What are you playing?

[jonnyalpha]

If it's good enough for the digital kids I'm sure it'll work for us. Tell us all what you've recently played and what it was like.

Last night I actually got two games played which was a bit of a shock. Both three player games with a friend of mine and my daughter. First we played a quick game of Chateau Roquefort. Quick because my daughter's cheese chasing antics were surprisingly successful and she rapidly beat us both. I do struggle with the memory element of this game which I think is my age catching up on me. I did manage a second place though this hardly counts as my friend has never played any game of this type before.

Next we had a game of Shear Panic which has the greatest pieces ever in the shape of a flock of sheep. You use actions to manoeuvre the flock to try and score yourself points and screw up your opponents plans. This worked really well with three and I really enjoyed it. My daughter was less keen as this one developed into a bit of a brain burner and took a bit longer (she also lost). I really like this game (I won ) but while it looks cute it has an evil side to it. I've got the original Mayfair release but it was republished by Zoch in Germany as Haste Bock which had better components and can be bought fairly cheaply on Amazon.de. Shear Panic

[Exit Chamber]

I'm looking forward to my first game of Space Hulk in about 15 years on Saturday (thanks to lewismistreated)

Apart from that, played a couple of games of Zombies!!! recently, which is good fun, but can take a bit of time. We are gonna try some of the quicker play rules from BGG next time. I lost both games, because my wife and sis-in-law enjoy making sure I lose. That's fine with me though, just getting them hooked before I purchase Arkham Horror BWAHAHAHAHAHA.

[Professor Rob]

Played Earth Reborn again last night. As it's essentially a two-player game we played with three people on each team. Didn't enjoy it as much as the previous session: I was too knackered to concentrate and my team-mates spent an excessive amount of time bickering with each other over tactics.

I'm told we've got Merchants and Marauders due to arrive before next week's session, which looks quite good. It's quite handy having a mate who spends his entire disposable income on games.

[Hoggy]

Last week I got together with some mates and played Necromunda for the first time in, well, it's got to be almost a decade and a half. Tremendous fun missing most attacks, killing a mate's leader, stealing territory and so on. Two of the guys are more D&D types and were rather amazed at the random levelling.

[Exit Chamber]

Necromunda is bloody brilliant. You got Outlanders too? It adds some pretty cool stuff.

[michael]

Just got back from games night, played The Great Fire Of London and won! First time, it's a pretty light game but a couple of the six playing treated it very intensely! Cue a fair bit of downtime, but still - a pretty enjoyable game, and it looked way better than the prototype I saw last year.

After that, six player Citadels, which went... badly.

[strawdonkey]

Largely World of Warcraft TCG, which practically nobody is interested in

Recent escapades have included Arkham Horror (Shub-Niggurath awoke just as we were about to close the sixth portal and win; we were then one point of damage away from killing him before he made us all go nuts), Pandemic (everybody died, several times) and the usual Dominion shenanigans.

Moosegrinder has just bought Prosperity, so between the pair of us we're just short of Alchemy; looking forward to having a good go at Prosperity and a four-set bonanza on Monday.

[Wiper]

Last week I got together with some mates and played Necromunda for the first time in, well, it's got to be almost a decade and a half. Tremendous fun missing most attacks, killing a mate's leader, stealing territory and so on. Two of the guys are more D&D types and were rather amazed at the random levelling.

Oh man, random levelling is the best part of GW's standalone games! Blood Bowl is possibly the best for this, as you watch in horror while all your linemen/crippled characters roll doubles and characteristic bonuses, while your expensive specialist characters refuse adamantly to get anything beyond the basics

Which reminds me that there's a local GW/games club where they play Blood Bowl on weekends. Damn my being free on weekdays, and away visiting the girlfriend on weekend

[tcharliel]

Ah Blood bowl, a favourite of mine in my youth. I remember well my Strength 4 Agility 4 halfling Lorenzo "The Lug" Mugchops, and his ultimate demise at the hands of that bloody wardancer

Rumblings amongst some GW fans is that there may be a re-release of blood bowl this year, which would be nice.

[moosegrinder]

That seems to be the opinion aye. The card game from FFG has been in development for ages too, hopefully we'll see summat on that soon.

Donk, I'd like to hear about the games in Ripley I don't make it to.

[Hoggy]

Necromunda is bloody brilliant. You got Outlanders too? It adds some pretty cool stuff.

Yeah, we had the Outlanders book (and terrain) so we tried out some of the other scenarios, terrain rules , outlawing etc. Sadly I couldn't find my spyrers so just stuck with my old Orlock models. I imagine we'll do it again, perhaps in the summer, and I'm already eyeing stuff up on eBay. :/

[Nathan Wind]

Just finished a game of Carcassonne against the wife - she stuffed me by well over 100 points, the little sod. With some strategic placing of cathedrals she screwed up two massive unfinished cities for me and out-farmered (that's a word, for sure) me on a very profitable field. I took the dribs and drabs approach, scoring little and often for small cities and roads, but it didn't pay off by a long shot.

Are any of the other expansions worth picking up for just the two of us?

[moosegrinder]

I asked the same on Twitter a while ago, I'll see if I can find the responses.

[michael]

I've heard that the Wheel of Fortune expansion is pretty good fun, adding another random element into the mix. One of the guys at my games group swears it revitalised his enjoyment of Carcassonne.

I'd personally go for an expansion that came with Spielbox a couple of issues ago called Die Pest (aka The Plague). You'll probably have to hunt it out on BGG or get a back issue, but I reckon it's awesome. Infecting the board is brilliant!

