Bill Cirillo
Elder Member
Great to hear that this was fun to play. We are hoping to get it on the table soon, but first a six player Dominant Species is planned for this Saturday!
What boardgames have you played recently?
- Thread starter Gunner Scott
- Start date
Gunner Scott
Forum Guru
The key thing for the Americans is to keep the NVA seperated from the Civil war. Bomb the NVA bases when possible too.
Scott
Scott
Darrell Andersen
Senior Member
Storm Over Dien Bien Phu and Storm Over Staingrad. Fun, easy quick to set up and play.
rdw5150
it's just a game
I have this set up on the table and was going to go through the example of play. No time to get to it this week though. I am new to COIN and this seems fiddly to me, so we shall see. This is the only COIN game that I have any interest in. Hopefully after ASLOK I can really get into it.
Peace
Roger
Steven Pleva
Elder Member
It's a really good game system, Roger. I recommend you stay with it. Normally, I would suggest starting with "Cuba Libre". However, since you already started Fire in the Lake, I think you should just stick with it. Play the shorter scenarios as the first 2-3 playings will have many mistakes. There's so much new going on, but the game has loads of flavor, IMHO...
Steve
rdw5150
it's just a game
Thanks!
Doug likes COIN so I am certain he will make me stick with it
I had hoped to get more done with it by now, but its been busy and I have been working on some ASL stuff with free time.I'll probably pick up Cuba Libre as that looks sort of cool. But Distant Plain and Adean Abyss have little interest to me.
The system seems fiddly to me and I am not good at fiddly games. But I have been looking for a Vietnam game for some time as I cannot find an opponent for VG's Vietnam.
Peace
Roger
Gunner Scott
Forum Guru
Having played a couple of the Coin series games, I am just not impressed. The turn sequence can be a real game killer as an important event passes you by or have to gather resources to do certain actions. If it came down to getting together with a group of wargamers, I would prefer to play z-man games War of the roses, now thats fun.
Scott
Scott
Thanks!
Doug likes COIN so I am certain he will make me stick with it
I'll probably pick up Cuba Libre as that looks sort of cool. But Distant Plain and Adean Abyss have little interest to me.
The system seems fiddly to me and I am not good at fiddly games. But I have been looking for a Vietnam game for some time as I cannot find an opponent for VG's Vietnam.
Peace
Roger
Gunner Scott
Forum Guru
Bob brought over a game called excalibur to play friday evening. Basically this is an old game from the 80's which has you gather resources, building up your forces and taking territory. Kind of a primitive forerunner to euro games. The art work was pretty bad as was the rules which had alot of gaping holes in them. The biggest drawback I thought was the amount of accounting involved as well as having to write orders for every piece on map. Not a bad game, but one that could use some serious cleaning up if ever it got republished.
Scott
Scott
Played one of my Top 5 euro games last night. Egizia with 3 players, then went to a Lacuna Coin concert. Liked the game much better.
How did it go? Can't imagine playing DS with more than 4 players. I'd like to try it once with six, but it would seem like it would take a long, long time to play.
Bill Cirillo
Elder Member
Unfortunately, one of our players had an afternoon church commitment and cut out after making all of his Action Pawn placements on what we thought was the last turn. Double unfortunately, no one committed to placing a third AP on the Domination track and the freaking end-game card went unselected! So, we went ahead and just scored out at that point with the recognition that the game would have gone another full turn.
At that point we decided to just do an unofficial Final scoring as three of the six players had never played before and wanted to get a sense of how the finals scoring would play out. So, the pseudo final score had the Insect tied with the Amphibians with the Birds just 4 points back.
The good news was that even with 3 brand new players and 1 guy who had only played once we banged through a 6-player game in about 4.5 hours. The really good news was that all 6 players really enjoyed the game.
After about 8 playings I have come to the conclusion that it is one of the few games that ought to be played with a timer in order to require quick play as there is just so much going on with so many choices to make and so many potential short term and long term ramifications that it is best to just push on for the majority of the game. Still, with 6 players there are 18 total Actions per turn for a game that can have on average about 6 turns and the execution of each action isn't necessarily an easy thing to accomplish quickly especially given the power of the card conditions.
So, its probably not a game for everyone, but our group has consistently founding it highly engaging such that we haven't minded the somewhat long play time.
Is is easily in my top 5 euro type games.
Next up for the group is Treefrog's A Study In Emerald. I had held off buying it for the last year or so and then thought I had screwed up when it went out of print. Fortunately, I found a copy at regular retail instead of the current~$140 that people are asking for the game.
Bill
At that point we decided to just do an unofficial Final scoring as three of the six players had never played before and wanted to get a sense of how the finals scoring would play out. So, the pseudo final score had the Insect tied with the Amphibians with the Birds just 4 points back.
The good news was that even with 3 brand new players and 1 guy who had only played once we banged through a 6-player game in about 4.5 hours. The really good news was that all 6 players really enjoyed the game.
After about 8 playings I have come to the conclusion that it is one of the few games that ought to be played with a timer in order to require quick play as there is just so much going on with so many choices to make and so many potential short term and long term ramifications that it is best to just push on for the majority of the game. Still, with 6 players there are 18 total Actions per turn for a game that can have on average about 6 turns and the execution of each action isn't necessarily an easy thing to accomplish quickly especially given the power of the card conditions.
So, its probably not a game for everyone, but our group has consistently founding it highly engaging such that we haven't minded the somewhat long play time.
Is is easily in my top 5 euro type games.
Next up for the group is Treefrog's A Study In Emerald. I had held off buying it for the last year or so and then thought I had screwed up when it went out of print. Fortunately, I found a copy at regular retail instead of the current~$140 that people are asking for the game.
