Boardgaming 2021: minis are back, baby!

I like the cylon fleet, I like the updated crisis and skill cards and thought Daybreak was a pretty cool expansion. The Cylon Leader Motives that come with Daybreak work much better than the Agendas from Pegasus. The Motives make the Cylon Leaders actually playable.

same here, gives me some time to decide if I want the miniatures or the standard token version. 5 hrs to go …

The monster minis are damn tempting to me, and probably worth the extra $50 IMO. I’d probably go Gameplay All-In ($230) if I was more of a board game player, but I can always pick up the expansions if I really like the game and won’t miss out on too much in terms of the SGs.

Yes to all.

Really, the change to the deck by adding the CFB is one of the biggest improvements into the core gameplay systems. It turns an otherwise required by rules, but largely a useless drag on team, role into an actual relevant and important one. Otherwise space is largely irrelevant, and ignorable in 99% of situations past the first jump. It makes it so, most of the time, all players are engaged instead of the game being ‘XO President to quorum fish, or XO admiral to do shooty shooty things’

Plus the treachery cards give Cylon players something to do to remain relevant. Too often the revealed cylon would simply draw Engineering and Piloting and have nothing else to do but pick a crisis card on their turn. The expansions make playing a revealed cylon so much more engaging.

I picked up War of the Ring a few weeks ago. Finally got to play it last night. I loved it, in the same way that I love Rebellion. It just nailed the theme perfectly.

However, holy cow I don’t think I have ever fucked up the rules on a game so much on the first play through. Especially combat.

I am also annoyed that all the damn figures are the same color with subtle differences between them. “Oh, Gondor is the horse with the small tail, and Rohan is the horse with the fancy helmet.”
Also, the poetical track counters are hard to tell who is who. Bigger tokens would have helped.

You just need to buy the collectors edition it’s all painted for you. It only costs 1400-4500.

Yeah differences are annoying, but if you keep playing it will get easier to spot.

I have a ton of little sticker dots. I am going to mark the bases with them, as well as the diplomatic counters.

I bought a bunch of different colour sharpies and coloured the edge of the bases

I decided in Jaws of the Lion. I think that will work well, and I’m a vet of Gloomhaven so it should be easy to teach.

What do ya’ll think the future of the Gloomhaven franchise is?

I am so interested in Frosthaven. The campaign mechanics look amazing… But I kind of learned my lesson after only playing 1/3 of Gloomhaven solo.

They have made a ton of very interesting characters, and they advertise that characters can be swapped into the other games… But that seems clunky with the permanent nature of each game… Not to mention there are so many to try in each game.

So where are they headed with all this? If it was a PC gaming I would say it is a perfect candidate for a service oriented game with new campaigns coming all the time, or perhaps an adaptation of something like Jagged Alliance, with a barracks of characters to bring on missions.

It seems to me that they will need something to bring the setting and the 20+ worlds together. I’m curious what the future holds.

Same. I think it’s a must. At least if you don’t have the $20k collector’s edition.

I used my sticker dots. It completely frosts my wheaties I have to do this on an expensive game, for non-color blind reasons. I’m color blind so some games I have to make marks on pieces, but not this one. I will likely paint the bases at some point.

As a friend said, “I have no idea how this passed play testing other than for cost reasons”

Minis people assume of course everyone wants minis and why should it matter that they’re much harder to visually distinguish when unpainted than standees or tokens, don’t be silly, everyone paints their minis. It’s the bane of my boardgaming existence.

I gave a non-zero amount of thought to getting something like Pandemic cubes, with small size for regular and a larger one for Elite.

2 posts were split to a new topic: Need help getting back into D&D after years of not playing

Hi everyone!
I need some help coming up with a board game gift for my brother-in-law. All advice is appreciated!

According to the intel gathered in a top-secret espionage mission, my brother-in-law has the following games on his shelf:

  • Fallout – Wasteland Warfare
  • Talisman: Batman – Super Villains Edition
  • Boss Monster
  • Star Trek Catan
  • Star Wars Rebellion
  • Warhammer Quest: Shadows over Hammerhal
  • Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower
  • Relic

In addition to playing board games, he also plays the Warhammer miniature wargame. He loves painting the figures and even paints other peoples’ figure armies to make some extra money (he’s really good at it).

It’s important to note that he’s on the autism spectrum, so any kind of games relying on social subtleties are out of the question.

What do you guys think would be in line with these preferences? I asked some friends of mine and received the following suggestions:

  • Forbidden Stars (which might be out of print?)
  • Eclipse (second edition)
  • Mission: Red Planet
  • Descent (second edition)
  • Imperial Assault
  • Other Warhammer Quest games

This seems like a very solid option given the below

But I might also point out that there is a Star Wars miniatures game in a similar vein, Star Wars Legion. Always tough to gauge if two miniatures games would be welcome, but in the abstract I suspect he would like it.

Now there are some other things that might tickle some of the same places. Unmatched, basically a reimplementation of Star Wars Epic Duels (I loved that game as a high schooler) might be a good fit.

Perhaps the Firefly board game could be an enjoyable one for him.

The trick is that the collection you name doesn’t have a specific unifying theme other than general nerdy sci fi properties. Mechanically they are all over the place. Who knows what other interests he has, or what specific types of games he likes. Is Terraforming Mars a good call or bad? Would Star Wars Outer Rim be embraced? Maybe Twilight Imperium 4th edition would be an instant favorite.

I hope this helps, even though I had to be a bit vague.

Sounds like a heavy emphasis on minis and licensed properties. Other Warhammer Quest games seem like a decent bet if you can find them. There’s a couple different Batman minis games that might be up his alley. Uh…Marvel United maybe? Shadows of Brimstone is not licensed but is in the general vein of your Warhammer Quest type things and I think people like those minis. Imperial Assault probably.

I don’t think Eclipse or Mission: Red Planet seem relevant.

Thanks for help! I do realize that my request was a bit unfair in its vagueness, so I’m really grateful for all input.

I forgot to mention that my brother-in-law has, at some point, played and enjoyed the X-Wing Miniatures Game.

I’ll look into all those games you mentioned. I don’t know if his gaming group focuses on tactical combat games instead of space epics like Twilight Imperium – unfortunately, he lives on the other side of the world and I don’t see him as often as I would like.

Thanks malkav11. I think my friends might have been biased in favor of Eclipse and Red Planet. It’s easy to recommed one’s favourite games instead of doing a deep profile analysis. :P

Well this automatically makes him a-ok in my book! (this is my specific hobby game). If he hasn’t played 2.0, then I can deep dive into suggestions for that!

If so, and since he likes painting minis, Legion is a rock solid lock. If he is interested in adding that to his collection.

Which, you know, may not be a completely valid assumption.

It has great minis, is paintable, and is a solid system to boot. But for a more stand alone experience Imperial Assault is absolutely guaranteed to work. Of the recommendations you came in with, that is the one I am most confident would be a success.

Honestly if you can find an old copy of Epic Duels, man, that is a nostalgia tickler for me. I recently found out a neighbor is into boardgaming and has a copy (mine went missing ~15 years ago) and so a gaming day has been planned.