What boardgames have you played recently?

[RobZagnut]

I see MMP advertised its Black Friday offerings. I know this is a general question but what MMP series would you recommended? I am looking for the 2 or 3 top recommendations of those series that are for sale on Friday. I do not own any of these series and wanted to try one.

Sale List

Civil War Brigade Series
In Their Quiet Fields 2 - $15.00
April's Harvest - $10.00
Champion Hill - $10.00
Malvern Hill - $15.00
Three Battles of Manassas - $15.00
Strike Them A Blow - $15.00

Napoleonic Brigade Series
Marengo - $10.00
Talavera - $10.00

Operational Combat Series
Korea - $50.00

Tactical Combat Series
Black Wednesday - $15.00
Leros - $15.00
A Frozen Hell - $10.00
Screaming Eagles in Holland - $15.00
Bloody Ridge (Ziplock) - $10.00
GD'42 - $20.00

Standard Combat Series
Guadalajara - $15.00
Rock of the Marne - $15.00
Yom Kippur - $10.00

Grand Tactical Series
No Question of Surrender - $38.00

Regimental Sub-Series
A Fearful Slaughter - $20.00
This Terrible Sound - $20.00
South Mountain - $15.00

International Game Series
Angola - $41.00
The Tide at Sunrise - $15.00
A Most Dangerous Time - $35.00
Storm Over Dien Bien Phu - $37.00

Miscellaneous and Non-Series Games
The Kingdom of Heaven - $40.00
Lincoln's War - $30.00
Breakthrough: Cambrai - $20.00

Thanks

Try the Marketplace. You'll probably get more looks.

And definitely put this list on the marketplace at ConsimWorld. Lots of guys who play these types of games over there.

 

[wrongway149]

Played 'Power Grid 'with four others; I was the only one who had played it before(only once about five years ago).
It was the first 'medium weight' that this monthly group agreed to play again.

 

[Robin Reeve]

Command and Colors Ancients with a friend last Saturday.

Raphia : I won as Ptolemee.
Gaugameles : he won as Alexander - but I managed to kill Alex...

I really like that system : easy, realtively fast and still more subtle than one would think at first sight.

 

[62nd Army]

Gentlemen

We continued our Hell’s Highway CG a week ago
Last Saturday.

The Allies had a few really good turns attacking the Germans blocking the road around the Son Bridge. My 101st airborne
destroyed the German 59th XX road block and the road to Nijmegen is open, if things work out and the German units with ZOCs into Nijmegen are disrupted, 30 XXX might get across the Waal on our next turn.

We have had a blast playing the game, if you can muster an opponent for the classic give it ago, it still is very fun after 30 years!!!

Regards
Joe

 

[Paul_RS]

Played Pandemic last week for the first time. Easy to get into game, not so easy to win. 3 games in 2 hours. Recommended!

 

[Helmseye]

conquest a CDG based on warhammer 40k by FFG

highly addictive!

 

[Toby G.]

Played several solo 2 player games of some of my recent purchases Race for the Galaxy, Deus, Eight Minute Empire: Legends and Spyrium. I loved all of them. They all seem like they will also be excellent with more than 2 players. Next up The Castles of Burgundy and then The Stauffer Dynasty.

 

[Bill Cirillo]

Played a couple of really excellent 5-player games.

The first was A Study in Emerald by Treefrog games. We played the first edition of the game by Martin Wallace. As opposed to me even attempting to describe the game, I have pasted the description from the Treefrog website (http://www.treefroggames.com/a-study-in-emerald):

"A Study in Emerald is a board game inspired by the Neil Gaiman story of the same name. The premise is simple, the year is 1881 and the ‘Old Ones’ have been ruling the earth for over seven hundred years. Although most of humanity has accepted these monstrous rulers, there is a growing underground movement to overthrow the regime, labeled the Restorationists. A secret war is being fought around the cities of the Europe and the New World between agents of the Restorationists and those loyal to the powers that be.

The award winning short story combines the worlds of Sherlock Holmes and H.P Lovecraft. The board game has gone one step further to bring in real historical figures to flesh out this alternate reality, allowing players to examine an interesting ‘what-if’ situation.

At the beginning of the game you are assigned a secret identity, which will either be that of a Restorationist or a Loyalist. Your identity matters as it determines what you need to do to achieve victory.

There is a deck-building component to the game. You start with a deck of ten cards and you add to this set as the game goes on. There are twelve decks of cards on the board, one in each city. You can gain these cards through the use of influence cubes, in what is in effect a bidding system. As an action you can place influence cubes on a card that you would like to draft. If at the beginning of your next turn you have the most influence on that card then you can choose to claim it and place it on your discard pile. You can also use influence to gain control of cities, which will earn your victory points as well as the benefits on the City card."

The first edition of the game supposedly has a bit more chaos than the revised second edition, but all of our 6 games so far have been unique and a blast to play!


The second game is 1714: The Case of the Catalans by Devir. This game covers the 1700-1714 War of Spanish Succession, which to some may sound pretty snoozie, but is rather a lot of fun to play given the combination of unique game mechanics that make the game always interesting and uncertain to play. Basically, the 5 players represent the various factions of the Grand Alliance that was vying with the Bourbon alliance for control of various Spanish possessions in Europe and in the New World. Highly recommended light war game/heavy strategy game that moves along pretty briskly.

Bill

 

[Steven Pleva]

Played a couple of really excellent 5-player games.

The first was A Study in Emerald by Treefrog games. We played the first edition of the game by Martin Wallace. As opposed to me even attempting to describe the game, I have pasted the description from the Treefrog website (http://www.treefroggames.com/a-study-in-emerald):

"A Study in Emerald is a board game inspired by the Neil Gaiman story of the same name. The premise is simple, the year is 1881 and the ‘Old Ones’ have been ruling the earth for over seven hundred years. Although most of humanity has accepted these monstrous rulers, there is a growing underground movement to overthrow the regime, labeled the Restorationists. A secret war is being fought around the cities of the Europe and the New World between agents of the Restorationists and those loyal to the powers that be.

