Probably going to get a lot of disagrees with me, but this is exactly how I’ve always felt about Terra Mystica. I’ve been trying to play the app lately and when you remove all the dazzle of those wooden pieces, it really shines through what an opaque, disconnected point salad mess it is.
Like most people who play a lot of board games, I occasionally have ideas of creating my own board games. For a while I had this idea for a game about the American Civil War. It allowed the South to play defensively, and the North had to keep up on a political track to keep justifying the war.
Well, apparently Martin Wallace already had a similar (enough) idea.
This kind of looks like a war game, but is actually more of a hand and deck management game, or so it is advertised. Cards are multi-use, and using a card to create high level troops removes the card from the game. At the same time, the North has to earn a set number of victory points at each stage of the game, or the South wins by default.
This game seems to check off a lot of my boxes. Tactical, has tension, and uses card play. I hope it actually is good, since I plan on backing.
Hey, Asmodee might be selling itself. For money. Like a common harlot.
@tomchick, if you bought it, you could finally tell FFG how their business model should work.
Speaking of that, tried Quatermaster General sporadically lately.
Tried with 3 different groups, and we all came to the same conclusion. We wanted to like it, and tried multiple times to work ways around it, but it kept coming down to a very narrow set of 2 or 3 factors and the sheer luck of them coming up:
-The Axis lived or died entirely on Germany getting their 2 status cards that let them do double attack/recruit actions (Blitzkrieg and another that I forget). This game should come with one of those casino Blackjack scanners they use to check for aces. You run the Germany deck over the scanner, and it determines if those 2 cards are near the bottom of the deck. If so, then you shake hands with the Allies to concede defeat and thank them for the game.
-Even if Germany did get those cards, the next step was just crossing your fingers and hoping the Soviet player wasn’t stacked with all the cards that automatically eliminate armies on or around Moscow.
-Britain gave the Allies a ridiculous swing if they drew their India or Australia card early.
There was some other stuff, but mostly it was the Axis praying Germany got its 2 status cards out in time. Some people said you needed the expansions, so we got both and still ran into that issue. The only thing the expansions really did was give the U.S. a slightly more viable option of going into the Pacific (and dilute Britain’s deck where one-fourth of it was dedicated to French units but I had yet to ever see a game where France wasn’t wiped out by turn 2). What the expansion also did was turn the whole WWII dynamic on its head. It was the Allies who started out with a seemingly overwhelming advantage while the Axis struggled to hold on until they could get their war machine economy online. That seemed…off.
If I bought FFG, I would tell them to carry on with the same business model they’re using now. Because if it works on me despite how much I hate it, they’re doing something right!
Speaking of, anyone want to buy some barely used Star Wars: Armada miniatures?
-Tom
I just recently sold off all my old Warhammer Fantasy, Battlefleet Gothic, and Gorkamorka miniatures for $30. Probably around $500 worth of crap at the time. They’ve all been collecting dust in my parent’s basement since high school. I mostly just wanted to give them a good home :(
In order news, since Eldritch Horror exists, have been on the lookout to sell my copy of Arkham Horror + all expansions set for super cheap. $20?
Would anybody be down for an 1889 intro to 18xx teaching-type game on tabletop simulator this weekend?
Shit, I’d pay that.
That said, a) I bet shipping would be ridiculous - even if you’ve condensed, that’s got to be three large boxes minimum, maybe more, and b) the base game alone still goes for $50, so I think you could and probably should get significantly more for it.
Yeah the insane shipping is why I’m only asking for that.
Plus it’s not exactly mint condition. They’re all mixed together and while I don’t think anything major is missing (beyond some clue/health/sanity tokens), I can’t guarantee it and I don’t have the energy to go sort through it all checking.
I once sold a working copy of Dark Tower on ebay for $130. The buyer threw an absolute screaming fit when he got it and the dragon figure was missing its tongue. So the downside of getting a lot of money for selling this stuff, is that you have to deal with the kind of people who would pay a lot of money for this stuff.
I picked up Century: Spice Road and Sid Meir’s Civilization: A New Dawn today. I’ve played Spice Road and like it a lot as a light game: it’s a Splendor-killer IMO. I haven’t played Civ: New Dawn yet but I have a friend who really likes the original SM Civ board game. Has anyone tried A New Dawn yet? It got fairly good reviews on bgg.
Played it once so far. It seemed much better than all the other official Civ board games (not a high bar, admittedly). And that’s partly because it actually finishes in a sensible amount of time - and will be properly speedy once players know what they are doing.
That’s about all the conclusions I have so far. Looking forward to playing it again fairly soon and seeing if it holds up.
If serious, I might be interested. Mostly after newer Rebel Alliance sets, but tell me what you have.
Interesting. I did like the previous one, but the playtime has blocked it from hitting the table.
Clash of Cultures with the expansion was really good, though, and feels a bit more like it warrants the time it takes.
This thread makes me a little sad.
I have a few boardgames and no one to play them with. !!
Well if you live any where near me, your welcome to come around and play board games!
So I’m annoyed I missed the boat on Spirit Island. At first I didn’t think my group would be into it due to complexity, but their recent love of Terraforming Mars makes me think they’d like it. (Not that they are similar but it made me realize my wife, sister and her girlfriend could handle something with more depth.) I had the game IN MY HANDS at a local game store and I passed on it. Now it’s nowhere to be found. Apparently it’s being reprinted so I’ll keep checking.
Yay I got my Duchess table, time to charge up my drill batteries.
Keep an eye out- I think I read that the next reprinting should be very soon.
Appreciate the sentiment. I live in the canary Islands so I’m not near anyone lol.
If/when I move back to England. …