What Boardgame Have You Played Recently?

kawaiku

Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2005
Messages
2,536
Reaction score
73
Location
Mars... the planet
Country
llUnited States
So this board is kinda dry, little going on etc. So I figured we could mention what board game we played recently, built, bought, etc.

Today, I spent a fair amount of time cutting out some custom counters for Lock N Load's World War Three series, World at War.

Starting from the left column:
The entire 19th Panzergrenadier Brigade of the West German Army; the 4th Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group; and the last group consists of various American Marine, Airborne, and Army formations with some Soviets thrown in for good measure.

Middle column:
Indian formations; Pakistani formations; more Indian and Pakistani formations; and some more U.S. Marines and Airborne formations.

Right column:
Australian formations; New Zealand formations; Taiwanese formations; and lots of Chinese formations.

View attachment 45089


I still have some more Chinese horse cavalry, Engineer, as well as some more American, Soviet, and IDF formations to print out and mount.
 

Nexus6

Member
Joined
May 20, 2012
Messages
997
Reaction score
13
Location
Tampa Bay
Country
llUnited States
Wow K! That screenshot looks like a hardcore grog game! lol

Speaking of board games, I really need to break out the Starcraft Board game again. It is fantastic, and far, far better than Starcraft 2. For one thing it captures the look, feel, and lore of the Starcraft universe beautifully. Further, by throwing in some random elements, I've made it work very well as a solitaire game.

I know it looks messy from this screenshot, but the system is actually quite elegant:
View attachment 45093
 

kawaiku

Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2005
Messages
2,536
Reaction score
73
Location
Mars... the planet
Country
llUnited States
Haha I only own 2 wargame series. LnL's World at War and MMP's Canadian Crucible. (Oh and Space Empires 4x. Always forget that's labeled a wargame lol.)

And nice! That actually doesn't look as messy as other games I've seen to be honest. How does it play??
 

Nexus6

Member
Joined
May 20, 2012
Messages
997
Reaction score
13
Location
Tampa Bay
Country
llUnited States
Haha I only own 2 wargame series. LnL's World at War and MMP's Canadian Crucible. (Oh and Space Empires 4x. Always forget that's labeled a wargame lol.)

And nice! That actually doesn't look as messy as other games I've seen to be honest. How does it play??
The Starcraft Boardgame is visually quite pleasing, it has loads of personality, very faithful to the Starcraft lore, the system is quite elegant, and it's even exciting at times. Also, it is a rather more strategic take on the Starcraft universe than the tactically-focused original Starcraft and Brood Wars. Anyway, I love it and need to get back it it. It's probably been a couple years since I've played it.
 
Last edited:

kawaiku

Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2005
Messages
2,536
Reaction score
73
Location
Mars... the planet
Country
llUnited States
The Starcraft Boardgame is visually quite pleasing, it has loads of personality, very faithful to the Starcraft lore, the system is quite elegant, and it's even exciting at times. Also, it is a rather more strategic take on the Starcraft universe than the tactically-focused original Starcraft and Brood Wars. Anyway, I love it and need to get back it it. It's probably been a couple years since I've played it.
Is it mostly a wargame or is there something else to it?
 

Nexus6

Member
Joined
May 20, 2012
Messages
997
Reaction score
13
Location
Tampa Bay
Country
llUnited States
Is it mostly a wargame or is there something else to it?
Gosh K, I keep thinking of what someone in the Village said to 'The Prisoner' (actor Patrick McGoohan) about how questions are a burden to others. :laugh: To give you a quick answer, I suppose it is mostly a wargame, but tbh it's one of those games that's really hard to pigeonhole. You would have to play it to see what I mean. Keep in mind also that it's been about 2-3 years since I've played it, so many of the details of the game are a bit hazy to me now. I just know it was great fun, better than I had expected, and far, far better than the cheesy Starcraft 2.
 
Joined
Jan 12, 2004
Messages
358
Reaction score
5
Location
United Kingdom
Country
llUnited Kingdom
Last new game (for me) that I played was FF Game of Thrones. It looks like it has some promise, but we did stagger through our first playing and I think everyone was relieved when we finally got to the end. Picked up Suburbia recently which looks quite good.
 

Markdv5208

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2003
Messages
2,988
Reaction score
280
Country
llUnited States
Last weekend I played....

7 wonders of the world. Great card game about ancient history

Puerto Rico
Railways of the World ENGLAND but without the Bond rules.

Good times...

