Board games!

[baxus]

Yesterday I played Settlers of Catan for the first time and quite liked it. A bunch of us at work got together and played 2 games at the office after hours.

First game, there were 4 of us, and I was the only one who never played before and it worked great, the gameplay was pretty dynamic and the pace was great, with no one slowing the game down.

For the second game, we played the expansion because 2 more people joined. One fit in great, while the other one was absent-minded and really slowed things down. It didn't help that he was a bit tipsy, since the whole thing happened after our office "New Year's (sort of) party".

Bottom line is I'll probably be buying the game these days, but I'll skip on the expansion since I think that 6 players are too much anyway.

[Inigima]

9 hours ago, baxus said:

Yesterday I played Settlers of Catan for the first time and quite liked it. A bunch of us at work got together and played 2 games at the office after hours.

First game, there were 4 of us, and I was the only one who never played before and it worked great, the gameplay was pretty dynamic and the pace was great, with no one slowing the game down.

For the second game, we played the expansion because 2 more people joined. One fit in great, while the other one was absent-minded and really slowed things down. It didn't help that he was a bit tipsy, since the whole thing happened after our office "New Year's (sort of) party".

Bottom line is I'll probably be buying the game these days, but I'll skip on the expansion since I think that 6 players are too much anyway.

I am not super into Catan, especially the base game, but besides the 5-6 player expansion, there are also some expansions of the more usual type that add additional mechanics rather than adding more players. Those are pretty good and I think they improve the game dramatically.

[Werthead]

Amazon is now listing the Fallout board game properly from Fantasy Flight at £60 which is great news. Hopefully they'll have stock imminently.

SDSU has their Gloomhaven review up. I'm very intrigued by this game. Has anyone played it and what are their thoughts? I've played Descent and was not that impressed by it. It made me just want to play D&D. Is this different and does it work better?

[HokieStone]

On 12/15/2017 at 1:34 PM, RedEyedGhost said:

I was hoping it would show up as a new release at Miniature Market today (where I pre-ordered it), but it's not listed yet. Usually their cheapest shipping option takes a week to show up, so my worry is that if it doesn't ship today I won't have it by Christmas.

I'm very disappointed in Miniature Market.  Every other online store, as far as I can tell has already shipped it out to customers.  All the local brick and mortar stores have it in my area - and judging by various tweets I'm getting...stores around the country have it.  I don't know what the deal is with Miniature Market - I ordered 2 copies from them myself, and pointed a bunch of my friends that way.  I reached out to them yesterday, and they replied and said they didn't have it yet.  I replied and asked them how that could be when seemingly everyone else has it, and emphasized that people will want it before Christmas.

Of course, this really goes back to Rio Grande not being able to get it out a month or two earlier...but that's a long story.  So I apologize...even if it doesn't come until shortly after Christmas, I hope you still enjoy it.

[baxus]

10 hours ago, Inigima said:

I am not super into Catan, especially the base game, but besides the 5-6 player expansion, there are also some expansions of the more usual type that add additional mechanics rather than adding more players. Those are pretty good and I think they improve the game dramatically.

I'm not super into Catan either, but it is interesting and in Serbia "board games" was equivalent to "monopoly and risk" for far too long, so now I like to try basically anything that's not one of those two.  

It's likely that Catan will not be as interesting and fun to me once I've played it a bit, but at this time it is and it's worth the price I've seen online (some 25€).

[Chaldanya]

17 hours ago, Werthead said:

SDSU has their Gloomhaven review up. I'm very intrigued by this game. Has anyone played it and what are their thoughts? I've played Descent and was not that impressed by it. It made me just want to play D&D. Is this different and does it work better?

We've played a couple of games of Gloomhaven.  TheGamePitPodcast has Seany's take on it. Mine is:

I'm not a huge fan of co-ops or D&Ds however the card mechanic that serves as actions AND health is new to me and very interesting. It puts you to game changing decisions fairly often so I find that keeps my interest. We haven't really played enough to serve as a campaign but I'm looking forward to seeing how my character develops over the next few games. I'm sure we'll get some time in over Christmas to get this to the table.  Can't say much more for fear of spoilers

[KiDisaster]

21 hours ago, Werthead said:

Amazon is now listing the Fallout board game properly from Fantasy Flight at £60 which is great news. Hopefully they'll have stock imminently.

