Re: What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

I don't think it's a drastic improvement, but I do think it's an improvement for two reasons: 1. It's the happy medium. 2. I think the introduction of the dissident identities helped a lot in terms of how easy it was to know who was a cultist and who was an investigator in ASiE. I really wasn't sure whom I was working against in that first game and I imagine it will be even better when I get a 5-person play in tomorrow at the Alehouse. We'll see.

Meanwhile, my 2-player partner came over tonight to continue our quest into Undaunted: Normandy. We both came to the conclusion that the scenarios where they introduce new units are clearly slanted toward those units in order to demonstrate their power and get people eager to play them. In the same way that I got rekt by the German machine gunners in scenario 2, when we played scenario 4, Behind Enemy Lines, I almost singlehandedly won the game with my Snipers who were the title unit (e.g. behind enemy lines.) Obviously, they couldn't win it alone, since I still had to have my Scouts scouting and my Riflemen controlling those scouted tiles, but the Snipers were devastating. I won that one fairly handily, even though the Americans have to control at least two of the river tiles with absolutely no cover. We moved on to Scenario 5, Crossing the Vire (no, not a phonetic spelling of German-accented 'wire', but the Vire-et-Tante river), which introduces the Platoon Guide for the Americans and the Mortar for the Germans. In one of the longest, narrowest maps in the game, the Americans have to control 2 of the 4 river tiles with, again, absolutely no cover and with a German mortar unit in range. But the restraining element on the Mortar is that it has to target first and then attack (like finding range with a mortar in actual combat.) I managed to race down and take control of one of the tiles I needed and then after losing a number of cards (the German objective is to Pin the Americans (i.e. eliminate both Riflemen tokens from the board)), finally got the perfect draw to move my Riflemen B twice and take control of the second one. Then we decided to venture into scenario 6, Desperate Withdrawal, where the Americans start within one tile of the dug-in Germans and have to run for it across four rows of tiles. I had nothing but Scouts and Riflemen, while the Germans had Riflemen, Scouts, Machine Gunners, Mortars, and Snipers. Thankfully, only their Riflemen started on the board, as they had to Pin me again. I got some good draws and after losing my Riflemen B token, got Riflemen A in position to take control of the lone tile on the far edge of the board to fulfill my win condition.

My opponent is fond of Bolstering (adding more units to his deck) and I think there's a place for that. In scenario 5, my opening draw was a Scout, Platoon Sergeant, and Squad Leader, so I could dump a ton of good cards into my deck before even drawing Fog of Wars and my first couple hands were great, which gave me the edge. But there's a limit to Bolstering's usefulness and finding that boundary is important because you end up diluting your deck's efficiency by having a lot of good tokens in play, but taking too long to draw the cards needed to make them effective or useful at all. In scenario 6, despite dumping a ton of Fogs into my deck, I kept my deck as small as possible, so that even though I was drawing Fogs regularly, I was also drawing the same cards over and over, which let me sprint across the board and take the win. One great choice I kept having to make was in terms of keeping initiative. I kept wanting to Recon with my Scouts to get the Fog of War out of my hand and, thus, out of the game, but my other cards were usually Riflemen or Squad Leaders that could Inspire my Riflemen to move again, which meant that I kept playing my high initiative Scouts (6) to keep the initiative and get across the board before my opponent's Snipers and Machine Gunners could really be brought to bear. As it was, I still lost my Riflemen B token from the board, which meant that I would've had to start that travel across the board all over, except that I kept being able to move squad A because I kept my deck thin. It's a great decision to make. I'm really enjoying this game.

I have played Cthulhu: Dark Providence at 5 players and... I'm still not sure. It's engaging. There are a lot of possibilities on the majority of turns, but there are still a fair few where you're kinda looking around and wondering if there's anything useful to do, just like 2nd Edition A Study in Emerald. We got more of the Cthulhu flavor this time when 3 of our 4 starting Mythos cards were Hastur, Dagon, and Black Goat. The Whateleys appeared later, too. At 5 you have 2 Cultists, 2 Investigators and a Dissident of some kind and I was that Dissident (Cultist.) I also had the misfortune to be the target of an early assassination attempt, which meant that I got revealed. The game went through surges of discovery, as people initially swiped all of the Mythos cards (I took Dagon, which meant I would win Influence ties) and then focused almost solely on picking up agents to try to assassinate each other and we did see the Revenants card come into play (lets you swipe other people's agents and turn your own into Revenants so they can't be assassinated.) We also saw the Deep Ones and 6 of them came into play. One more play of that card would have triggered the end game, but one of the Investigators went insane from encountering some Nightgaunts. But the Investigators were the high scorers, anyway.

There's a LOT going on. Much more than in either version of ASiE. It's probably going to take another play or two to really get a grasp of it. I'm still pretty lukewarm at the moment. I don't dislike it, but it's not something I'd rush to pull off the shelf again right now.

I'm just happy to be able to find a decently priced "Version" of a study in emerald, no matter what they call it now. Sounds like they took out a lot of the fiddly in this incarnation. How make players were new to the game?