Mark DV
Ada, MI
 
Joined
Jan 12, 2004
Messages
358
Reaction score
5
Location
United Kingdom
Country
llUnited Kingdom
Didn't get to play Suburbia in the end, but we did have fun with String Railway which was very silly and very cool. Also had another go with King of Tokyo, my Alienoid stomped over the other weaklings :freak:
 

Scott Tortorice

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2003
Messages
7,663
Reaction score
99
Location
The shadows
Country
llUnited States
I have alternating games of OGRE and GEV going. I am loving every minute of it. It is amazing how many tactical sci-fi wargames there are in the world of board games but such fare is missing almost completely in the video game scene.
 

kawaiku

Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2005
Messages
2,536
Reaction score
73
Location
Mars... the planet
Country
llUnited States
Just got news that my first play-by-forum game is cancelled due to RL issues on the GM's side of things (not to mention me being in school and another guy getting married lol). So sad as it was juuuust starting to pick up!! :cry:

We were playing Star Wars: Edge of the Empire if anyone is wondering. A great RPG by Fantasy Flight Games.
 

Scott Tortorice

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2003
Messages
7,663
Reaction score
99
Location
The shadows
Country
llUnited States
Sorry to hear that! Must really sting after investing time to get ready. :(

I went back and read the start of this thread. How did you like World at War? Do you play it much?
 

kawaiku

Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2005
Messages
2,536
Reaction score
73
Location
Mars... the planet
Country
llUnited States
Sorry to hear that! Must really sting after investing time to get ready. :(
Eh, it's been going on for most of a year or so but school has often slowed me down and work for the others so it's not surprising but still a bummer.

-EDIT-
Here is the game being played over at RPG Geek for those who want to see what a Play-by-Forum RPG game kinda looks like. Star Wars Edge of the Empire: Shadows of a Black Sun. I'm Aniketos playing as Jovel, a female Bothan slicer.

I went back and read the start of this thread. How did you like World at War? Do you play it much?
I like the game a lot! It's a lot of fun and I like that it's in a WWIII setting. The community has been great in adding additional factions to the game as noted in my first post. They have two base games with updated rules (Eisenbach Gap and Untold Stories). The expansions are also pretty solid but I just have to say to not expect any accurate representation in town and city names as they are all fictional. If anything, I would recommend Untold Stories with Blood & Bridges being the first two main pick ups as they have the largest variety of Western and Eastern Forces available. The game plays rather quick once you get the rules down and although mistakes are made while playing it's still a very fun game. I know I have 3 AARs posted around here somewhere with pictures that I posted up to the BGG.
 
Last edited:

kawaiku

Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2005
Messages
2,536
Reaction score
73
Location
Mars... the planet
Country
llUnited States
Just had a great night of gaming on Friday! We played three games and each one was just great! The first game was Lords of Waterdeep, a worker placement game made by Wizards of the Coast taking place in their vaunted Dungeon & Dragons world. The second was a racing game titled Formula D and the last was Cards Against Humanity.

Lords of Waterdeep to me, was the highlight of the evening despite being the first game we played. It has a gorgeous gaming board that is just stunning to look at. Hands down one of the best I've seen in my young boardgaming career. While I lost at the end to a terribly made move that caused me to lose by a LOT!! However, I had a lot of fun. You play as a Lord of the city of Waterdeep and you are tasked with completing quests by gathering certain resources/money that are required to complete those quests. You can also build buildings that provide extra support for the players whereby the owner of the building usually makes a profit off of the other player(s) if they so choose to use that building's supporting abilities. Another thing, each lord provides a different object that the player has to strive to achieve as best as they can and hopefully win by the end of the game. Honestly, it was faaar better than I had expected because I am not exactly thrilled with Euro games that focus heavily on worker placement games but this game is the exception.

(Not my pic, mine were too large)
View attachment 48259

Formula D is a racing game. It's fairly simple rules-wise and unlike Waterdeep which took a while for me to get the hang of, I figured out this one in minutes. If that. Each player chooses a racer car driver that also comes with special abilities. You race around a track against other players trying to finish in first place (duh). It's fairly straight forward and I had the complete opposite finish of Lords of Waterdeep. I destroyed the other players!! Completely! While they pushed their cars to their limits taking wheel and gearbox damage in the early, middle, and later parts of the track, I hung back juust a few spaces behind them, bidding my time, making some minor passes in some turns to keep things competitive. Well, by the middle-end of the track both were starting to nurse their cars as they had acquired too much damage while I had none! Thus, I just blew by them with easy. One player's car completely totaled and the other had to drive as safely as possible to just finish the race. I was honestly very surprised by the amount of strategy that is involved in this game. So much so that I found myself planning my moves 3-4 turns in advance! Very cool for such a simple game.

