4081

If you like Pirate’s Cove it’s pretty much got to be for the theme. Check out Merchants and Marauders, which both does a better job with the theme and is a better game to boot.

4082

Had a gameday yesterday, and played three new-to-me games.

  1. Homesteaders. I’d never actually even heard of this game, so was surprised when it turned out to be pretty good. BGG describes it as: “Homesteaders is an Auction and Resource Management game in which players bid on the opportunity to build certain types of buildings, then spend resource cubes to build one of several buildings of that type. The buildings confer abilities, income, and points; some automatically and some requiring a Worker.” Which makes it sound very generic-Euro, and I guess in a sense it is. But it’s in a good way. It actually feels like a streamlined Puerto Rico with prominent auctionry.

  2. Le Havre (which I can’t help but rhyme with “Favre” when I say it in my head). You’ve played this game already and know all about it, but for my part, I was expecting it to be MUCH more fiddly than it was. Everyone says it’s more complicated than Agricola, but I actually think it’s simpler in a lot of ways. I mean, really, just about all you can do is take goods, build buildings, do stuff to goods, and ship goods. I can see where the game would get bogged down if you have AP-prone players (you have tons of visibility into upcoming cards, so people who want to put together a long-term strategy might sit there for-goddamn-ever poring over things), but if you have people who are playing mostly tactically, it goes pretty quick. I think our five-player game was around an hour, and the game definitely has the weight to sustain that.

  3. Ninjato. This was my biggest surprise of the night, because I was expecting it to be some super-chintzy thing that was built around a gimmicky ninja theme. But no, it’s actually a really fun ninja-placement game that is fundamentally organized around using your cards to steal treasures from houses (via either strength, where you beat the guards with high cards; or stealth, where you beat them with low cards), and then cashing in those treasures for clan influence (which may get you VPs in scoring rounds) or rumors (which get you VP at game end), and with enough wrinkles to keep it interesting. It may actually be a little too baroque – there are a surprisingly large number of rules to the game – but I think it falls on the good side of that line.

Also played Pillars of the Earth (with the expansion that I’d never played before), and the game continues to earn a healthy meh from me. There are zero ways in which I prefer it to Stone Age, and it just feels slow and dull. I think the expansion actually makes the game worse, too, so I’d definitely avoid that.

4083

See, and I really like Pillars but only with the expansion :). Thanks for the report on Ninjato, I’ve been toying with buying it. Zman is out of stock on it, but it’s still available from online game stores.

4084

philosophist,

I would suggest Descent but NOT the current version. There’s a Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) coming out early next year that supposedly addresses the major complaints: duration, balance, and rules issues.

Next, although I haven’t played mine yet, Risk Legacy sounds like it might fit your crew. It’s an evolving game where you actually use stickers and markers to alter the game as you play it!!

4085

So, this Thing print and play…could it be a thing?

4086

It is. As is his Aliens game. I bought both via one of the many crazy sales Artscow has for customized playing cards because I was afraid they’d be yanked, but it seems he has a knack for dodging lawyer bullets. I haven’t played either much, but both do a terrific job of evoking the source material.

4087

I know at least one game Santa is going to bring this year: Dixit. I read the description and it sounds like it would be a blast to play with my kids. Maybe my wife would even play. Thanks for the recommendation lizard king.

I would still like one strategic/fantasy board game as well, perhaps something my 16 year old and I could focus on. He is really excited about the new edition of the German board game, War of the Ring. Has anybody tried that one?

Failing that, I am thinking I’ll just pick up conquest of nerath, even in that means just playing with my 16 years old. That or command and colors. He really is quite fond of memoir '44.

Speaking of theme based games, I do think that’s very important for young kids. Their two favorite games are small world and pirates cove, even though both are light on strategy and heavy on luck.

4088

Oh, theme’s absolutely huge for kids – but Small World’s a very good game, and Pirate’s Cove is a pretty decent family game. It’s not like the bad old days of Star Wars Clue or whatever.

I’ve only played War of the Ring once, but back when my son was five, he appropriated the pieces for use as toys, and I think few games got more play over the years than that one, if not quite as intended.

4089

Dixit is a fantastic game, one of my kids’ (ages 7, 9 and 12) favorites. I’ve used it at school with senior students (to illustrate the usage of the subjective frame of reference) and they’ve loved it as well. I teach some tough kids (lower socio/economic, polynesian, pure Aussie bogan) and every lesson they still ask me when we’re going to play Dixit again.
Just bought the last version which also includes a few variants, I’d recommend that rather than the base set.
Also, Merchants and Marauders is highly esteemed by my gaming group. Two thumbs up for that one as well.

4090

Yeah, Dixit is great. Keep it in your car in case you’re at a party and a gaming emergency breaks out. Nobody can resist those cards!

If you’re looking for a two player fantasy strategy game you can’t go wrong with War of the Ring, especially if you’ve got any love for the books and double especially if he’s already excited about it :)

4091

War of the Ring is not what I would call a great strategic boardgame (luck can play a very big part and the balance is so-so), but it is a great narrative boardgame that just perfectly captures the feel of the book. Highly recommended, if the books hold any interest. I don’t think I’ve seen any fantasy world carried over from literature to a boardgame this well before or since, and that includes everything Games Workshop has done (maybe with the exception of Space Hulk).

