Board Games (Reviews, Rules, Regulations, Random)

[skywindO2]

Played Betrayal at Baldur's Gate on NYE. I like that theme more than House on the Hill. 

[The Gnat]

42 minutes ago, skywindO2 said:

Played Betrayal at Baldur's Gate on NYE. I like that theme more than House on the Hill. 

I like the fact that 20% of the scenarios don't have a betrayer. I think it still has some issues with the haunt/betrayer and clarity, but does clean up a few things. I personally still prefer the horror aspect of Betrayal at House on the Hill, I think that works better with the mechanics, but Betrayal at Baldur's Gate does clean up a number of the wonkier mechanical bits that could cause the game balance to get out of whack.

[The Gnat]

Got a few games to the table this weekend:

Had a board game night, first since the baby is around. 

We played three different games, but it took a little while. We had a fast game of Tsuro, that's always just a good kick-off game. Then a round of Sushi Go! Party which was fun. But the highlight of the night was that I now have Ice Cool and Ice Cool 2, so we were able to create a giant board for penguin flicking madness, it was a blast.

Then on Sunday had a friend over and we played three game of Clank! In! Space! and a game of Lost Expedition.

Having now played five games of Clank! In! Space!. I think the game works best with more players, so three or four (though haven't played four yet). With two you can turn it into a speed run, whereas with more players you can't as easily do that.

[titansNvolsR#1]

Any of you guys used tabletop simulator? Would it run on a 2017 Macbook Pro? My Gloomhaven group is trying to decide if its worth playing on that once I move to Beijing in July. 

[The Gnat]

5 hours ago, titansNvolsR#1 said:

Any of you guys used tabletop simulator? Would it run on a 2017 Macbook Pro? My Gloomhaven group is trying to decide if its worth playing on that once I move to Beijing in July. 

I haven't used any. I would think that it would probably run on that level of computer just from what I know about the software.

[The Gnat]

Just rehashed a couple of games for board game night this month.

Wits & Wagers and Stipulations.

 

Both are probably my two favorite easily accessible party style games. Wits and Wagers gives you the trivia  game feel but then allows for people to bet on someone else's answer, if they think that person knows more about it than them. We had a question, how many goals did Pele score in his pro career, there were some extremely low numbers, and some high numbers, but a few people got the payout from their bid because they bid on the highest option.

Stipulations is like Balderdash or Apples to Apples/Cards Against Humanity where one person is it, and everyone else is writing down a stipulation for something. So maybe you got your dream job as a Chef, then someone would write something "But you only serve Soylent Green" or maybe you have the super power of being able to talk to animals "But they are all trying to seduce you." stuff like that. I like it because it tailors better to any audience, and has a lighter feel to it than Balderdash.

Yesterday I did punch out a few board games that I've gotten recently:
Swords & Sorcery
Folklore: The Affliction
Aeon's End: War Eternal

I'm excited to get them to the table. I'm glad I spent $5.50 on Amazon to get 500 2"x3" ziplock bags, makes sorting all those tokens easy.

[The Gnat]

Played a couple of two player only games yesterday on my day off with my wife. We both get President's Day off for work, and we decided to send the baby to day care and just have a day to ourselves. Did a lot of reading but got two games to the table:
 

Bloom - Pretty simple push your luck game, it says it takes 20 minutes to play, that's with teaching the rules. All you are trying to do is grow flowers and then cut them to add to your collection at the right time. However, you're flipping cards, and if you get one of the flower types that isn't currently planted you bust. There are some special powers you can use in the game as well. Nothing great, but not bad, and a simple game to set-up and take down.

Hanamikoji - This one is a real brain burner of a game as you try and get geisha's favor by giving them gifts. Each one has a particular thing you can give them and is worth a certain number of points. What makes it interesting is that you each have four actions you can take, reserve a card for secret scoring, discard two cards in secret, play three cards, the other player chooses one for their side, or put down two groups of two cards, and the other player picks one of the two groups for their side. So you're trying to have more gifts than the other person and win the favor of the specific geishas. First to get the favor of 4 geishas or get 11 points worth of geishas wins. Really well designed game and very challenging. We played three games in a row, I believe. And the game is simple to set-up but looks very nice on the table. 

Was hoping to get Dice Throne Season 1 to the table as well, but we ran out of time.

[titansNvolsR#1]

16 hours ago, The Gnat said:

Played a couple of two player only games yesterday on my day off with my wife. We both get President's Day off for work, and we decided to send the baby to day care and just have a day to ourselves. Did a lot of reading but got two games to the table:
 

Bloom - Pretty simple push your luck game, it says it takes 20 minutes to play, that's with teaching the rules. All you are trying to do is grow flowers and then cut them to add to your collection at the right time. However, you're flipping cards, and if you get one of the flower types that isn't currently planted you bust. There are some special powers you can use in the game as well. Nothing great, but not bad, and a simple game to set-up and take down.

Hanamikoji - This one is a real brain burner of a game as you try and get geisha's favor by giving them gifts. Each one has a particular thing you can give them and is worth a certain number of points. What makes it interesting is that you each have four actions you can take, reserve a card for secret scoring, discard two cards in secret, play three cards, the other player chooses one for their side, or put down two groups of two cards, and the other player picks one of the two groups for their side. So you're trying to have more gifts than the other person and win the favor of the specific geishas. First to get the favor of 4 geishas or get 11 points worth of geishas wins. Really well designed game and very challenging. We played three games in a row, I believe. And the game is simple to set-up but looks very nice on the table. 

