4021

Just bought a copy of Merchants & Marauders. I haven’t gotten to play it yet, but I’m really impressed with the rules and components. I think this thing will be right up our alley. I’ll probably do a play through by myself before the weekend though; just to be a little more prepared. Never hurts with some hands-on experience before presenting it to a larger group.

Other than that, I’ve decided to spring for the Pegasus expansion for Battlestar Galactica. It’s one of my absolute favorite board games, so it’s the least I could do to indulge myself. I also have King of Tokyo on my order list, just because I lack that type of fast paced and easy going game.

Also, I’m marginally interested in Eclipse.

4022

The Ares Project (described as deck-based Starcraft, but it’s really something else) is out now, so I’ll be picking that up soon. Also, the Claustrophobiaexpansion is out, although there’s not much information on it.

Finally, if anyone else is on the verge of caving and getting their Dreadfleet assembled and painted professionally, this guy is doing mine and 3 others in the Dec-Feb timeframe for a reasonable price, and is looking for a 5th set to round out the assembly line.

Also, I made an iOS boardgame thread.

4023

Do you already have the Exodus expansion?

While they are probably most famous for quality smaller games like Dixit and 7 Wonders, it’s worth taking into account that they are publishing some really great serious boardgames that combine lessons from both Euro and Ameritrash genres for streamlined experiences, such as Claustrophobia (Hulk-alike) and Eclipse. I’m not sure where Cyclades fits into that rough description, but if I had to point to key aspects of their brand currently it would be smooth, compact gameplay to do fairly sophisticated things, in the context of generally excellent production values.

4024

Yessir. Love the Cylon board to bits. :)

4025

Ah, wonderful. Then yeah, probably Pegasus will add some nice variety in Crisis cards, characters, and the Pegasus board. Prepare to airlock the New Caprica ending.

I am curious since you’ve been playing it without Pegasus…the conventional wisdom is that Exodus would make it “too easy” for Cylons without the Pegasus board to give the humans some breathing room. Was that your experience?

4026

Definitely visit these recommendations, if only for Rio Grande and Mayfair alone. Asmodee also makes the Ghost Stories co-op games (hard!), Claustrophobia, Cyclades, and Dungeon Twister, so there’s enough “gamer” games worth checking out (in addition to the popular card-based titles like 7 Wonders, Dixit, Jungle Speed, etc).

If they are giving demos at the Smirk and Dagger booth, then you can see if you like Cutthroat Caverns (my group likes it, but we love backstabby games).

NorthStar games has a couple of fantastic games. I highly recommend Say Anything as a party game, and the Wits and Wagers series is awesome, which can scale as small as three or four, or accommodate a bunch more and be a party game as well.

Mindware will probably be showing off Qwirkle, which just won Game of the Year. My family loves that one.

4027

Thank you for all the suggestions :).

4028

Those were the three I recognized!

I still don’t have a copy of Seven Wonders or Dixit, so I’m definitely going to stop by and see what they have on hand.

I haven’t been to anything resembling a game convention since GenCon in '96, and this time I’ll have a five-year-old along, so I expect it’ll be a very different experience.

4029

I would say that is accurate for us as well. I think what has saved us from whatever imbalance there may be in play is the fact that we don’t really care. It’s a tense, thematic and atmospheric game. It’s a damn hard game to beat, but that still doesn’t dent our enjoyment of it the slightest. The buzz, stories and experiences this game create for us far supersedes any mechanical caveats.

The role as the hidden Cylon is a very comfortable and powefull part to play in a lot of ways now. Mostly because you just sit there and carefully seed key skill checks with negative cards, while still participating in the conversation and group dynamic. I know that’s a big draw for a lot of people. With the new Cylon tracking board, planning your actions as a Cylon is a lot easier too, because you pretty much always know when a failed crisis or a reveal hurt the most. The tendencies in our games have been Cylon reveals towards the very end – if at all. I hope Pegasus will spice up this pattern, if only to force Cylon players to try new tactics. It’s almost embarrassing how little we have explored the revealed Cylon options in general.

It varies if we even actually finish our games once we start. Last time, we had two hidden Cylons in play, and both left early (yeah, we suck at planning these board game meet-ups). The rest of us decided to keep playing and try to beat the “AI”, just to get a sense of our odds. We barely made it, arriving at Kobold on fumes. And that was without the influence of the Cylon players in the latter part of the trip.

