaos factions). I think you can even have them professionally printed: https://sklep.mbprint.pl/en/product/galaxy-in-flames/?fbclid=IwAR2n8dJXOXN4XlFzPgv4W7X0oZjX_mkx9gBBwwH02oAXbpSXKIQSv2Sij7k HHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. What do you do about the mini's though? (Please don't let the answer be what I know in my heart the answer can only be...) Rockman Reserve posted:Unlike a lot of CMON games the base set of Ankh is really, really strong on its own, at least in my opinion. Plus you can currently get both expansions for MSRP on Amazon and I've definitely seen them floating around some FLGSes. (Speaking of which, which would be recommended as a first buy, the one with new gods or the Pharoah expansion? I'm really digging Ankh.) I REALLY like Cthulu: Death May Die, and I got the retail version of that. I think I'd love the expansion but haven't really got the mileage out of the base yet to justify it. I know you kinda said already, but ... honestly, like, HOW different are the different Gods? If it was 'very' instead of 'quite but it's subtle' I would actually have already bought it... Is it just that one detail between them all, that has a big impact? Or are there other subtle differences too? !Klams fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Jun 21, 2022 |
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2022 23:35
|
|
|
Ok, so y'all have convinced me that this is something I should be looking at! I went to see if my FLGS has it, and actually, it turns out they do, plus all the expansions, but ALSO, they have a copy in their library! So I can go play it first and see what I think! YUSS! Thanks you guys, you always deliver.hoiyes posted:Given the overlap with So Very Wrong About Games ameritrash here, have you tried another of their favourite troop on a map game Lords of Hellas? Ha, so, yeah... I do, and I think it's actually a really good game, but also kind of 'mean' for want of a better word. In that, it makes you really wanna do certain stuff, but then sort of punishes you if you don't do other things instead. So I often find people feel pretty bad playing it, which makes it hard to get to the table. Like, you have these giant monument minis, that you can build as an action, and one of the win conditions involves a full monument being constructed!* So that's this really tactile, really in your face, attractive route to victory that instinctively you wanna do. Only, that particular action is also the timer for the game to end, and also is the only way to refresh all the other actions of the game. But it's kind of the slowest way to win. So hitting it over and over refreshes the actions the other people are taking, enabling them to fulfill the other victory conditions quicker. What's more, even if you construct the monument, and somehow no one else has won, you then have to hold it for a round. If all you've been doing is constructing it, someone else can have been using their actions to build an army to just swoop in and take it! So if you look at the cool statues and think "I wanna do that!" you're probably gonna be disappointed. Another route to victory is to fight beasts, who have cool big minis that stomp around, and a fun push-your-luck minigame for combat. The thing is, if only one person goes for it, they WILL win the game. So it's up to other people to stop them, by killing the monsters themselves. But not everyone can actually necessarily reach the monsters. So, it kinda falls to people to do their duty and give up their plans to instead stop someone winning. (I guess a bit like whacking the Vagabond). This can be annoying for both players, and is annoying for the uninvolved players if the whacker just refuses, because, the solo fighter just stomps it home and there's little they could have done. Another way to win is just area control, and there are your typical DOAM fights to win territory off other players. But, if someone kills a monster, they get a token that lets them, as a special action, just straight-up claim a territory, without any contest. Mostly what this means is that the person trying to win via beasts can just trivially shut down a player who is otherwise gonna take it via area control. So, again, you have to be reactive / have your fingers in several pies. What this means in practice is that you have to play all the different elements of the game, and keep it all in balance. You can't just pick a single strategy at the start and hope to win off it. You have to actually react to the other players, CONSTANTLY. Every choice they make, you gotta think "Oh crap, now I have to do X". And, I think that actually makes for a great game. But it doesn't necessarily make for a good experience, because you've just got people either stopping you doing 'the fun thing' constantly, or other players demanding you stop doing 'the fun thing'. Actually talking about it has made me really want to play it again, I'm gonna drive to give it another go. *One rule we came up with was that 'constructing a monument' was actually 'claiming a monument', like as if your troops were stealing it bit by bit. So we start with all the monuments fully built, taking bits 'off' with the monument action, and then if one gets fully built the player builds it again and sticks it on the board. (It is obvious at that point which one is the goal, since it will be occupied and heavily contested). So you still get to build the cool thing if you go that route, but it also means that all the huge cool-looking minis are actually ever on the board.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2022 11:11
|
|
|
Crashbee posted:One of the options on the link I posted is to order the expansion with cardboard standees. The 3D-printed minis I've seen do look good though: Wow. Those are sexy as hell! I don't know much about 3D printing, but my dad's got one. Roughly how much would that cost to print so you reckon? (or, does anyone know?)