Was hoping to get Dice Throne Season 1 to the table as well, but we ran out of time.

I need more 2 player games for the wife and I. Almost bough Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum but couldn't part with the 1500 pesos they wanted. Biggest issue is I'm better at strategy games so after a few times playing a game, the odds of winning favor me which obviously is no fun for either of us. 

Any recommendations? Right now we own: Hive, Kahuna, Jaipur, and Patchwork (probably our favorite). 

[pwny]

24 minutes ago, titansNvolsR#1 said:

Any recommendations? Right now we own: Hive, Kahuna, Jaipur, and Patchwork (probably our favorite). 

The gf and I really like Arkham Horror. It’s cooperative too, so that will keep it from feeling unbalanced. 

[The Gnat]

7 hours ago, titansNvolsR#1 said:

I need more 2 player games for the wife and I. Almost bough Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum but couldn't part with the 1500 pesos they wanted. Biggest issue is I'm better at strategy games so after a few times playing a game, the odds of winning favor me which obviously is no fun for either of us. 

Any recommendations? Right now we own: Hive, Kahuna, Jaipur, and Patchwork (probably our favorite). 

 

7 hours ago, pwny said:

The gf and I really like Arkham Horror. It’s cooperative too, so that will keep it from feeling unbalanced. 

Agreed with Arkham Horror LCG, which I'm pretty sure is the one that pwny is talking about though Arkham Horror the big box game could work fine as well, but LCG is specifically two player (unless you buy a second core box, then it can be up to four).

I'd highly recommend Hanamikoji as well. http://nerdologists.com/2019/02/tabletoptakes-hanamikoji/ - Gives some idea of how the game works. It has a nice balance of luck and strategy to it, so I'm better at strategy than my wife, but she won the first game of it, and I won the next two, but it's always close.

Quoridor and other games by Gigamic are generally good options as well, though they fall into the higher abstract strategy category. 

I am not sure I can recommend Blossom (which I mistakenly called Bloom), as it's a bit simple, but if your wife isn't into heavy strategy, I could see it working well, it's a decent two player push your luck game. I beat my wife pretty handily in both games, but that was because of luck more than strategy.

Haven't played them, but 7 Wonders Duel and Jaipur are always two of the top two player board games. And I think, especially with 7 Wonders Duel, it's a theme that you could fairly easily get your wife on board with.

[The Gnat]

Got more Gloomhaven to the table last night after about a month off because every time we tried to schedule it because of getting a lot of snow. 

We had our 7th character retired. I'm getting close to retiring my character and opening up a new box. The game is still really good. You can really get into the swing of things with your character, and if it were't for a few bad card pulls for modifiers (aka getting strong attacks cancelled) we would have beaten a quest well earlier than we did.

[The Gnat]

Played more Hanamikoji yesterday, still holds up well.

Also played Dice Throne yesterday, just characters from season one. It's a fun dice game (hence the name) where you take a couple of combatants and face them off against each other. Each one plays differently, and it's Yahtzee style rolling of dice. Game works really well. I want the characters from the second season of it as well and just have a giant tournament.

[The Gnat]

Played a few games over the weekend at Fantasy Flight Games Center:

Skull - Good bidding/bluffing game. You have four discs, which are a little awkward to hold, but three are flowers and one is a skull. Everyone plays down discs and eventually someone bids. Then you go around bidding how many of the discs you're going to flip. You have to flip yours, but then you decide which other discs you're going to flip. The game is pretty simple and fast, works fine with the discs, but cards would probably be better.

Flash Point: Fire Rescue - Cooperative game, feels like Pandemic and Dead Men Tell No Tales combined. We played on easy, and easy is very easy. There was some luck to that, but probably not worth playing on easy again. It's the type of game I like, not sure if it's a game I need to add to my collection.

Kingdom - Basically an abstract strategy game where you are playing either tiles or castles and trying to score the most points. Tries to be a logic game, but with the tiles you are playing you are either drawing them blind or you have one in your hand. So there is luck involved with it. I think it's an okay game, the limited number of actions helps it play. Somehow felt over produced and under produced all at the same time.

[The Gnat]

Got a late start to Gloomhaven last night, so I wasn't quite able to retire my current character. But that will happen next time. Right now we have an interesting combo of characters because we're basically running three tank characters, and the character who should be the biggest tank right now is the least tank like of all of us. It means that even playing at level 5 difficulty on the scenario, we were able to handle it pretty easily. I'm looking forward to seeing what I unlock next, if it doesn't look too interesting, there are two of the original unlocked characters in the game that I could consider playing as well, and likely would lean towards. Though, it's tough because my character right now I made into a tank, but I haven't played a real damage focused character before, so the ones we haven't played yet seem more like support characters as well, potentially. Though, one of them might be DPS.

[The Gnat]

Actually got a board game night in while it was snowing.

Played Lost Expedition, which is always a fun time.

Valeria: Card Kingdoms was a new one to me. It's a very fast tableau building game much in the vein of Machi Koro, but you're basically always getting something on another persons roll, there's a slight chance you wouldn't be, and you always roll two dice. It's interesting because you get to use the combined number as well as the singly rolled number. The downside is that the theming is extremely generic fantasy that basically feels like Dungeons and Dragons, especially since there is an Owlbear. It isn't a bad game though, and like I said, plays extremely fast.