With that said, it’s time for the humans to kick some ass, so I’m eager to see what Pegasus brings to the table. :)

4030

Hehe. Presumably the AD&D version of Cobol? :)

4031

I was at the Orc’s Nest today and they had the game. I thought: “What the hey, this should be fun to try with the kids this week-end”. So I brought back a huge box home. My wife is pleased (she retaliates with shoe purchases). :)

I also grabbed Smallworld: Be Not Afraid. Just to add variety to our upcoming games.

Game reports as I try them out.

Wendelius

4032

guppy – I suggest investing in a few games that play well with a large group of people, for when you have lots of folks (6 to 8) show up unexpectedly. My suggestions would be:

Shadow Hunters (chaotic killfest in 20 minutes)
BANG! (Wild West version of Shadow Hunters, but longer)
7 Wonders (Civ-lite-the-card-game)
Citadels (backstabby second-guessing card game)

Sounds like you’re looking for games that are accessible but still meaty. These would be my suggestions:

Roll Through the Ages (Civ-the-dice-game)
Pandemic (the great co-op game)
Metropolys (deviously simple bidding game)
Kingsburg (on the longer and heavier side, but a great balance of luck and strategy)

4033

I’m guessing you’ve been waiting a while for that one ;)

4034

Besides what has been mentioned already - Out of the box is worth checking out also, especially if you have a child. Chitag is different than Gencon, more geared towards family and demos and not towards playing the whole game.

The two game stores that will be there might also be nice to check out. The stores that is, if you have time. Cat & Mouse has very nice staff and has lots of family/kid stuff (plus adult). Chicagoland games is bigger and has 100+ games available to try.

4035

For those considering Dixit (and you should – it’s an excellent game, kind of like Balderdash with art instead of words), start with “Dixit Odyssey” instead of the base “Dixit” game. Odyssey has slightly tweaked/improved rules, an actual game board with spaces for the cards people are voting on, and enough pieces for 12 players.

Since the cards are completely compatible, you can then treat the original “Dixit” and “Dixit 2” as expansions of “Dixit Odyssey”.

4036

Anyone look at, has played, or knows of a good gameplay review for Super Dungeon Explorers? I saw this has bumped up on board game geek and it caught my attention as a potentially fun little anime themed tactical dungeon crawl.

All the “reviews” I seem to be finding are caught up on the miniatures or components, but fail to really go into the, you know, game. The only rules I have seen are the demo rules-- which look interesting.

4037

The booth at PAX was pretty busy most of the time. I watched a few turns and it looked neat, but I’d have to sit and play a game before I could decide how much was novelty and visuals vs. interesting game play.

4038

I picked up King of Tokyo this weekend after reading on RPS that its a fun game to play when you’re drinking. I had ignored this game since it has those cheesy cardboard stands, juvenile art, and a small board that has nothing more than a circle on it. Not to mention that its just a dice rolling game.

When I set it up I immediately got groans from my friends. One friend doesn’t like the japanese monster theme. Another doesn’t like victory points. Another doesn’t like dice. It was all forgotten and by the end of the first game they were begging for another round.

I should have known better than to doubt it since its got Richard Garfield’s name on it. Turns out the game has tons of interesting decision points, has great balance between VPs and player elimination, and a huge amount of replayability with the overabundance of cards.

Its definitely a beer & pretzels party game, but sometimes that is all I want and about all the group can handle once we are all a few beers down. I think this may replace Bang! and The Resistance as our drinking game for a while.

4039

I don’t drink and I still like KoT! You can play it with almost anyone, it’s good with up to six people and the decisions are enough to make you think for a few seconds but not enough that anyone is going to take a five minute turn. Plus it’s usually a pretty close ending. It’s become our go to game when waiting for someone to show up or when we’ve got non gamers who want to try something but are intimidated by a lot of the longer games we play. That’s how we trick them into playing the really good stuff :)

4040

2nd play of Eminent Domain down, and the consensus so far is that we all like it a lot better than Race. I think a big part of it for me is how clear the symbols are and that I find the flow of the game a lot more accessible.

Eaten By Zombies is a whole different story. Reldan described it as Dominion-like with a better theme, I would agree and I think that makes a big difference. The rules, however, are an abomination, and if anyone is going to look at this game they need this teaching guide and possibly the FAQ. How anyone could think that walls of text without a single useful illustration of the symbols being referenced or the cards being employed is a good way to write a manual for such a straightforward game boggles the mind.

Other than that, I enjoyed it about as much as I expected to and I look forward to seeing different blends of cards come up. I’m hoping the first impression of card-drawing cards being the basic move for all players doesn’t hold up, but it may be that’s something that becomes less important once everybody has it in mind.