SDSU has their Gloomhaven review up. I'm very intrigued by this game. Has anyone played it and what are their thoughts? I've played Descent and was not that impressed by it. It made me just want to play D&D. Is this different and does it work better?

I've got a copy of Gloomhaven from the first Kickstarter, unfortunately haven't had much chance to play it yet as getting a group together for such a massive campaign style game is a difficult proposition. I did the introductory missions solo just to try it out though and I really like it. The actual gameplay is nothing like D&D or Descent. There's no dice rolling, everything is handled by using combinations of cards from your hand which also represent your character's energy for the encounter. You permanently (for the remainder of the mission that is, not forever) lose cards each time you have to rest which means there's effectively a time limit on each mission. You run out of cards, your character is exhausted and is removed from play. It's a really elegant system that ends up feeling very puzzly actually, so if that's not your thing stay clear. 

If you've ever played Mage Knight it's a little bit like that in the sense that each turn is an efficiency puzzle. How can I be most effective with two of these cards from my hand, and what does that leave me for next turn? 

Mage Knight is one of my favorite games so Gloomhaven really works for me in that regard. I'm really, really bad at both though  

[Werthead]

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).

[RedEyedGhost]

On 12/17/2017 at 9:10 AM, HokieStone said:

I'm very disappointed in Miniature Market.  Every other online store, as far as I can tell has already shipped it out to customers.  All the local brick and mortar stores have it in my area - and judging by various tweets I'm getting...stores around the country have it.  I don't know what the deal is with Miniature Market - I ordered 2 copies from them myself, and pointed a bunch of my friends that way.  I reached out to them yesterday, and they replied and said they didn't have it yet.  I replied and asked them how that could be when seemingly everyone else has it, and emphasized that people will want it before Christmas.

Of course, this really goes back to Rio Grande not being able to get it out a month or two earlier...but that's a long story.  So I apologize...even if it doesn't come until shortly after Christmas, I hope you still enjoy it.

Really weird that MM is getting their stock so far behind everybody else.  I did check at my FLGS this weekend, and unfortunately they didn't have it.  Anyways there's a Dice Tower review of your game here:

Second mention I've seen of the board warping, and in the only other review on youtube so far, I can visibly see the board warpage.  Hopefully it can be flattened out after it settles.

 

ETA: Looks like my order has shipped, but they haven't emailed me tracking info yet.

[RedEyedGhost]

On 12/17/2017 at 9:10 AM, HokieStone said:

I reached out to them yesterday, and they replied and said they didn't have it yet.  I replied and asked them how that could be when seemingly everyone else has it, and emphasized that people will want it before Christmas.

I got my tracking info, and it says I'll be receiving it tomorrow!  I wonder if they bumped up the shipping speed of their preorders because of your call, or if they did because it's a Christmas game, or if it's just because Fedex Ground is running at peak efficiency?  My order of Rajas for the Ganges wasn't supposed to arrive until Saturday, and it too is now showing delivery by the end of the day tomorrow.

[HokieStone]

1 hour ago, RedEyedGhost said:

I got my tracking info, and it says I'll be receiving it tomorrow!  I wonder if they bumped up the shipping speed of their preorders because of your call, or if they did because it's a Christmas game, or if it's just because Fedex Ground is running at peak efficiency?  My order of Rajas for the Ganges wasn't supposed to arrive until Saturday, and it too is now showing delivery by the end of the day tomorrow.

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...

[Fez]

On 12/17/2017 at 11:03 AM, Werthead said:

SDSU has their Gloomhaven review up. I'm very intrigued by this game. Has anyone played it and what are their thoughts? I've played Descent and was not that impressed by it. It made me just want to play D&D. Is this different and does it work better?