4092

Me too! I checked at my store on Saturday and the owner said there were apparently some copies in Madison, Wisconsin and she’d try to get me one this week. Fingers crossed!

4093

Can you guys give some examples of phrases you use when playing Dixit? When I tried to play with my kids, it just wasn’t clicking for us and some examples might help.

4094

Thoughthammer is having a Cyber Monday sale that includes Dreadfleet for $70: http://www.thoughthammer.com/dreadfleet-p-8607.html?osCsid=5f601162474821e4731a8d525b7b63dd

Looking at CoolStuffInc’s list (http://www.coolstuffinc.com/main_saleItems.php) a few things stand out, including Rune Age for $18, Dominion for $23, Blood Bowl: Team Manager for $18, and Fortune & Glory for $56.

Miniaturemarket is having a sale, and here’s a link to their Excel spreadsheet: http://www.miniaturemarket.com/landingPages/cyberMonday_Nov11/MiniatureMarket_BlackFriday_Nov11.xls

4095

As others have said already, War of the Ring is great (nitpick: the designers are Italian, not German).

As far as strategic fantasy boardgames go, Runewars is top of the heap for me right now. The overall graphic design is a mess, but there are four distinct factions to play, legions of cool plastic minis, tons of juicy decisionmaking, and room for real diplomacy to boot. Fantasy Flight just released the first expansion, Banners of War, which I’m eager to try out this weekend.

4096

Here you go. He does great with holding up the card and telling you what he’d say.

4097

Our regular group played our first Banners of War (BoW) game on Thanksgiving Eve. The gaming experience was one of the worst experiences ever but I don’t lay all of the blame on BoW, but I do have some complaints with the expansion.

First, it took us 11 hours to play. ELEVEN!!! Our group has known each other for over 25 years and when we get together to game there is a LOT of chit-chat, and to be frank, most of our group doesn’t focus on gameplay flow. They often have to be reminded to take their turn, or draw a card, or DO ANYTHING! This alone accounts for at least an extra hour for any game we play. Having to remind everyone to take a turn, draw a card, resolve a combat, drove me friggin nuts!!! /vent

All 4 players have played Runewars at least 3 times, probably more, so learning the game wasn’t an issue. All of us were rusty, having not played Runewars in about 6 months, resulting in frequent trips to the rulebook. One player continually distracted others with talk of his MtG decks and Droid surfing. I’ve wanted to smash these damn devices lately. They are a huge distraction during gaming.

Most of the above accounted for our ridiculously long game but I also feel many of the new features in BoW dragged the game down without adding much. They are:
[ul]
[li]It took us ONE HOUR to setup the game board. We drew the 3 smallest game tiles, and with the new one-hex (Lost City) tile, it made it almost impossible to create a legal map. This was extremely annoying.[/li][li]Commanders just dragged the game down by slowing down the already slow hero phase. They didn’t seem to add much to gameplay.[/li][li]Desolation and Cryomancer tokens definitely slowed the game down. All they did was slow progress and development and upset players. Totally unneeded.[/li][li]We used the optional Exploration Tokens and, just like in the original game, these just slow the game down.[/li][li]We used the “Road To Victory” optional endgame rule that places a nation’s victory card on the current seasons deck when they get the required # of runestones to win. They don’t win until the season the card was placed on comes around again. Huge delay in gameplay! It resulted in the pile-on effect and just added an extra hour to the game.[/li][/ul]

Other comments on BoW:
[ul]
[li]Some of the new units were great (Waiqar’s Great Wyrm) but most new units went unused because they either performed poorly or seemed too weak to bother with.[/li][li]These new cards were great: season, fate, title, tactical fate, hero, nation developments, quests, objectives, rewards[/li][li]The new city replacement tokens were the best part of the game. Due to how powerful these cities are they drove players to actually fight over something. Fighting incentives were woefully missing in the original game.[/li][li]The new Garrison order card was used, … once, and the player using it said he wished he had chosen something else. :|[/li][li]The new hex tile that has a mountain doesn’t have a slot for one of the 3d mountains. There should have been new order cards for the changes to the “Harvest” and “Rally Support” cards. Very cheap on FFGs part.[/li][li]The Lost City tile, as mentioned above, caused some initial setup issues.[/li][/ul]

Was the game fun? I thought it was. But it took our painfully slow group about 6 hours more than we hoped, mostly due to our snail-like gaming tendencies.

EDITS: Grammurr!

4098

Dreadfleet for $70! Holy Crap! Too many other expenses… must resist…

4099

Does it fix the game? Not that I think it needs fixing, just curious if it makes it that much better?

I played Urban Sprawl and while I loved it my group did not care for it. Too long (even with the short game) and it was a runaway game for 1st place scores looked like this 175, 70 (not a typo), 57, 35.

No I did not win. I came in 3rd.

4100

Fix it? No. I don’t believe Runewars needed fixing though. It added some fun features, lots of new cards, and a few rules (some optional) that extend the game. I’m not thrilled with the new units. Most seem weak, some seem overpowered (Waiqar Wyrm).