Bill
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rdw5150
it's just a game
Yeah, I am pissed at myself for not getting this when it was out. What a dumb ass.
Peace
Roger
wrongway149
Forum Guru
At the Saturday morning club meeting played Biblios, Splendor, Buccaneer, Roll for it! (x2) and Star Realms-- all in around 5 hours!
G.L.O.A.T.
Shut up and Play
Got 3/4 of my zippy loot from MMP. I think that Might Edeavor Exp. Ed. Might end up set up ... soon.
I'd upload a photo, but that feature seems > me at the moment. Did that feature change since "maintenance day"?
I'd upload a photo, but that feature seems > me at the moment. Did that feature change since "maintenance day"?
I have got Avalanche Press' Great War at Sea: Pacific Crossroads on the table. I'm not really a naval gamer, but I like this series.
Am playing one of the Battle Scenarios solo.
Beautiful long ship counters, not too rules heavy (although they could use an update and some editing), and a game that gives you a nice narrative. Posted some illustrated AARs at BGG earlier, and will do so again when I finish this one.
Am playing one of the Battle Scenarios solo.
Beautiful long ship counters, not too rules heavy (although they could use an update and some editing), and a game that gives you a nice narrative. Posted some illustrated AARs at BGG earlier, and will do so again when I finish this one.
Bill Cirillo
Elder Member
Had the great pleasure of playing Scott Blanton, Jamie Cribbs, and Wray Ferrell this past Saturday in the latest release in GMT's COIN series Fire In the Lake down in Cary, NC at Scott's most excellent game store, The Gamer's Armory.
Fire in the Lake was developed by Mark Herman and Volko Ruhnke and uses a similar game engine/mechanics as found in the previous games in the COIN series Andyean Abyss, Cuba Libre, and A Distant Plain. This game setting this time is the war in Vietnam during the period from 1964-1972 and is playable in 1, 2, 3, or 4-player mode. As it had been awhile since any of us had played a COIN game, we played a few cards as a practice game in order to familiarize ourselves with the capabilities/mechanics associated with each side and then re-selected sides for a full playing of the "Short" 1965 scenario.
A good time was had by all as Wray's COIN forces (Americans) squeaked out a one point victory over Jamie's VC and my NVA. Scott's ARVN forces took a slight beating during the mid-game after hanging out early in the game near their victory threshold.
If you haven't ever played any of the games in the COIN series I would recommend them highly, especially Fire In The Lake, as I thought the theme of the game was very well suited to the COIN engine. I would allow plenty of time for a first playing, as while the individual game mechanics are relatively simple (although multi-faceted), the player interactions are initially somewhat less than easy to grasp especially given the asymmetric victory conditions. I'm still not sure what the path to victory is for each player, but the game is gorgeous in a euro meets wargame meets Vietnam kind of way.
Bill
From the I Ching: FIRE IN THE LAKE, The image of Revolution
Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam – July 17, 2002 by Frances FitzGerald
P.S. Oh yeah, we also played two really quick games of Fantasy Flight Game's new release Age of War, a pretty simple yet highly enjoyable dice rolling game. The game involves the "capture" of 14 Japanese castles (cards) by rolling the unique combination of glyphs associated with each castle. The castles are each worth a value (between 1 and 4) based on the complexity of the glyphs associated with each castle card. Collect all of the castles associated with a given family's set of castles and one earns bonus points and also protects those castles from being re-captured by another player. Great fun. I wanted to buy a copy but Scott can't keep it in stock given its popularity.
Fire in the Lake was developed by Mark Herman and Volko Ruhnke and uses a similar game engine/mechanics as found in the previous games in the COIN series Andyean Abyss, Cuba Libre, and A Distant Plain. This game setting this time is the war in Vietnam during the period from 1964-1972 and is playable in 1, 2, 3, or 4-player mode. As it had been awhile since any of us had played a COIN game, we played a few cards as a practice game in order to familiarize ourselves with the capabilities/mechanics associated with each side and then re-selected sides for a full playing of the "Short" 1965 scenario.
A good time was had by all as Wray's COIN forces (Americans) squeaked out a one point victory over Jamie's VC and my NVA. Scott's ARVN forces took a slight beating during the mid-game after hanging out early in the game near their victory threshold.
If you haven't ever played any of the games in the COIN series I would recommend them highly, especially Fire In The Lake, as I thought the theme of the game was very well suited to the COIN engine. I would allow plenty of time for a first playing, as while the individual game mechanics are relatively simple (although multi-faceted), the player interactions are initially somewhat less than easy to grasp especially given the asymmetric victory conditions. I'm still not sure what the path to victory is for each player, but the game is gorgeous in a euro meets wargame meets Vietnam kind of way.
Bill
From the I Ching: FIRE IN THE LAKE, The image of Revolution
Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam – July 17, 2002 by Frances FitzGerald
P.S. Oh yeah, we also played two really quick games of Fantasy Flight Game's new release Age of War, a pretty simple yet highly enjoyable dice rolling game. The game involves the "capture" of 14 Japanese castles (cards) by rolling the unique combination of glyphs associated with each castle. The castles are each worth a value (between 1 and 4) based on the complexity of the glyphs associated with each castle card. Collect all of the castles associated with a given family's set of castles and one earns bonus points and also protects those castles from being re-captured by another player. Great fun. I wanted to buy a copy but Scott can't keep it in stock given its popularity.
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Steven Pleva
Elder Member
They are all ideal for 4 players. Not sure which ones play best with less than 4...