Board games!

[Werthead]

29 minutes ago, Buckwheat said:

I am not familiar with all of these, but from the description, most of them sound very building/trading based games (I call monopoly, Catan and similar "capitalist" games ) - their aim is to get as many resources and build stuff. Maybe that person would be more interested in games that rely on how good you are with words, trivia, or picture associations?

I am weird in that way - I really dislike monopoly. I can stand Catan, it is what I most of then play with the family. I tried some other strategy/battle/building games, but the main thing that bothered me with all of them was that the rules seemed overly complicated with too little of one's own imagination being put into them.

On the other hand, I really loved Dixit, which is based on picture-word associations, I want to play more of Taboo, which relies completely on verbal competence (sadly I have the German version, but nobody I spent most time with knows enough German to play it), and similar ones. So maybe trying with something that relies on other brain functions to work would be a good idea if that person has not liked, say, monopoly.

(Okay, I realise Dixit and Taboo don't actually have a board, so they might not necessarily count as board games, but let's just call everything tabletop games then.)

Sorry for the weird ramble, it makes sense in my head.

Codewords is a pretty good game in that vein (and its variant, Codewords Against Humanity, can be very funny but not a family game). 

[Corvinus85]

I appreciate the suggestions. I think maybe next year one of these will be an option, for now other gifts have been purchased. 

[Werthead]

Played enough Star Wars Rebellion now that I feel comfortable properly reviewing it.

[HokieStone]

11 hours ago, Werthead said:

Played enough Star Wars Rebellion now that I feel comfortable properly reviewing it.

Good overview, and review, which I largely agree with.  I've played the expansion once, and was disappointed with it...it changes the way battles work, and drags them out longer...which this game does not need.  However, it was only the one play...need to get it back to the table.  Of course, already on Christmas Eve, I've received Isle of Skye and The Expanse as two new games...it's hard to get them all to the table...

[DaveSumm]

Haven't opened my presents yet, but Photosynthesis finally turned up on a Saturday so I got to play that. Wow ... I didn't have time to read the rules, so it started with me literally reading them to everyone. Fortunately they're short and we got it in a few turns. It looks beautiful, and it's incredibly elegant. Probably the most in depth game I've seen with a two page rule book. You plant seeds, grow trees, they collect light from the rotating sun, and you spend the light on growing more trees and planting more seeds. But trees only score points if you take them through the whole life cycle, seed, tree, medium tree, large tree, felling. And they score more if they're in the middle ... but, in the middle, they're more likely to be blocked from the sun by other trees. So less light. So you have to think about whether you're going to have time to grow the whole tree, how much light it will get before it scores, how much it will score, etc. It's a really great game, and quite amazing that we went from reading out the rules to being really satisfied we understood the puzzle (not to say we were particularly good) by the end. Strongly recommended.

[Slurktan]

On 12/24/2017 at 9:30 AM, Werthead said:

Played enough Star Wars Rebellion now that I feel comfortable properly reviewing it.

Mostly agree with the review, but it is much harder to play as the imperials if both sides are of equal experience.  And if the Rebels  pull the Han card which will also get them either Chewie or Lando in the first two turns the game is over regardless.

[RedEyedGhost]

On 12/19/2017 at 9:41 PM, HokieStone said:

Yeah...everyone I know that ordered from MM is getting their notification, and it's supposed to arrive in the next day or two.  I did write them back again urging them to speed things along...no idea if that helped or not  

Yeah...the board warping does seem to be an issue...but I left some other games piled on my board overnight, and that seemed to help.

Pretty happy with that Dice Tower review, overall.  If the biggest complaint is "the board is too big"...I'll take it...

Got to play it twice over the weekend, and everybody seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.  We did miss the rule about being able to add extra workers to Assembly Hall on the 24th, in the rule book it was listed in a brown box and all of the other brown box items were rules examples, so I was skipping those and it bothers me that there was one actual rule in that same format.  And very weird that the first player token doesn't move other than by visiting that particular reindeer - I don't know how many times I looked through the rule book to confirm that.  I also did not like how dark the board was (especially on the action spaces for resource collection), but that was only a problem when learning.  I'm sure it will be a game we'll play a couple of times for many years to come.  

My other holiday gaming included a fair amount of Century Spice Road, Splendor, Carcassonne, Glass Road, and Fields of Green.

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Slurktan said:

Mostly agree with the review, but it is much harder to play as the imperials if both sides are of equal experience.  And if the Rebels  pull the Han card which will also get them either Chewie or Lando in the first two turns the game is over regardless.

Not quite. The Empire player can pull it back by imprisoning one Rebel character and using Turn to the Dark Side to permanently switch another character. The Empire player used that on Princess Leia and losing a key diplomacy character was pretty devastating (it forced Mon Mothma to do all of the diplomacy rather than being able to split it).

[HokieStone]

2 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

Got to play it twice over the weekend, and everybody seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.  We did miss the rule about being able to add extra workers to Assembly Hall on the 24th, in the rule book it was listed in a brown box and all of the other brown box items were rules examples, so I was skipping those and it bothers me that there was one actual rule in that same format.  And very weird that the first player token doesn't move other than by visiting that particular reindeer - I don't know how many times I looked through the rule book to confirm that.  I also did not like how dark the board was (especially on the action spaces for resource collection), but that was only a problem when learning.  I'm sure it will be a game we'll play a couple of times for many years to come. 

Thanks for the kind words!  Now that I've seen the physical copy, if there's a 2nd printing, I might see if they're willing to tweak a few things, including what you've mentioned here.  I've seen one or two other people mention the fact that the "Lax Safety" rule was easily missed, due to it being in a different colored box.  By putting it int he box, the intent was to actually draw attention to it.  Not having the 1st player token move except by taking an action is not too uncommon in these types of games - same thing in Lords of Waterdeep and Agricola, for example.  Usually there needs to be an extra incentive to do it - in Lords of Waterdeep, you get intrigue cards, in Agricola, you can upgrade your house...in this case, you get the points that have accumulated on the reindeer.