Here is the main track in the game's box upon purchase. The cars are tiny but the track is a decent size. While only 3 of us played the game, I can see how it could definitely be more exciting with more players (which it totally allows).
View attachment 48257
(Not my pic)


Cards Against Humanity
Anyone worth their salt as a boardgamer has definitely heard of this game at some point. I for one have looked forward to playing this for a while. I've heard it takes the gloves off and really lets you have it and boy does it do that in spades! I think... at some point all of us were in tears at one point or another and split our sides more than once. A great party game that is sure to not only make you laugh your butt off but! also make you feel slightly awkward and maybe uncomfortable with the simple fact that you secretly like the crass and brutally honest cards you are dealt in the game. In this game, you are dealt 7 white cards each. Then, going by turns, a player takes the top black card and reads it out loud to everyone else. Those player then take one or more of their cards (depending on the what the black card talks about) and present them backside up to the reader. He then shuffles and randomly goes through the cards, reading them out loud to everyone in the context of the black card. They choose their favorite and the player that used that card gets a point. So it could be like, "On Sunday I like to _". Then everyone turns in cards that can range from "Butt stuff" to "teaching the intricacies of splitting the atom to slaughter 200,000 Japanese people with." Yeup, it can definitely be... interesting lol. I ended up splitting the win with the guy who won Lords of Waterdeep.

Getting ready for the game.
View attachment 48258
 

Scott Tortorice

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2003
Messages
7,663
Reaction score
99
Location
The shadows
Country
llUnited States
Just had a great night of gaming on Friday! We played three games and each one was just great! The first game was Lords of Waterdeep, a worker placement game made by Wizards of the Coast taking place in their vaunted Dungeon & Dragons world. The second was a racing game titled Formula D and the last was Cards Against Humanity.

Lords of Waterdeep to me, was the highlight of the evening despite being the first game we played. It has a gorgeous gaming board that is just stunning to look at. Hands down one of the best I've seen in my young boardgaming career. While I lost at the end to a terribly made move that caused me to lose by a LOT!! However, I had a lot of fun. You play as a Lord of the city of Waterdeep and you are tasked with completing quests by gathering certain resources/money that are required to complete those quests. You can also build buildings that provide extra support for the players whereby the owner of the building usually makes a profit off of the other player(s) if they so choose to use that building's supporting abilities. Another thing, each lord provides a different object that the player has to strive to achieve as best as they can and hopefully win by the end of the game. Honestly, it was faaar better than I had expected because I am not exactly thrilled with Euro games that focus heavily on worker placement games but this game is the exception.

(Not my pic, mine were too large)
View attachment 48259
Lords of Waterdeep sounds like a really interesting game! Sounds sort of like a medieval(?) monopoly! And that game board is very nice!

Formula D is a racing game. It's fairly simple rules-wise and unlike Waterdeep which took a while for me to get the hang of, I figured out this one in minutes. If that. Each player chooses a racer car driver that also comes with special abilities. You race around a track against other players trying to finish in first place (duh). It's fairly straight forward and I had the complete opposite finish of Lords of Waterdeep. I destroyed the other players!! Completely! While they pushed their cars to their limits taking wheel and gearbox damage in the early, middle, and later parts of the track, I hung back juust a few spaces behind them, bidding my time, making some minor passes in some turns to keep things competitive. Well, by the middle-end of the track both were starting to nurse their cars as they had acquired too much damage while I had none! Thus, I just blew by them with easy. One player's car completely totaled and the other had to drive as safely as possible to just finish the race. I was honestly very surprised by the amount of strategy that is involved in this game. So much so that I found myself planning my moves 3-4 turns in advance! Very cool for such a simple game.

Here is the main track in the game's box upon purchase. The cars are tiny but the track is a decent size. While only 3 of us played the game, I can see how it could definitely be more exciting with more players (which it totally allows).
View attachment 48257
(Not my pic)
I saw this game in one of the videos posted in this forum. It sounded fun at the time!