Two of them were totally new. One of them had played ASiE 2nd and one of them had played ASiE 1st, but both many years in the past. I think they did take out a lot of the cumbersome stuff but there are still a few "tweaks" to keep in mind, like the fact that Agents provide Influence, but you still can't claim an asset/city/Mythos card without at least one cube of Influence. Those things make sense, but they might be stumbling blocks in a first play, especially with a large group since there is, again, so much going on. I'd recommend bright light on the table, too, as they used pastel colors for the player pieces, which are mostly hidden behind agent tokens, so it's not always easy to see who's where at a glance.

Jackwraith wrote: . I'd recommend bright light on the table, too, as they used pastel colors for the player pieces, which are mostly hidden behind agent tokens, so it's not always easy to see who's where at a glance.

I'm not falling for that, I would be forever known as Player #4, The lamp guy.

Ha. We have one of those for the Tuesday night group, but he does it willingly because the lighting in the Alehouse is not the greatest and I am forever thankful for Lamp Guy because the formerly 20/20 and 20/15 vision is, uh, not that anymore and I perpetually forget to bring the glasses that I really only wear when I'm trying to read anything that's not backlit like a computer monitor.

My aunt and her husband were recently visiting my uncle and his girlfriend, and he invited me to join them for dinner on Saturday night. I knew that all five of us are liberals and that we would talk obsessively about all the terrible recent news, so I brought a couple of board games for an alternative. I had already had a long day, so I didn't feel like teaching Rock Hard '77 to a group of non-gamers. So I talked them into Camp Grizzly.

I could go into details, but it was a pretty normal play of Camp Grizzly, except that we did pretty well and soon came up with the item set for one of the escape paths. I was playing Saffron the hippie girl, and was one point away from death, but everybody else was at full hit points because they found a first aid kit and used it immediately because one of them was slowly bleeding to death.

We made our escape (I am deliberately omitting a few details to avoid completely spoiling the surprise), and the finale had us find and use a time machine. It turned out to be one of the most amazing thematic moments in my entire experience as a board gamer. Here is what happened when we used the time machine, in terms of game mechanics:

1. The Cabin (events) deck is put back in the game box.
2. The discard pile for the Cabin deck is flipped over, to become the new Cabin deck.
3. All Counselors (player characters), living or dead, are returned to their starting locations according to the scenario setup.
4. Otis is returned to his starting location according to the scenario setup.
5. A non-Body Count token (we used a spare lock token) is placed on the Body Count track in place of the Body Count token. We had a body count of 5, so the lock token went on the 5.
6. The Body Count token is placed on 0 on the Body Count track.
7. Play resumes.

If the Body Count tracker ever reached or passed that lock token, or if the Cabin deck ever ran out of cards, we would trigger a time travel paradox. We didn't look at that part of the card because we wanted to be surprised when (if) it happened.

It was interesting to replay the Cabin deck in the same order that we did originally. It was different the second time around because we still had the items that we had previously acquired, so they weren't in the Cabin deck anymore. We ran for the same exit, since we still still had all three of the items required for that exit. We were in such a hurry to escape that we left my aunt's husband's character behind. Then we drew a new finale and won a victory that even saved the character that we left behind.

We continued Undaunted: Normandy with scenario 7, La Huberderie. This one uses every card in the base game but starts both of us with just the basics: Squads A and B Scouts and Riflemen. The American forces begin more spread out, but they also have much easier access to point tiles, as well as much better cover. The advantage of the Germans is that their deployment area for Snipers is much more forward and they have more of the map scouted, so less need to dump Fog of Wars in their deck. I made quick progress down the west side of the board, taking the German sniper spot with both units of squad A and eventually killing all 3 of his bolstered Snipers in close combat. Along with those 2 points and the 6 I could get from the north row where I was already camped out, I just needed one more 2 spot to win. The Germans fought me hard on the east side of the board, but couldn't secure it and I eventually took the middle 2-spot with Riflemen A and won the game.

Then we moved on to Streets of Tessy-Sur-Vire, which again gives access to every card in the game and with a German mortar position in the south. It also brings in hill tiles, which are cover 3 if attacking uphill, but only cover 1 if shooting from another hill. I spent way too much effort on clearing out the Mortars when I should have been moving west into the danger zone like I had in previous missions. I think I let myself get distracted by trying to eliminate his immediate threats, rather than just going for it and seeing if he could take me down. In this one, in the converse of the previous scenario, the Germans have much easier access to the scoring tiles from their starting position and my opponent used his first few Riflemen cards to just sit in places and then take control of them on subsequent turns. He got to 5 of the 7 he needed and then it was about fighting over the central 2-spot and I couldn't push back hard enough to keep him from doing it. My other disadvantage was beginning crammed way up in the northeast corner, but it's something I could have addressed by moving more, rather than attacking the mortar position so much. So, the Krauts finally won one. Only four more missions to go in the base game and then we might move on to North Africa.

