Bryan98 said:

---

I finally played the first scenario of Mansions of Madness (2nd edition) this weekend. It didn't really rock my world, despite my great excitement about it. Hopefully additional plays will get me more into it.

I think the other three folks really liked it, though.

---

Just played this on New Year's Day. Really enjoyed it, not world rocking, but I absolutely love the addition of the tablet app for the gameplay so someone isn't stuck being the master. Looking at purchasing my own copy of the game based on that.

Bobcat06 said:

---

Have any of yall played Seafall?

My Risk: Legacy group is about done with that game and we're about to start Seafall. I've read reviews and watched some tutorials, but I'm curious about feedback from actual game play

---

I'm in a similar boat as you. We just finished Pandemic: Legacy in December and was looking at Seafall due to being the same creators. I really like the Shut Up and Sit Down reviews and theirs was enough to scare me away for now. Sounded very tedious and not as exciting as Pandemic was.

https://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/review-seafall/

If you haven't played Pandemic: Legacy, I would highly recommend it as another option.

Been playing Mechs vs Minions with my 7 year old and we all really like it. He loves it and is great at dealing damage. We just played through the third mission and so far the strategy of letting him focus on damage and my wife and i accomplish the mission has worked out. We have been playing on the easy setting and I am starting to think it is too easy and we may want to move up in difficulty. My son needs to learn how to lose games.

This Christmas was the year of games for me and my family, as i am getting sucked back into the hobby more and more. Below are the games i picked up and my thoughts on them:

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong - I have only played once and enjoyed it but it seems like it will be hard. I played as the forensic scientist and there were only 3 other players but it was tough trying to tell the story with the random cards and lead the investigators to the murderer.

Codenames - A very good game. Word association can be tough, and often we would give clue only to discover several other cards that could match. Really enjoyed it and want to play more.

Bang! the Dice Game - My 7 year loves it. I have played The Resistance before and really like that game and Bang! gives a similar feel but plays faster and escalates much quicker. I was wondering how my son would do in a hidden role game but he was a natural. He is normally honest to a fault but slipped into a deceptive role very easily.

Welcome to the Dungeon - A fun filler type game, with push your luck elements. I thought my son would really like it and he isn't big on it. My wife and I really enjoyed it and spent one night running through all the characters.

Outfoxed - A cooperative Guess Who? type game played on a board and with an timed element as the AI quilty party tries to escape. My 4 year old enjoyed the game, 7 year old would rather play MvM, but my wife and i enjoyed it. Need to play it more, to get my 4 year old more involved.

Looney Quest - A really fun spacial drawing game that is styled like an old video game side crawler. The whole family likes it, too hard for the 4 year old, but he loves to do it, the 7 year old gets frustrated that he isn't perfect but does a decent job.

Legendary Marvel - Cooperated Deckbuilder. My 7 year old and I played this and really love it. It might be my favorite game in this list, MvM is really good too. Setup and tear down is a terrible pain, but i just really like it. I bought Dominion many years ago after seeing it on Texags, but never got into it, but i love the theme in Legendary, and the cooperative nature.

Bought but haven't played:
Witness - Deductive game of telephone, i picked up the last copy on cool stuff. Has to be played with 4 players and not my kids. As you can tell my family is my main gaming group but i am really looking forward to when i get the right group together for this.

Time Stories - Also haven't played as i am trying to find the right group. I am worried about the reviews on the expansions and finding the right people who can commit to playing through this game. I am trying to decide and my wife and i just play through it with me playing 2 characters and her 1 or continue to wait for that perfect group.

our five year old received outfoxed for Christmas. it's a kid game that I've actually enjoyed. and the unique (to me, anyway) clue revealing mechanism was cool.

Last night my Pandemic Legacy group got together for the first time since we finished that game; we took the opportunity to just play some lighter fare and chat. We ended up playing:

Codenames After Dark: Do you like Codenames, and have a group of people who enjoy bawdy humor? Even if so, just play regular Codenames. This version sucks. Seems like half of the words in the game are innuendos for people's junk. That is way too high of a concentration of synonyms for the game to function. Regular Codenames works specifically because all of the words are unique and you struggle to come up with a clue that connects them; in this game, you struggle to find a clue that doesn't link half of the words on the board.

Spontuneous - An unserious party game where the skill being tested is that of knowing lots of song lyrics. The girl who brought it has apparently had a hard time getting people to play it with her, but we were in the mood to keep it light and friendly. She thanked us repeatedly for being willing to play it with her, so that she could finally see what it was like. Personally, I enjoyed it and would play it again, with the understanding that it's a fun, mainstream party game in the vein of Cranium and the like.

Pandemic Legacy Season 2 box art:



I've seen speculated release dates as early as June 2017. Will def be looking forward to that.

Other games that have caught my interest

Santorini (2nd Edition)
Gloomhaven

TableTop episode for Champions of Midgard was really good may have to check that one out as well

I have Champions of Midgard and enjoy it a lot. I worried a little bit that it will get stale after a lot of plays, but there is supposed to be an expansion coming out at Gen Con this year that sounds like it has some really good stuff in it.

Boiling Denim said:

---

Pandemic Legacy Season 2 box art:



I've seen speculated release dates as early as June 2017. Will def be looking forward to that.

