Picked up a card game called Fantasy Realms by Wizkids. It is a quick, set collection card game with a pasted on fantasy theme. I am really enjoying it and have played it ten times in the last week. Highly recommend checking out the Dice Tower review to see if it would appeal to you.

I have also pre-ordered Downforce by Restoration Games. Very talked about game, racing theme, but everyone just talks about how good of a game it is regardless of theme. Reminds me of a simpler Camel Up. The Secret Cabal did a video review of it, check it out.

javajaws said:

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Eliminatus said:

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Finally picked up Mage Knight.

Now just have to learn the damn thing! Quite intimidating...

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Ditto. I'm reading through the rules and hope to start playing later this week (solo).

Also, I picked up Clank! and played through it a couple times this weekend with a group of 4. Lots of fun and great to play with others who aren't as serious into gaming - the randomness gives them more of a shot. Yet serious gamers like myself can also enjoy it because its just a fun game.

Also played a couple more games of Scythe this weekend - that game never fails to amaze me. Just love this game.

Anybody play LoTR:LCG? I was wanting another solo game to play and that seems like the next best thing to Mage Knight. Thoughts (other than $$)?

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I play LotR LCG.

I love it. I am in love with LOTR lore and this really fleshes out parts that you don't see outside the main trilogy and movies.

It is a fun mechanic. It is a deck builder and brutal. I consider it the Dark Souls of deck builders.

Solo is pretty hard. You can either single deck it,which I prefer, or two hand it. Essentially, play two people. Cost is pretty heavy on the front end of the game.

Another one to consider would be the Arkham LCG.

If you love your Lord of the Rings you should be looking at War of the Ring. Best marriage of theme and mechanics out there.

*Bump*

Got some serious boardgaming in over the last week while we were cooped up in the apartment due to Harvey

Also anyone see anything from GenCon they like?

New games played:

Troyes - Really good game. Combines just about everything we love from games like Castles of Burgandy, Roll for the Galaxy and Tzolkin. This will be a regular in the rotation

Flamme Rouge - Fun race game. Toes a fine line, but succeeds, at needing strategy to win versus just being random

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: Got the re-print of the original. We were only one question off beting Sherlock Holmes in our last case! Love the immersion of this game.

$16,000 in Kickstarters

Anyone want to confess?

Ha, saw that on /r/boardgames yesterday when he posted it. Truly insane spending. I mean I get tempted by a lot of games with shiny plastic bits, but that guy was basically pledging every game that showed up on kickstarter.

It seems like most of the stuff I saw from Gen Con that appealed to me was stuff that wasn't releasing until Q4, which is disappointing. I've been kind of infatuated with campaign style rpg-ish type games lately, which is not typically what I favor. I've got Gloomhaven delivering in early November and I've been very interested in one called Too Many Bones here lately, and I'm going to be watching the 7th Continent kickstarter at the end of this month to see if I want to back the reprint of that.

I'll have to see if I can try Troyes sometime, I really like dice manipulation games like that, Castles of Burgundy is really great and The Voyages of Marco Polo is currently my favorite euro game.

Can you give a run down on 7th Continent? I know little about it, but I was watching the Dice Tower earlier this week and people were asking Tom how it compares to Gloomhaven. His response is that is the wrong question to ask, the real question is how it compares to TIME Stories. I was playing TIME Stories with my group, and the first scenario was amazing, every other one has been a disappointment and I finally stopped buying them.

I actually don't know a lot about it except from a high level overview, so I'm going to be researching some more leading up to the campaign.

It's all card driven and based on a kind of "choose your own adventure" model. You start off on a single card tile, and can go in any of the 4 directions and which direction you go will correspond to another specific card that is laid out and an event might happen. So you just keep moving and exploring and discovering items and solving puzzles with the end goal of solving the mystery of a curse (I think). There are different curses and it seems like each one is what amounts to a different scenario. There are over 1200 cards including expansions and they advertise over 1000 hours of game play if you were to play through all the curses.

Paul Grogan (who publishes rules videos on youtube under the channel Gaming Rules and edits rulebooks professionally) had a review where he said while there are a ton of cards, they tend to come out in scripted fashion so once you play through a scenario its going to play out mostly the same way every time, and you would know which cards have the items you need to solve the puzzle. So it does sound like it compares to Time Stories in that way (and he did make that comparison explicitly).

It does seem to be getting good reviews from most places I have seen.

Yeah, i watched half of the old kickstarter video, because it has been getting such a positive buzz, but i was failing to see the puzzle aspect. The tile exploration was interesting, but I am missing the puzzle aspect that TIME Stories brought. I will have to check out some reviews to understand that better. I am expecting that these escape room games will meet that puzzle aspect for my group.