The award winning short story combines the worlds of Sherlock Holmes and H.P Lovecraft. The board game has gone one step further to bring in real historical figures to flesh out this alternate reality, allowing players to examine an interesting ‘what-if’ situation.

At the beginning of the game you are assigned a secret identity, which will either be that of a Restorationist or a Loyalist. Your identity matters as it determines what you need to do to achieve victory.

There is a deck-building component to the game. You start with a deck of ten cards and you add to this set as the game goes on. There are twelve decks of cards on the board, one in each city. You can gain these cards through the use of influence cubes, in what is in effect a bidding system. As an action you can place influence cubes on a card that you would like to draft. If at the beginning of your next turn you have the most influence on that card then you can choose to claim it and place it on your discard pile. You can also use influence to gain control of cities, which will earn your victory points as well as the benefits on the City card."

The first edition of the game supposedly has a bit more chaos than the revised second edition, but all of our 6 games so far have been unique and a blast to play!


The second game is 1714: The Case of the Catalans by Devir. This game covers the 1700-1714 War of Spanish Succession, which to some may sound pretty snoozie, but is rather a lot of fun to play given the combination of unique game mechanics that make the game always interesting and uncertain to play. Basically, the 5 players represent the various factions of the Grand Alliance that was vying with the Bourbon alliance for control of various Spanish possessions in Europe and in the New World. Highly recommended light war game/heavy strategy game that moves along pretty briskly.

Bill

BTW, both of these games get the "Gor-Gor's claw up seal of approval!"

Steve

 

[Bill Cirillo]

BTW, both of these games get the "Gor-Gor's claw up seal of approval!"

Steve

Yes, I would like to give a big shout out to Steve and say thanks! for introducing me to both of these games!

Steve taught our local group how to play A Study In Emerald when he came through town a couple months ago. He also recommended very highly 1714, so I put it on my "to buy" short list and the group has been really happy with the game.

Bill

 

[wrongway149]

Got a regular Monday night club going . We played Some 'Fluff': Spyfall, Werewolf One Night Only, Telestrations , and then 3 of us split off for a little Red Dragon Inn.

 

[RevJJ]

We played Fury of Dracula last night with 5 players. Its a 4 v 1 deduction game with characters from Stoker's novel (the hunters) chasing Dracula around in an attempt to kill him before his influence spreads across Europe. Fun game.

 

[Robin Reeve]

During the last fortnight:
- Betrayal at House on the Hill: as fun as stupid, as expected.
- Talisman (on two occasions): I like to play it for the experience (some friends hated it, because they want luckless brainburners).
- Defenders of the Realm (on two occasions): thrashed twice. It really is a difficult one to win.
- Manoeuvre (on two occasions): easy, fun and dicey. Both times were a good experience.

 

[wrongway149]

Got Meg to like Agricola: All creatures Big and Small (might be her first true 'worker placement; game). Tried Castellan but did not care much for it in spite of the cool castle pieces.

 

[Paul M. Weir]

While it is too soon for a playing report, I did get a few non-ASL games in December.

2 AP's Great War At Sea scenario books, High Seas Fleet and Triple Alliance, both with a half sheet of laser cut, mainly long counters.
2 AP's Panzergrenadier boxed games, An Army At Dawn (Tunisia/Algeria) and Pusan Perimeter (Korea part 1 of 3, what else did you expect?). The later is a nice coincidence for MMP's KWASL.

Either late in November or the start of December I also got
DG's Napoleons Last Battles (Waterloo and preceding clashes), an update of an old SPI classic, the 4th version I believe.
The Gamer's Last Chance For Victory (Gettysburg). A quite different beast compared to SPI's TSS, the last Gettysburg game I got 30 odd years ago.

 

[Count_Zero]

Played Eldrich Horror and Sheriff of Nottingham on vacation. I liked Eldrich Horror, even thought my wife thought it was more boring than some other co-ops we've played/own. Sheriff was OK. Not great, but OK. A bit of a "Liar's Dice" knock off...

Edit: More description

 

[Houlie]

GMT's Triumph & Tragedy and Burgle Bros. Two excellent games. T&T a three-player take on the beginnings of WW2 starting in 1936. Burgle Bros. a fun co-op game themed after the 50-60s heist movies ala Oceans 11.

 

[chris_olden]

Cards Against Humanity

 

[tekay44]

Six player Zombicide-Black Plague. Everyone loves this game. We actually beat it. The medieval theme, and, new rules, are a real improvement.

 

[sarfs]

I took my son to the local casino, his first time gambling since he just turned 21. He wanted to play Blackjack so I sat down with him to play some hand and show some basic strategy. We had some good cards and a dealer who knew how to bust. I turned 40 into 100. At the end of the shoe, I gave my son half of my chips and went to go play my game, Craps. As an ASLer, who doesn't like to throw dice? Two memorable moments, in typical ASL fashion I rolled a CH(1,1) followed by a dud(6,6). Luckily the weren't come out rolls. Second was after a die jumped out of the table. The croupier dumped out the dice and shoved them over to me to pick two. I look down and they are all 6s. I tell the croupier to take them back and scramble them up. They look oddly at me but comply with my request. I tell them that that was some bad mojo, I play a game with dice where 12s are bad. I ended up turning 100 into 175, not bad for an hour of "work". I go back to the Blackjack table, my son is still playing, good sign, he hasn't gone broke. I was hoping he'd have some beginners luck but he just broke even.