Cards Against Humanity
Anyone worth their salt as a boardgamer has definitely heard of this game at some point. I for one have looked forward to playing this for a while. I've heard it takes the gloves off and really lets you have it and boy does it do that in spades! I think... at some point all of us were in tears at one point or another and split our sides more than once. A great party game that is sure to not only make you laugh your butt off but! also make you feel slightly awkward and maybe uncomfortable with the simple fact that you secretly like the crass and brutally honest cards you are dealt in the game. In this game, you are dealt 7 white cards each. Then, going by turns, a player takes the top black card and reads it out loud to everyone else. Those player then take one or more of their cards (depending on the what the black card talks about) and present them backside up to the reader. He then shuffles and randomly goes through the cards, reading them out loud to everyone in the context of the black card. They choose their favorite and the player that used that card gets a point. So it could be like, "On Sunday I like to _". Then everyone turns in cards that can range from "Butt stuff" to "teaching the intricacies of splitting the atom to slaughter 200,000 Japanese people with." Yeup, it can definitely be... interesting lol. I ended up splitting the win with the guy who won Lords of Waterdeep.

Getting ready for the game.
View attachment 48258
I never heard about it. :upset: But it does sound like it could be the cause of a lot of hilarity!


Thanks for the write-up! It sounds like you had a lot of fun!
 

kawaiku

Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2005
Messages
2,536
Reaction score
73
Location
Mars... the planet
Country
llUnited States
Lords of Waterdeep sounds like a really interesting game! Sounds sort of like a medieval(?) monopoly! And that game board is very nice!
It really is! I was very pleasantly surprised by the game. And not really as you can choose to buy or not buy a building whereas monopoly almost begs you to do so if you want to stay competitive. In LoW you don't have too and of the 4 of us, only two people bought buildings and the one who bought the most still finished in 3rd.

I saw this game in one of the videos posted in this forum. It sounded fun at the time!
It's a good game but like LoW, it requires a fair number of people to play for enjoyment's sake or it'll be really boring.

I never heard about it. :upset: But it does sound like it could be the cause of a lot of hilarity!
Haha you would have eventually. It took me a year or two to hear about it but at some point people taking boardgaming up as a hobby would have heard about it at some point. (Kinda like how gamers eventually hear about Leisure Suit Larry lmao.)

Thanks for the write-up! It sounds like you had a lot of fun!
No problem! It's nice to detour away from wargames which I've been trying to do lately. (I'm personally on the lookout for a solid civilization-building game and a good Medieval society-based game.)
 

dwardzala

Va Tech Hokie
Joined
Apr 20, 2004
Messages
598
Reaction score
70
Location
Detroit/Ann Arbor Ar
Country
llUnited States
I have LoW and Formula De. I really like LoW (and its expansion to get to 5 players). Formula De has fallen out of favor with me and my group mainly due to the downtime in between turns, especially if you have a lot of players/cars on the track. If you like racing games, give Thunder alley a try - it is card driven and because you control a team of cars, involves a bit more strategy. Also, multiple cars move with each card played, so it plays a little quicker than Formula De.
 
Joined
Jan 12, 2004
Messages
358
Reaction score
5
Location
United Kingdom
Country
llUnited Kingdom
Halfway through the boardgaming season...

With the family I played Ticket to Ride which everyone enjoyed, King of Tokoyo didn't go down too well with one member of the family though. We had the most fun with Skull (aka Skull and Roses) which is an incredibly simple bluffing game. We played this on Christmas night by which time most of us were a little rough round the edges and it was really good fun.

Father Christmas was very generous in giving games this year and we were having two meet ups with friends where we'd probably end up playing lots of games, therefore myself and the other half trialed a couple of Santa's gifts. We played through Pina Pirata (by Donald X Vaccarino of Dominion fame), Splendor and Camel Up (SdJ 2014 winner). Camel Up worked ok with two players, but Pina Pirata was a bit meh.

The former is a very straightforward racing/betting game where you're trying to win money by guessing the winner or loser of a camel race as well as trying to manipulate the race order. It comes with a nice dice tower for determining which camel moves and the race is always close due to the mechanic where camels in the same space always move together. Its also a pretty quick game which can allow up to 8 players to join in.

Pina Pirata is a game of matching suits (of different Pirates), the hook is that when anyone wins a round a new rule is drawn at random so every game is going to be a bit different. We had a rule where whoever had played the most cards containing a single suit didn't have to pick up cards if they couldn't play. So it quickly degenerated into one of us getting down to a couple of cards while the other picked up loads of cards until they could play. Still I won the first two rounds and the other half won four on the trot to win the game outright. It might play better with more players. Splendor was the real hit out of those three, we quickly picked it up and decided to play it again straight away because we enjoyed it so much.