If you're looking for the puzzle aspect, have you checked out Alchemists?

Speaking of KS, FINALLY got my copy of Massive Darkness in. Honestly, quite forgot about it.

It has been so long all hype is gone and I kinda forgot why I bought it in the first place. Didn't even unshrinkwrap it before it went to top of shelf....

Got a copy of Kingdomino and I think we will get lots of use out of this one with our family. Plays quick and easy to set up. Plus the way you multiply spaces x crowns is great for them as both kids (7&6) like math.

Have gotten several more "family" versions of games also. Really like Agricola Family Edition.

King of Tokyo was on sale at Target and that was a hit with both our kids also.

Also while at Target picked up Small World on sale for $20. Can't believe it took me so long to get this. Much easier to teach than I would have thought and our 6yo loves the game. I think partly because it has so many pieces, but he can also understand it. Unlike some others that have tons of pieces but are harder to pick up the rules. Attack & redeploy, or decline. He can get that easy enough.

Got a copy of Smash Up also, because who doesn't want Zombie Dinosaurs or Robot Pirates. Haven't played but one game so far, but can see this one sticking around.

I've been playing the crap out of the Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization app that just released last week. I have the actual game but haven't played it yet. The app is fantastic but pricey. This game is supremely good. It is extremely dense with decisions, but I don't think it's an overly difficult game to pick up. The rules are easy to understand, although there are a lot of them.

Been wondering if it was worth it or another blah game where you play for a while, top out, and get bored.

I suppose that would depend on the individual and their game preferences. The whole game is based around cards that you draft and play, and I'm pretty sure you see all the cards every game. The game will be different from one game to the next based on the order that those cards come out, how other players react to them, etc. So while the game is essentially the same every time, each individual game is its own puzzle to figure out. For me, I really enjoy that. Others might not.

I would say if you are a fan of civilization building games, there's a pretty good chance you will enjoy it. It checks all the boxes- managing resources, developing technologies, balancing science/culture with military, selecting different leaders will change your strategy, etc.

The only Civ thing it misses is having a map- that's abstracted. But it's a really strong game with a lot of longevity.

It's actually survived the change in formula in the BGG ranking and stayed in the top 3 too.

Anybody ever played the COIN series? I've been looking at Cuba Libre after playing Twilight Struggle.

ziggity06 said:

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Anybody ever played the COIN series? I've been looking at Cuba Libre after playing Twilight Struggle.

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I haven't played yet but I'm very interested in it. Cuba Libre is supposed to be the best one to start with. It's getting reprinted in January I believe so you might want to wait, it will be cheaper than it probably is now from resellers.

Liberty or Death is pretty widely available right now, that's another one I've been looking at.

Yea i was thinking about ordering Cuba Libre though GMT's P500 program

Ordered Cuba Libre,
Invierno Cubano: Castro's Counterinsurgency, 1959-1965 and Imperial Struggle tonight from the P500 program

sincebim overseas i dont grt many opportunities to play many tabletop games, so im always checking on new boardgame apps. im intrigued by Through the Ages, but i did also just buy 8 Minute Empire and its great. just wishing theud release Agricola for android.

7th continent KS went live today. Crazy number of backers already.

Went in on it as they won't make a retail version. FOMO is a thing...

Scythe is $55 on Amazon right now, the lowest it has ever been.

Have any of you played it? Thoughts?

There were several posts about it earlier in this thread, maybe around page 5 or 6. I've played it twice at 3 players and once at 5 players. The 5 player game seemed to really drag at the end, but we had 2 new players so that may have contributed. I think it's a good game and I would probably pay $55 for it. I do think it's still a little over hyped though. I haven't played it in a while and my enthusiasm has waned a bit, but it did really enjoy my first plays of it.

I'm fighting with FOMO on this one as well, but the price point is doing a good job of holding me off. I gave in on Gloomhaven, I don't think I can pay $120 + shipping for 7th Continent though.

I played through the first few turns of Scythe last night. It was fun and all the components are really well made making the cost worth it in components alone not to mention the game was really fun. Set up is long and the learning curve is a little steep, also game play is a bit long unless you like campaign style games but you get into a groove fairly quickly, it seems like it has a lot of replay-ability, the art work is phenomenal, the minis are really well done, and the game strategy can be adapted to players preferred game style to an extent (pvp, resource management, board control).

I bought Scythe at $55 back in July, waited to see it sweep the Golden Geek, Origins and Dice Tower Awards and jumped on it. I have yet to play it though.