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2022 14:22
|
|
|
SuperKlaus posted:I'm an Ares Project booster and would strongly recommend it for an RTS in board game form. TBH I haven't played in uh years so I'm not equipped to talk to your concern of dryness but I remember enjoying it very much and feeling it did not deserve to come and go into the dustbin of board game publishing history. Give it a look and maybe I'll dig out my copy and we can talk about what does and doesn't work. Ah, OK, I'll try and hunt down a copy. The thing is it looks like the kind of thing I would LOVE where you have to play a few games with the same people to really get into the swing of it, but the guys I used to do that with have all moved away and now it's a much more casual crowd. Well, not casual, but like, conflict averse. I have this theory that most board gamers are kind of conflict averse, and that it's a major driver of CotN. People playing a new game are much less in conflict with each other, and much more playing against the game itself. But once you've played it a few times, you're really playing against each other then. You can't just win through a novel strategy, unless you feint it somewhat. This is when games get their best, though. Fury of Dracula looks so good on paper, but I've never known anyone actually have a great game of it. When I played, I was Dracula, and I just ran rings around everyone. To the point where I had to stop the game and show them what I was doing to see if it was legal. It turned out I'd not been playing properly, but actually in a way that hugely hampered me. The guys who had insisted I MUST play it then revealed that last time they'd spent the whole game looking for Dracula and then when they did he killed them all handily. We just kinda left it there. I'd be interested to hear if there is some aspect to playing humans we missed? I can't stand pandemic, but love the varient with the bio terrorist. I really like Nemesis, but it's very much an experience generator rather than competitive game.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2022 08:01
|
|
|
Finally played Unfathomable! Thought it was really good, constantly very tense, with thematic and exciting events. The first hybrid revealed, and shot us all up, but then the next player took her turn and XO'd the hybrid, pretty much revealing herself as the other hybrid. We then instantly brigged her and shot (Brigging) him, and they were then basically stuck there all game. We still lost quite convincingly. I definitely think we wanna put the dials up by at least one next game. I'm sure if you all run statistics constantly you could do better, but we otherwise had what I would have called a perfect run, and still couldn't make it. I mean, i was the cultist and actual just won, but I still think it was a touch too hard on the humans
|
|
#
¿
Jul 10, 2022 21:44
|
|
|
SuperKlaus posted:At times. Unfathomable has that thematic variance weakness of several other FFG games, particularly Cthulhu ones, or those horror games from that company that uses photos of real actors for the characters, where it's like OK yeah here's a card that's Deep Ones attack!!! And then panicked passengers are on the brink of mutiny!!! And then...uh...there's a litter of kittens would you like to feed the kittens? The ticket-taker and the stowaway orphan do a Benny Hill? The toilets are backed up lolololol? So, pretty much. We let a few go off where it was the lesser of two evils, when we calculated we probably couldn't pass (and with the chaos reveals plus hybrid cards we were right). They all felt like we made the right play. We had a few major monster surges, and they were always met with an immediate spell nuke before they did anything, with passengers rescued where possible. It was mostly just the fact that we had both hybrids brigged immediately, and because they were sat next to each other, we could do stuff like make all players play skill checks revealed, to stop them really doing anything. All they really did was put a couple of extra deep ones out. (I don't think one of them really knew what they were doing tbf). There was just never any point in the game where it felt like we were 'failing', but I did realise too late that we needed to be doing more than that. We needed to be hitting the engine room and gunning for distance, because the mythos cards, despite us passing them, were still whittling resources without actually getting us closer to winning.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 12, 2022 08:17
|
|
|
PRADA SLUT posted:e: actually, I'm interested if anyone knows of any other horror games, but like horror as a "gameplay", instead of just a theme slapped onto something Nyctophobia comes to mind. Never played it, so no idea how well it achieved its objective, but interesting to read about as a concept
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2022 08:12
|
|
|
Major Isoor posted:Has anyone played with the Dune 2019 expansions, btw? I'm thinking about getting the Ix+Tleilaxu expack because I liked them in the book, but I'm wondering if CHOAM+Richese synergise better with the base factions. (Or a mix of both expacks and the base game is best, even) YEP. Lots! I would say that the Tleilaxu and Richese are both great, and CHOAM and Ix less great (but still really fun), so having both expansions is good so you have access to both the better ones. All the stuff in the Richese / Choam expansion is cool and good and we use it all in our games, the new scoring mechanic and the treachery cards from Ix / Tlielaxu, we've taken to leaving out. But! I likewise was much more excited about the Ix / Tleilaxu factions for much the same reason. Its a bit funky with both in terms of who they should replace in the base game. Both Ix and Richese mess with the auction phase, so either of them with Atreides can feel a bit much, I don't think you'd want the three of them in a game. Similarly, the Tleilaxu generate a huge amount of money, and with the size of the economy being such an important factor, should probably replace Emperor. CHOAM oddly never actually seem to be that wealthy in our games, but it seems like they should be similar. Honestly, I would say don't get either until you've had a Bene Gesserit win from prediction. I use that as a somewhat arbitrary number of games, but it kind of speaks to how, the base game is so good, and the balance (or lack of) is such an interesting puzzle that plays so well when everyone is familiar with it. It's good to have a few of those games in before you expand. With the new factions, it's all a little more chaotic, which is really fun too, but... You know, you can't put the genie back in the bottle.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2022 13:52
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 16, 2024 19:59 |
|
|
Finally got around to playing Root on Saturday. ...Yeah, Riverfolk expansion arrived today. Im sure its come up before, so, sorry! But anyone got experience playing with 6? I see a lot of people saying 'don't do it', but my group is almost always a 6, and we're very comfortable with long games. Is it actually that bad? (Although, definitely never ever play Dune with 8. Never do it. It's much much worse than it might at first appear, I really cannot stress enough not to do this).
|
|
#
¿
Sep 22, 2022 16:45
|
|