I'm super interested in Gloomhaven, but it's currently listed as $289 on Amazon, which is insane. I'm hoping it goes down after December 28 (apparently another printing is being released then?)

I recently played Terraforming Mars, which was a lot of fun. Really neat economy building game, and all the cards had multiple sentences of flavor text on them, which I always appreciate.

[RedEyedGhost]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

I'm super interested in Gloomhaven, but it's currently listed as $289 on Amazon, which is insane. I'm hoping it goes down after December 28 (apparently another printing is being released then?)

The $289 is likely a preorder for the second printing.

[Bronn Stone]

On 12/17/2017 at 8:03 AM, Werthead said:

SDSU has their Gloomhaven review up. I'm very intrigued by this game. Has anyone played it and what are their thoughts? I've played Descent and was not that impressed by it. It made me just want to play D&D. Is this different and does it work better?

Wondered what SDSU was other than the university attended by my parents and 3 of my siblings.

SUSD.

[Corvinus85]

What family board game would you buy for someone who isn't necessarily into board games?

[Bronn Stone]

5 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

What family board game would you buy for someone who isn't necessarily into board games?

My answer for this is usually Settlers of Catan.  Enough of a luck factor to work.  I'd also try them on Carcassonne.  The mechanic is very simple if you omit the rules for farmers (which are at the core of the more advanced game).

[DaveSumm]

15 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

What family board game would you buy for someone who isn't necessarily into board games?

I personally find Catan dry and dull ..... may turn them off entirely. I haven’t played Ticket to Ride, but that is generally regarded as the game that straddles the divide between popularity and quality (i.e, people have heard of it like Monopoly, but it’s not shit). Pandemic is also a great starting point, if they like the sound of cooperative games.

I believe I’m getting Charterstone for Christmas, anyone have it yet? My only board game news is that I’m still playing the shit out of Great Western Trail, I’m about 30 plays in now.

[RedEyedGhost]

44 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

I believe I’m getting Charterstone for Christmas, anyone have it yet?

I played game one on Sunday, it was really fun.  This is my first experience playing a legacy game, and it apparently doesn't have a lot of "wow" story moments that most legacy games have.

 

1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

What family board game would you buy for someone who isn't necessarily into board games?

1. Catan - modular board, dice rolling, resource collection/allocation
2. Carcassonne - tile placement - you build the board as the game progresses, easy to learn and lots of variability 
3. Ticket to Ride (I would much rather play Catan than TtR) - set collection, hand management, network building - Nordic Countries is supposed to be the best version of this, but I haven't tried that one
4. Splendor - engine building, resource management, a very simple game and my 62 y.o. mother loves it 
5. Century: Spice Road - very similar feel to Splendor, but better, and it plays 5 instead of just 4 
6. Codenames - deduction/word game, great game for bigger groups, team versus team 
7. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong - deduction, murder mystery, bluffing - this is basically a good version of Clue
8. Queen Domino (or King Domino if you want to go as simple as possible) - tile placement and kingdom building
9. Sagrada - dice drafting and placement, very puzzly, and very pretty 
10. Barenpark (or Cottage Garden which would be much easier to find) - Tetris style tile placement
11. King of Tokyo - monster fight with Yatzee style dice rolling
12. Flashpoint Fire Rescue - cooperative game of firefighting
13. Pandemic - coop game fighting disease outbreaks (I don't care for it that much, but it's super popular)
14. Sheriff of Nottingham - bluffing and negotiation 
15. Shadows Over Camelot - coop game with possible traitor, wonderful for fans of Monty Python

Search for them and see if something fits that persons tastes.  I think the two bolded ones are amazing, and the rest are all very good.

[baxus]

16 hours ago, Corvinus said:

What family board game would you buy for someone who isn't necessarily into board games?

It's been mentioned already, but I'd second/third Ticket to Ride. Rules are pretty simple and the game is pretty fun. As a bonus, its mechanics are quite different when two of you play it and when 4 or 5 of you play it.

Downside is that it has relatively few major tasks so working on them quickly loses its appeal but you do have a few expansions (different maps) to mix things up.

[Buckwheat]

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.