What boardgames have you played recently?

Drow

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I play Strat O Matic Baseball all the time and am replaying the 2011 Giants and White Sox season as I typically do each year...and I usually play 2 games a day starting in February when the cards come out and get done September or October. It's quicker than ASL and I do have the rules committed to memory for Strat. ASL, I still play with my RB next to me.

Would love to get the family to play Arkham Horror...but, it looks too involved for my kids and wife as they aren't as much into board games with complex rules or a game that has a rule book instead of only 1 page of rules...Settlers of Cataan and Ticket To Ride we play...but, AH is something I would like for us to try.
Not sure if you've gone to http://www.tabletop-sports.com/modules.php?name=UpDownload&req=viewsdownload&sid=113 there's some great things for Strat O Matic. I've put a lot of things for BLM there in the past.
Bill
 

jwb3

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Over the Mem-day weekend we had a "mini-con" gathering of friends in DC (where one of the ex-Pittsburgh friends hosted) and played... well, a lot!

Battlestar Galactica (2 plays)
Game of Thrones LCG
Junta
Dungeon Lords
7 Wonders
Thunderstone
(new version)
Space Empires: 4x (2 partial plays)

Probably some other stuff I'm forgetting...

John
 

Tom Morin

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Storm Over Stalingrad (MMP)

Lost as German, had bid 2 but Soviets had 3 areas. Great fun game.

Tom
 

Delirium

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Saturday night I played Crusader Rex for the first time - it's a Columbia block game based on the Third Crusade. My saracens did the business with an early capture of Antioch. I threatened Jerusalem from Egypt, and took Beirut, Tyre and Acre in the middle game, losign Damascus briefly in the end game. The German crusaders were massacred outside Aleppo. Richard the Lionheart almost decimated my Egyptian forces after an ill advised attack on Richard's force, which had been drawn to defend Jerusalem by the Egyptian garrison. It ended 6 cities to 1 in the saracens favour.

Played Rivals for Catan with my wife on Sunday night - glorious victory, 12 points to 11.
 
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RobZagnut

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Over the Mem-day weekend we had a "mini-con" gathering of friends in DC (where one of the ex-Pittsburgh friends hosted) and played... well, a lot!

Battlestar Galactica (2 plays)
Game of Thrones LCG
Junta
Dungeon Lords
7 Wonders
Thunderstone
(new version)
Space Empires: 4x (2 partial plays)

Probably some other stuff I'm forgetting...

John
Wow! Great list. I'm soooo envious. I love Battlestar G, Junta, 7 Wonders and especially Dungeon Lords.

What do you think of Thunderstone? I keep wanting to pull the trigger and buy it, but I'm not a big fan of Dominion and sold it after playing it a couple of times. Also, I briefly watched a couple of playings of Space Empires and it looked good, but long.
 

Steven Pleva

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What do you think of Thunderstone? I keep wanting to pull the trigger and buy it, but I'm not a big fan of Dominion and sold it after playing it a couple of times. Also, I briefly watched a couple of playings of Space Empires and it looked good, but long.
You didn't ask me, but I'll answer the question anyway. Thunderstone is pretty serial solitaire. Very little player interaction. That is my biggest knock on it. Also, I don't care for the fact that all the players have access to the exact same heroes and items. I think it would be more interesting if there was more chaos in the system. Finally, the combat is 100% deterministic. Therefore, you always know when you can beat a specific monster. That annoys me...
 

RobZagnut

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You didn't ask me, but I'll answer the question anyway. Thunderstone is pretty serial solitaire. Very little player interaction. That is my biggest knock on it. Also, I don't care for the fact that all the players have access to the exact same heroes and items. I think it would be more interesting if there was more chaos in the system. Finally, the combat is 100% deterministic. Therefore, you always know when you can beat a specific monster. That annoys me...
Thanks, and bummer. I was hoping each player could be someone different, Dwarf, Human, Orc, Elf... Wizard, Barbarian, Archer, etc. And that there would be weapons or spells that would help one class or another, then bonuses, disadvantges to kill different monsters depending on your class/race.
 