Watched video on 7th Continent and they said first game is 12-15 hours or so, meant to be broken up over many play throughs and decided I am out. The hype is strong though and i looked through the KS, but think I will have to pass. I need to get more games to the table, and with the thought of all the Gloomhaven content which should arrive in the next couple months, it is helping me fight FOMO, but it is definitely a real thing.

I think my next splurge is going to be spent on box inserts. I would really like to cut down on setup to get some of these games to the table faster. I am trying to talk my wife to building foam core inserts while the kids are at school, but that is going over so well.

Been looking at Axis and Allies 1914 and wondering if anyone here has tried it yet? I love my giant 1940 Europe and Pacific combined games but think this might be a nice change of pace.

Chess news - Former U.S. Champ, 65 yr old James Tarjan, returns and lays waste to a player rated +2800!

https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-strongest-chess-librarian-in-the-world#_=_

Eliminatus said:

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Also, seems as good a place as any to mention this- Fantasy Flight Games and Games Workshop officially ended their relationship with each other, meaning FFG will no longer be selling any GW-licensed properties starting in February of 2017. I don't think too many of those games have been mentioned in this thread so far, but that would include obvious titles like Forbidden Stars, 40K Conquest, etc. but also some games that aren't Warhammer or 40K like Talisman and Fury of Dracula. So if any of those games interest you, I would suggest buying them now. The last time Fury of Dracula was out of print it went for $200+ on ebay. It looks like most online retailers are already sold out of Fury of Dracula and Chaos in the Old World, but if you find one in a local shop it might be a good idea to pick it up, even if its just to resell it later.

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So pissed about this. Two of my favorite creators of all time. It was a match that got me moist. I Love FFGs game mechanics and quality and I love GWs warhammer universe.

I was checking out Fury of Dracula the day before the news was announced. Heard about it and checked again. Sold Out. Ughhh.

I am going to assume that GW **** the bed on this one. Because they usually do.

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Dredging up this year-old post to post an update to the GW situation:

GW has entered into a partnership with WizKids to produce 2 new 40K board games, some 40K dice games (Dice Masters most likely), and reprint Relic (40K version of Talisman) and... Fury of Dracula. No idea if it will be a straight reprint of the FFG 3rd edition or a new 4th edition.

https://wizkids.com/2017/10/19/wizkids-announces-new-partnership-with-games-workshop/

I was pretty disappointed in the dissolution of the GW/FFG partnership, but so far I'm intrigued by evolution of GW's situation. In addition to this partnership with WizKids they also have licensed out the 40K IP to Devil Pig Games to pair with their "Heroes Tactical System" from their game Heroes of Normandie, which I quite like. Their upcoming Heroes of Black Reach will be available in spring of next year (distributed by Iello) and I'm looking forward to it.

Let's see if we can get some chatter heading into the Holidays. First for news items I found interesting:

Rob Daviau confirmed that he is working with WOTC on a Betrayal at House on the Hill Legacy version due out fall 2018.

Fantasy Flight also tweeted that the Imperial Assualt coop app will be releasing soon Announcement

I am also interested in hearing what games people are hoping to pick up for the holidays. I am looking to score some inserts, and then a mix of new and old games.

New-ish Games:
Crossfire
Betrayal at Baldurs Gate
Clank in Space (never played Clank, but seems like this is the preferred version)

Older Games:
Dead of Winter
Shadows of Camelot

I guess there is a trend on the older games.

I usually have a laundry list of games I want to pick up at Christmas time, but the second half of this year has been kind of lack-luster for me. I haven't felt particularly drawn to anything, and even stuff I've had interest in has ultimately fallen short of actually wanting to purchase it. I think I'll pick up the new Civilization from FFG that releases soon, and I was interested in Twilight Imperium 4th Edition but a friend is already grabbing it.

I think part of it is because I have Gloomhaven on the way and I just recently got my copy of Kingdom Death: Monster also. I actually haven't really even thought about playing another game since my first play of KDM.

I just got my shipping notice for Gloomhaven. I am really excited, but have no clue when i will start playing. Have yall ever put together box inserts. Bought one for Gloomhaven a while back but i am not looking forward to assembling.

Bump for Christmas

Any games on Santas list this year? Gifting anyone games?

I got my mom Splendor for her first boardgame

I bought myself Terraforming Mars and traded for Memoir 44 so have a couple games to learn over the holidays

Still making our way trough Gloomhaven about 1/3rd of the way thru. Still a blast and unlocking new characters is always a blast

Also got Clank! And played a few times already really cool game after the initial rules explanation. One of those games that's easier to play two rounds than explain for 15 minutes