[RedEyedGhost]

6 hours ago, HokieStone said:

Usually there needs to be an extra incentive to do it - in Lords of Waterdeep, you get intrigue cards, in Agricola, you can upgrade your house...in this case, you get the points that have accumulated on the reindeer.

Played it again tonight, and it went very smoothly.   I just don't think that sacrificing a worker for those cookies is a valuable enough trade most of the time, maybe on turn seven or eight, but even then I'm also not even sure how much being first even is in this game (which is the real reason I think it should rotate) because in each of the three games I've played the winner has not been the first player in the majority of the game.  In fact, I think the game winner in each of those three games was first player for maybe one or two rounds total.  The spoiled oats cards has limited how valuable the first player reindeer is in two out of my three games -far from a large enough sample size to know definitively, it's just my gut reaction. 

Oh, and the lack of baggies to store the components was super annoying, but that's on Rio Grande.  I used to think they were a really top notch publisher, but they've really been lagging behind as everybody else has upped their game.

[Slurktan]

On 12/26/2017 at 7:40 PM, Werthead said:

Not quite. The Empire player can pull it back by imprisoning one Rebel character and using Turn to the Dark Side to permanently switch another character. The Empire player used that on Princess Leia and losing a key diplomacy character was pretty devastating (it forced Mon Mothma to do all of the diplomacy rather than being able to split it).

Is that possible as a counter?  Sure.  But the Empire would have to devote a lot of resources just to capture someone as long as the rebel player chooses Chewbacca and then leaves him open for counters. (Leia would be a good pull but why was she in imperial territory to start with to be captured in your game?)  Then they actually have to pass on the Lure to the dark side card which can be hard depending on rebel leaders.  Compared to the "I got the Han card now and get an extra free character and you can't stop it" it pales in comparison.

[HokieStone]

On 12/27/2017 at 2:11 AM, RedEyedGhost said:

Played it again tonight, and it went very smoothly.   I just don't think that sacrificing a worker for those cookies is a valuable enough trade most of the time, maybe on turn seven or eight, but even then I'm also not even sure how much being first even is in this game (which is the real reason I think it should rotate) because in each of the three games I've played the winner has not been the first player in the majority of the game.  In fact, I think the game winner in each of those three games was first player for maybe one or two rounds total.  The spoiled oats cards has limited how valuable the first player reindeer is in two out of my three games -far from a large enough sample size to know definitively, it's just my gut reaction. 

Oh, and the lack of baggies to store the components was super annoying, but that's on Rio Grande.  I used to think they were a really top notch publisher, but they've really been lagging behind as everybody else has upped their game.

Yeah, it's not meant to be a game where being 1st player is critical.  If reindeer haven't previously been taken by the time they get to about 5 points, that's usually when it happens.  A lot of times you might have just one more spot you might need to fill with a specific material, and getting 5 points while doing it is a good deal.  But it depends on how the game is unfolding.

[polishgenius]

I still rarely get the opportunity to visit this thread because I rarely have the opportunity to play, but while home for Christmas I picked up Hive on a whim earlier on and on first impressions am very satisfied. The rules are simple but allow for intuitive but reasonably complex strategies, and the pieces feel gorgeous. Just got the basic set, no expansions, but if we find ourselves playing it more I'm sure I'll pick them up.

[Fiddler]

Played Fallout the board game for the first time on Saturday.  We all enjoyed the game, but it was the first time for all of us, so it was a bit slow and we messed up some stuff, but overall it was a good time.  Definately looking forward to playing it again (I would try single player right now, but left it at my brothers, lol).

[Werthead]

18 hours ago, Fiddler said:

Played Fallout the board game for the first time on Saturday.  We all enjoyed the game, but it was the first time for all of us, so it was a bit slow and we messed up some stuff, but overall it was a good time.  Definately looking forward to playing it again (I would try single player right now, but left it at my brothers, lol).

My last attempt to get this game almost ended in me paying £150 to ship a copy from Australia. Apparently FF will have more UK stock in the next two months so I'll hold on for a bit (grrr).

[Werthead]

Out of curiosity I just looked on Amazon.com and ordering the Fallout board game direct from the US just costs £10 extra. I probably should have looked into that a few weeks ago. Oh well. Ordered as an early birthday treat.

[RedEyedGhost]

On 12/18/2017 at 11:46 AM, Werthead said:

Cool. I just wanted to see if it's worth £160 (not that I'll remotely be able to afford that in the near future).

Walmart has it for $113.39... I wonder what shipping would be to your part of the world.

[Werthead]

On 20/01/2018 at 3:26 AM, RedEyedGhost said:

Walmart has it for $113.39... I wonder what shipping would be to your part of the world.

It arrived a few days ago. Played one game and it's pretty clever in how it replicates the video game systems to a board game environment. For people who haven't played the video games, it does feel like they could have made the boardgame a bit more streamlined (it has that typical Fantasy Flight issue of there being maybe one or two systems and sets of cards too many) but it's a lot of fun.

[RedEyedGhost]

It looks like gamestop is liquidating they supply of board games, because their prices are insanely low right now. For instance Fallout which a lot of people were complaining about the price of up thread is now $29.99.

https://m.gamestop.com/product/toys/fallout-the-board-game/152157

[RedEyedGhost]

After looking at all 52 pages it looks like most of the good stuff is gone. And the really good stuff isn't on sale at all, so not a liquidation just a really good sale.