Played a 5-player Inis tonight, with both expansions (Nemed made it in a few weeks ago, if you could get through Matagot's tortuous logistics.) We used everything but Seasons because we had one new player who's a veteran gamer but Seasons adds a bit too much to keep track of even for regular Inis players. So we used all the other modules (harbors/islands) and the new gods/dedicated sanctuaries and nemetons. The latter are new almost-territories that are placed whenever there's a gap between regular territories. So if someone places a territory that leaves enough space to fit another one in there, you instead place a nemeton. They're basically just another way of getting Deeds, since you can Hold a Ceremony as an action and if you're the player in the adjacent territories that fulfills the conditions of the nemeton (most clans, fewest citadels, etc.), then you gain a Nemeton Deed, which is just like a regular Deed but which can be taken away from you if someone else Holds a Ceremony and is, instead, in control of the territories adjacent that fulfill the condition. It's a little opaque but it's just another angle to speed up the game. The Dedicated Sanctuaries, though, are where you have 3 of 5 included gods in each game and each time you build a Sanctuary you can dedicate it to a particular god (until three have been dedicated.) Then, if you're present in the territory, you can take a Make an Offering action which usually involves discarding a card of one of the three types and then you can immediately gain the blessing of said god which is usually about placing or moving clans in typical Inis fashion. Again, just another wrinkle that helps for people pursuing the Sanctuary victory condition and also may not have gotten a shot at any Epic cards.

That latter situation was me. I didn't get to draw an Epic Tale card for the entire game. One player stayed Brenn for the whole game, as we couldn't dislodge him from the capital territory and, in the process, almost handed the game to him once or twice (be Chieftain over six opposing clans.) There wasn't a ton of Clashing among this group, as people were playing the edges and trying out the new toys. In the end, my friend, Kevin, snuck in a "be in 6 territories" condition and waited until his last action to grab the Pretender token. At that point, no one had enough cards left to do anything about it. The new player played one of the new Epic Tale cards that let him shuffle the Action discard and then deal out cards equal to the number of players, whereupon everyone would pick one of them... but none of them were Clash-enablers, despite all of them being in that discard pile. So, that was it. Only took about two hours and two other people, including me, were closing in on a winning condition, as well. I could have done the kingmaking thing by handing it to the Brenn by putting more of my guys back into that capital territory and the Brenn tiebreaker would have won it for him, but I decided to let Kevin walk away with it.

Idk, I'm kind of hesitant to add more to Inis at this point. I'm definitely going to try before buying.

Totally. I got in because it was more Inis, which is a game I really like, but even the Seasons expansion wasn't really necessary. There's not much more you can tack on to the design that really makes it do anything different. The main problem from the initial production was that games could take too long. That was solved with a simple rules patch that didn't require an expansion (kind of like how Cry Havoc's pacing being determined by points, rather than rounds, turned out to be a not-so-great idea but was solved by just saying: "Do this instead of this.:") The islands and harbors are cool, especially for the harbor ability to move people across the map to another harbor, but that presents a whole new angle to the game that people might not appreciate ("It's not INIS!") where it's often about moving into other territories by Clashing or Not By Clashing and making that hard choice in the draft. So, yeah, if you went ahead and skipped this one, I don't think you're really missing anything. The gods look cool, but are really overproduced for what they do in the game (large, sparkly gold tiles and elaborate minis for something that could've been done with plain old cards and cardboard chits, respectively.) And the nemetons are, again, just another way of picking up deeds.

The ability to pick up more deeds does intrigue me. Is it fully modular or do you need specific modules in play to use other modules?

Nope. Fully modular. Just like Seasons.

Played a three player teaching game of Kemet yesterday with Adam and Q. Still my all time favorite game.
RNG put me in last the first round (the only round you want to be first) and Q took my favorite tile (Crusade) because I crushed with it last game. I took White pyramid (2) and Red to start and Black as my third.
I picked up Mummy as my first monster and Scorpion as my second. Using the 1.5 rules, so we were playing to 9 VP.
I had 8 and was holding two temples at the end of round 4 or 5, so I became the big bad. Q went for my temples while Adam went for my Home City. I had to use my moves early, so while I got two Perma VP from battles, I lost both temples and my battle for my level 4 pyramids only ended up with me defeating Adam but him retreating to my other level 4 Pyramid. I lacked the Prayer Points to summon anyone to my pyramids, Q "noped" my DI card that would have allowed me to put out two troops, and he ended up with three temples and the perma VP from holding two temples. So I ended up stuck at 8 while he surged to 10. Q said it was a classic example of A fighting B and C profits. but It was more like A fights B AND C and C profits lol

Followed up Kemet with Wonderland's War. New set of ally powers. We had Jabberwok, Alice, and Cheshire Cat (Me).
Everyone was really close all game but Jabberwock got his claws out and his tweaked powers might be a bit overturned. To be fair, jabberwock pulled two quest tickets with "Have 4 of the same Ally tokens on the forge track" and, according to the rules, forge tokens are Ally's so...
Jabberwock won 99-85-81 after I screwed up and didn't remove unicorn as a supporter at the end of round 2 so I could replace him and move him around into each battle with the cheshire cats smile power.