[moosegrinder]

Balls, it must have been longer than I thought as my @ mentions don't go back far enough :/

Darren (that's his username) recommended something but he didn't mention that one you just said, Michael. God damn my infernal useless memory

[Nathan Wind]

Schweet - cheers chaps.

[jonnyalpha]

You can order individual issues of Spielbox from Boardgameguru. I think it's the 6th English issue that has the Carc expansion.

Edit: just notice on the guru website that in the blurb all of the issues are described as the 5th English edition. The edition you're looking for is the one with Loch Ness as the featured game on the cover.

[Nathan Wind]

Ordered, thanks! That website looks potentially dangerous for my wallet....

I'm hoping expanding Carcassonne and making it more complex in small increments will encourage my wife to try some slightly more involved games. Still nothing too complicated, as to be honest, I can't really be arsed with anything like that myself. When I was younger I used to love tabletop gaming at my local roleplaying group, but I just don't have the inclination these days - short and fun games are what I'm after now. Bar the odd game of Space Hulk when I can drag an unwitting friend into it (which has only happened once so far ).

Edit - I've just remembered we quite often used to play Nuclear War with the expansions, back in the day. It was amazing fun with a big group, forging shady alliances and then stabbing people in the back, and loading massive payloads onto Minutemen and obliterating peoples populations. Heady days Anyone here play(ed) it?

[jonnyalpha]

That website is dangerous and I hope you realise the personal financial risk I took by going there. The great thing about a lot of these games is that they are very simple at heart but with lots of decisions to make. You should take a look at Archaeology the card game next. I love that as a very simple game to teach and it works well with 2 to 4. I bet your wife would enjoy it as well.

[therearerules]

Monopoly Deal. Now, before you all laugh derisively, it's not that bad. I hated it at first, due the presence of a card which may as well say 'Win game now', and it's a simple luck game with no mental taxation. However, with a simple variant that turns the 'win' card into a balanced one it's a quick to play fun little game.

[jonnyalpha]

I've got Monopoly Deal but have yet to play it. It seems well liked though and it's so cheap that it has to be a bargain.

[therearerules]

Here are a few variant rules you might like:

'Deal Breaker' cards only take a single card from a completed set, not the completed set.

Moving or flipping properties counts as one of your three actions.

Also, a small thing the rules got wrong: All the money is printed horizontally, whereas actions and properties are vertical. This is so you can clearly see what cards have been used to money, as they're supposed to be placed horizontally, something the rules don't do in their example game.

[Fury4k]

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[Fury4k]

On 25/01/2011 at 18:34, Blunted said:

 

 

[Bushtopher]

Had a bit of a gaming afternoon yesterday - most board games I've played in a while....

Ticket to Ride - first time I've ever played this, despite hearing lots about it previously. Really enjoyed it, and it seemed to be the most 'friendly' (i.e. least confrontational) game we played. Messed up the first game by not taking any extra tickets, but got the hang of it a bit more in the second game. I expect once you learn which routes are key, and which tickets are most achievable/work well together it gets better/easier.

Carcassonne - have only ever played this on iPhone/iPad (and once or twice on xbox live when I didn't have a clue what was going on!). Really enjoyed playing in real life, and found that it is quite a different game with more than 2 players (my only experience of it before). In particular, the strategy of 'stealing' / getting in on other peoples growing cities seemed quite important, and ultimately decided the winner of the game.

Settlers of Catan - have played this lots in the past, and really loved it. However, was probably the game I enjoyed least out of the three we played. Maybe because it was the last game we played, but it seemed more confrontational/screwing over other people than Ticket to Ride/Carcassonne. And was frustrating to lose right at the end by someone stealing away my longest road! Think I need to try some expansions to reignite my love for this game.

[Exit Chamber]

Played a couple of games of Space Hulk yesterday with my brother, the first scenario as each side. I went the marines first and got absolutely humped. Surrounded almost instantly and torn to pieces. We then swapped sides and I thought to myself that I would get revenge, but he proceeded to roll more sixes than I have ever seen before and gave me a thorough beating! One of his marines was left on overwatch keeping an eye on the rear and must have killed about 15 'stealers on his own! It was outrageous. Fantastic fun though. The timer really adds an amazing amount of tension to the game. Can't wait to play some more.

[Professor Rob]

Played Merchants & Maruaders last night, which was great fun. Didn't win, but came a very close second (I would have won on my next turn). Will post a better write-up when I get the time.

[michael]

Regular games night last night, kicked off with 6 Nimmt which went OK. I'd have won if I'd actually concentrated in the first round, made some dumb plays and ended up finishing second of three, lost by two points.

After that, we played Puerto Rico - not actually broken it out for a couple of years, and it took a while to get into the swing again. A few sub-optimal choices early on (ie: fuck-ups) meant there was no way I'd be winning, but I came a respectable second after getting lucky with some endgame bonuses.

Last of all, Nile. It's a quick little card game that is let down by some production issues (the cards are a bit shabbily made) but it's decent enough. The scoring's a bit odd, but I managed to pull a win out.

A little gutted that the guys I was meant to be playing Wrath of Ashardlon with didn't show up, but the unboxing was fun, all oooohs and ahhhhhs at the awesome minis

[moosegrinder]

Pictures or GTFO.

[MotiVater]

Indeed. Plus a gameplay comparison of that vs Ravenloft, STAT please!