Steven Pleva

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Thanks, and bummer. I was hoping each player could be someone different, Dwarf, Human, Orc, Elf... Wizard, Barbarian, Archer, etc. And that there would be weapons or spells that would help one class or another, then bonuses, disadvantges to kill different monsters depending on your class/race.
Try it before you buy it. You can play it online at Yucata.de...
 

Bob Holmstrom

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Played "A Few Acres of Snow" for the third time last week. Lots of fun but then i made the mistake of going to Boardgame Geek and finding out there's an unbeatable British strategy.

Playing a 4-player "Mansions of Madness" game tomorrow night. That's always a hoot.

Finally, i'm hosting a 6-player "Virgin Queen" game (cue Psycho) on Saturday. I'm hoping it solves my main issue with "Here I Stand" which is the downtime when the Pope and Protestant take their turns.
 

KED

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Ceasar Alesia By Avalon Hill. Had to break it out and give is a whirl! Yes the Romans won but, there were not many Romans left!
 

Fort

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Played "A Few Acres of Snow" for the third time last week. Lots of fun but then i made the mistake of going to Boardgame Geek and finding out there's an unbeatable British strategy.

There are rules changes to fix that problem...no link, but it's published somewhere.
 

jwb3

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The games I forgot were Princes of the Renaissance (old but was very fun) and Wiz-War.
Wow! Great list. I'm soooo envious. I love Battlestar G, Junta, 7 Wonders and especially Dungeon Lords.

What do you think of Thunderstone? I keep wanting to pull the trigger and buy it, but I'm not a big fan of Dominion and sold it after playing it a couple of times. Also, I briefly watched a couple of playings of Space Empires and it looked good, but long.
BG has been great fun every time I've played it (about half dozen by now). First time playing Junta -- it was fun though it probably depends on the group. First time for Dungeon Lords also, and I'd be happy to try it again.

7 Wonders I think is a fairly well-designed game, but it doesn't really thrill me. To me its best selling point is being short.

Space Empires is good, but is long. Still looking for the holy grail of a 4x game that doesn't take more than a few hours.

And that brings us to Thunderstone... :blech:

I'm not sure why I dislike Thunderstone so much. All of Steve's comments are accurate, but none of them made me think, "Yeah, that's what annoys me about it too." And yet the game does annoy me. If I remember the old version it was pretty brainless, but at least it was quick and played brainless. The new version seems to me to have added a whole level of fiddliness without actually making for a better game.

In short, what little I think it does well, Dominion does well also -- and I suspect that whatever you didn't like about Dominion will probably also apply to Thunderstone.


John
 

RobZagnut

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Thanks Steve and John, you saved me some money.

I just ordered Lords of Waterdeep and Vinhos. Waterdeep is supposed to be an easier Caylus set in a fantasy setting. I love Caylus, but its a little to complicated for my group. I can't pass up a game on making wine.

Plus, I had to order the new versions of Goa and Merchants of Venus. Our group loves Goa, so it will be nice to try it with the red and black strategy pared down a little, plus the new version will have some extra A and B counters. Looking forward to see what 2012 bits will do for the old classic Venus.
 

Michael R

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I recently purchased Alien Frontiers and Carcasonne. Neither is new in the publishing sense, but both are new to me. I might be able to try Carcasonne this weekend.
 

JMcL63

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Wednesday night I got in 3 more games of Combat Commander: Resistance with Badger. The score was 2-1 me, although my 2 wins went down to the wire whereas Badger steamrolled me and I surrendered very early. I'm liking this latest addition to the CC series more and more. CC's no ASL (it's more like SL-'lite'), but it's a brilliant game in its own right, and CC:R is perhaps the most interesting part of the entire system because it demonstrates more than any other expansion exactly how flexible is Chad Jensen's system. :)
 

RobZagnut

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Played New England and Stone Age on Saturday night. Both are excellent 4 player games. Can't recommend either one highly enough for easier, uncomplicated, but high strategy euro gaming.
 
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