Boardgaming in 2017!

Newb question: what’s TI3?

Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition

The attack cards are definitely the broken part of the expansion, also.

Ah, thanks.

Agreed, abandon all hope ye who enter in…

Also it’s a game without hidden information where the most important thing is the big numbers on the cards in front of you. I’m fairly sure my four year old could play it, but I’m not quite that sadistic.

This is another miserable game. The big difference is that Machi Koro just feels like it goes on for interminably days, TI3 actually does.

New York 1901 looks like it might be good as well as Flashpoint Fire Rescue

Dammit. I shared that trello board link on a BGG thread, and was told it didn’t work. Turns out I had it set to Private. So if you’re one of the 5 people who clicked it and apparently (?) didn’t see anything, check it again. Not sure if you need a Trello account, though. And speaking of trello accounts, if you’re thinking of signing up, PM me with your email if you want, and I’ll invite you. Apparently referrals get both parties a free month of upgraded functionality- nothing special, just being able to put picture backgrounds, larger file attachments, etc.

Oops, forgot to come back and tell you it was private earlier :)

Hah, no worries. I feel a bit of a doof for not noticing earlier.

First game in a couple of hours! Excited!

Just got done with a great board game night. We played Jorvik, First Class, and Energy Empre.

We weren’t too hot on Jorvik. Personally, it might be my least favorite Stefan Feld game. For me, it just felt too flat without any interesting drama.

First Class gets a lot of love most of the time it hits the table. It’s about a 30-45 minute engine builder where you’re drafting cards to build up passenger trains. It’s got cute / weird scoring bonuses like getting extra points when you get luggage on the train or extra cash when you can get your passengers to take a seat. It feels a bit like a filler version of Russian Railroads with the same sort of exponential ramp: the first round you’re scoring 5 points, the second you’re scoring around 20 and the third you can easily score over 100. I find that momentum extremely compelling and satisfying. Not my favorite of this type of game, but soooo much easier to teach and understand than Russian Railroads.

I loved Energy Empire. It’s a worker placement game about essentially managing the economies of modern nations but with a focus on energy creation / consumption. It has a great narrative arc right from the get go where you choose which nation you’re playing and get quite distinct start conditions. I played as India and had more workers than anyone else. France got to start with Nuclear energy generator right away. Throughout the game, different random events pop up at key times that can have a pretty drastic effect on the game and they all tie the narrative together really well. I was lucky to have a turn right after a we found a bunch of underwater oil that let me get a ton of oil for cheap. Over the course of the game, you can invest in new energy production which enables you to power more infrastructure. As India, I opted to ignore building my own energy factories and just bought and burned tons of oil every turn as well as relying on my extra population instead of electricity where possible. Using that to build an economic powerhouse focused on banking, airports, and mass transit ended up being a surprisingly viable strategy! All that in a suprisingly simple design. Very excited to play it more.

So, I taught Rebellion as a 4 player game at TotalCon this weekend.

Overall, it went well. We didn’t finish in the time slot we had, but the rebels probably would have won. We had one person who had played it before so he was familiar with the rules.

I’m not a fan of the 3+ player rules, but they work out ok in the end.

I am obsessed with Gloomhaven now. That is all.

I wish I could be obsessed with Gloomhaven.

Oddly enough, my acquisition of the game was a last minute fluke. The week before last, I watched a video of the gameplay and decided it looked fun. But I had also heard that the game was going to be in demand, and that many pre-orders for the game were being cancelled.

But I decided to take a chance and I called a nearby game store that sells all their games at online prices. I mentioned I was looking for a copy and he told me they were still waiting on them, but that I could pre-order if I’d like. I said okay, not expecting to actually get a copy.

Last Tuesday night, they called and told me my copy was in. When I stopped by the next day to pick it up, they still had two copies on the shelves. I think they ordered quite a few, and were fortunate enough to have the distributor make good on their orders.

I’ve played the tutorial scenario solo and failed the first time with two characters. But then I tried again and beat it…but only by a hair. It feels like a hybrid of Mage Knight and Mistfall…which are two of my favorite games. Can’t wait to play some more.

It is obsession-engendering, that’s for sure.

I got my first game in last night, with 3 players. We managed to get through the first two scenarios. The first was a bit of a nail-biter. Scoundrel exhausted in the last room. Tinker (me) a turn or two later. Spellweaver won it next turn. The next scenario went significantly better, mostly due to the Scoundrel laying down a 15-point hit on the boss followed by me pulling him through my big trap. Then it was just mopping up.

We all thought it was a great system- a nice blend of lots of thinking and just enough luck to make it interesting. I’m starting another player or two into it on Wed. night. I doubt my group will get ‘obsessed’, but we’re having a lot of fun so far.

We made it through the first scenario despite a nasty road event on the way. Played it at 0 level though as I didn’t want to discourage anyone! It was a definite hit though and can’t wait for round two.

So the “legacy” element of Gloomhaven scared me away from their Kickstarter, but if Hepcat likes it as a solo game…maybe I need to look into this again. However, is it a KS or nothing type purchase? I am not seeing anything other than sold out or pre-order listings.

@rowe33- hah, we started the first scenario all Poisoned from a road event. Slowed our start a bit.

@Chaplin - that’s pretty much the situation. I myself lucked into a copy- I heard tentative good things in January, and placed a pre-order through Amazon (free Prime Shipping!). Shortly after, it blew up, it turns out retailers (online and local) placed orders for 24,000 copies and there were… 2400. Tons pf people who’d preordered through game shops and online stored were shorted. So the aftermarket is insane right now.

That said, you might keep your eyes open for a ‘slightly used’ copy in the near future. If you can look past them, the Legacy stickers and whatnot are somewhat easily reversed, but are probably going to be hugely devalued.

With those kinds of numbers is a proper printing planned? It’s times like these that I think Kickstarter is both the savior and the death of board gaming since it really is a pre-order with no retail market for most items.