Splendor is typical Eurogame fare, you can do one thing each turn, pick up gems (which come as nice casino style chips), buy a card, or reserve a card and get a joker. You need gems to pay for the cards, which act as a gem in subsequent rounds and mostly give you VPs. In order to get the more valuable VP cards you need to build up a decent gem engine. Lastly there are a number of limited one off cards which are not that difficult to get, but can have a significant effect on the victor. For us Splendor was one of those rare 2-4 player games that is actually fun with 2 (the other being Thebes).

We had our first games day yesterday and got to play Evo, Palazzo, Spin Monkeys, Camel Up, Skull, Bunny Bunny Moose Moose and Unexpected Treasures. Spin Monkeys was the only one that I wouldn't want to play again. Evo and Palazzo were the stand out games, although Bunny Bunny Moose Moose was something else!!

Evo is a good Euro dressed in a cool dinosaur theme, however unlike most Euros it does have the advantage of direct player conflict which I think helps. You are trying to expand your dinos range in order to gain more VPs, the map has four different terrain types. Each turn those different terrain types can become safe, too hot, too cold or just plain lethal as the climate changes. Every round some new genes appear that make your dinos better able to survive the heat or cold, move faster, fight better or produce more babies. There are also unique traits like killer babies that allow you to invade other players territories when adding new dinosaurs. So there are lots of options for players to pursue, my dinos ended up being fairly fecund, another player became flying super fighters and so on. Good game.

Palazzo is another Euro, however auction is the central mechanic in this game which was new to us as a group. Each turn you get to do one thing, either take money, buy or auction bits of buildings or rearrange your existing buildings. You're trying to put together stacks of tiles in ascending order and preferably of the same suit (marble, brick or stone). However, each tile has a number of different windows on it and the total point value of each building is determined by the total number of windows with bonuses for 4 or 5 floors and for being all of the same type. If you choose to collect money then you get the best choice available, but everyone else also gets some cash as well. Likewise if you go for an auction you have the chance of getting a lot of tiles in one go, but your opponents could also benefit. The money in the game comes in three different suits as well and you can't mix and max currencies when you buy stuff, so again there is lots to think about on each turn. We replayed this one straight away, it takes 30 to 45 minutes.

Although Spin Monkeys was quite different to anything else I did find it a little tedious, and only one of us thought it worth playing again. You are all monkeys driving bumper cars and go around picking up fruit with different values, if you pick up a banana you leave a skin behind which can then trip other players. Each turn you choose a card from a hand of five which depicts an angle. You then go in this direction for as many cards you have already played (i.e. one in the first go, two in the second, etc. etc.). The only way you can lose speed is by hitting the side of the board. If you run over banana skins or hit other players then you pick up a random card from the deck and travel in the direction instead. Writing this it feels like it should or could have been fun, but for whatever reason it didn't gel with us.

Bunny Bunny Moose Moose is a game from Vlaada Chvátil who designed Dungeon Petz which is probably our favourite worker placement game. This game is patently ridiculous, but was good fun once we'd worked out how to play it properly. Each turn one players acts as a narrator and reads out a poem while drawing cards which have pictures of rabbits and moose on them with different shaped ears or antlers on them. The players have to try and match the shape of the ears/antlers with the hands held up against their heads, once the narrator draws a hunter card everyone has to freeze and the narrator then gets to decide whether the players have matched the cards successfully or not. Each card has a positive or negative value on it and this determines whether their bunny or moose token moves along the board or not. Once the poem has been read twice by each player the game ends and whoever has got both their tokens the furthest wins the game. Leave your shame at the door before playing... When you get to play the narrator and see your friends lined up in front of you with the hands up against their heads pointing in all different directions is pretty much impossible not to laugh!
 
Last edited:

Scott Tortorice

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2003
Messages
7,663
Reaction score
99
Location
The shadows
Country
llUnited States
Everybody is having fun with their games but me. :upset: I got sick the day after Christmas and haven't been able to get out of bed to play anything (not even Elite, Chris!). And you know what I got for Christmas? The rarest beast of all: Ogre Designers Edition!!!! :hissyfit:
 
Joined
Jan 12, 2004
Messages
358
Reaction score
5
Location
United Kingdom
Country
llUnited Kingdom
Hope you're feeling better soon. I played another couple of rounds of Splendor with the other half this evening, she beat me both times. One round I reserved the card which would have given me victory only to reveal a card that allowed her to win. :upset: Maybe next time...
 
Top