---

Sweet, can't wait for that.

I have played pandemic twice, won once and lost once, but the loss was from misunderstanding the win objective (we thought we had to clear all the cubes). what skill level would you recommend with the base game before jumping to legacy.

The wife and I started with Legacy. There's a base game version that you can play with Legacy as a tutorial/warm-up so to speak.

We fumbled through the tutorial and our first real month. After those 2 games we got it down and went on our way.

Finally received Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective in the mail but we're not going to have a chance to play it for a few weeks.

Fleff said:

---

I have played pandemic twice, won once and lost once, but the loss was from misunderstanding the win objective (we thought we had to clear all the cubes). what skill level would you recommend with the base game before jumping to legacy.

---

You can go straight to Legacy, but in case you don't want to, the corresponding difficulty level is "Normal", which I believe is five Epidemic cards in the deck.

Bryan98 said:

---

Fleff said:

---

I have played pandemic twice, won once and lost once, but the loss was from misunderstanding the win objective (we thought we had to clear all the cubes). what skill level would you recommend with the base game before jumping to legacy.

---

You can go straight to Legacy, but in case you don't want to, the corresponding difficulty level is "Normal", which I believe is five Epidemic cards in the deck.

---

There's really not that much difference between base Pandemic and Legacy for the first 1-2 months.

If you lose (as can frequently happen in pandemic) what do you do in legacy? Does it just end? Do you replay that stage?

I've only played month one, but I think you get a second shot. If you still can't, there are ramifications, but I'm not sure what they are.

Right, you get two chances per "month" to win. There's a small bonus the following month if you won. There are also different bonuses for losing, in the form of Funded Events. So it kind of evens out.

free_mhayden said:

---

Finally received Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective in the mail but we're not going to have a chance to play it for a few weeks.

---

I'm still waiting for my chance to play Brass. And I think I got it in 2012.

And that's just one of the many that haven't been played. I'm not sure if I'm a board game player, or a board game collector.

I'm definitely a collector. I love playing games and do it as often as possible, but it doesn't matter how many games I have that are untouched, I can't resist the new hotness.

Picked up 7 Wonders from Madness here in DFW. Also picked up the expansion pack that adds four new wonders as well as the Leaders expansion pack that adds leaders to the mix, a new wonder, and really changes up game play strategy. Has been a ton of fun so far.

I picked up Forbidden Desert Christmas 2015. Figured it would cut down on the drama with my 3 daughters who have fun playing Catan and ticket to ride until it gets near endgame and 1 to 3 of them realize they are not going to win. Then they hate the game.

Finally got the youngest to play with me and my wife after she adamantly didn't want to play some dumb game that daddy bought.

We lost the first game but she immediately yelled (in glee) "we are playing that again"

Just made it through AGOT 2nd Edition FFG card game. Was fun and now hooked. Cannot wait to buy expansion decks and maybe an extra core game so we can play with up to 6 people!

mporterco07 said:

---

Just made it through AGOT 2nd Edition FFG card game. Was fun and now hooked. Cannot wait to buy expansion decks and maybe an extra core game so we can play with up to 6 people!

---

is that the deck builder?

Tried One Night Ultimate Vampire this weekend. Significantly more complicated than werewolf, but once you get a handle on it it's pretty fun.

Yes. It is a deck building game. What is nice is that a single core box allows up to four players. Expansions are regular and allow everyone to build a deck best suited to their play style.

One of my favorite things is each expansion/extra deck has the same cards. There is no luck of the draw on getting a rare insert. It is a mix of skill in choosing how to build your deck and luck of when cards are drawn and played.

Games like Magic and others rely on getting powerful inserts to win matches (imo).

FFG does a lot of these and I agree they are great. Believe they refer to them as Living Card Games (LCG) because the game will change as they add more expansion sets, but you get all the cards every time so they aren't really collectible like Collectible Card Games (CCG). Netrunner is the one I had before that I enjoyed.

As someone who got exhausted with the Magic model of potentially costing zillions, I love the idea of the Living Card Game that isn't collectible. I'm excited to try Arkham Horror LCG in the near future.

They are only up to 2 large faction expansions (of 8) and smaller add ons have only caught up a small amount of what will be! Excited to learn and hopefully find a tournament at some point if I get better at it.

Got Fury of Dracula and Star War Rebellion for Christmas.

I like both of them. I really like Rebellion.

bangobango said:

---

Got Fury of Dracula and Star War Rebellion for Christmas.

I like both of them. I really like Rebellion.

---

Rebellion is one of my two highest-rated games on BGG. Game of 2016 for me!

I also received Fury of Dracula for Christmas (it's not being reprinted again by FFG, in case anyone wants one, act now), but I haven't played it yet. I'm looking forward to it.

Also, I believe there are still badges left for PAX South next weekend if anyone wants to go on a tabletop binge!

Picked up Escape: The Curse of The Temple

Game is just hilariously good fun. We played 6 games the last two nights.

This game will get you all worked up and with the foreboding background music anxiety is through the roof.

Perfect if you only have 30 minutes to play something, or would be really good as a pre-game before getting into something heavy.

Highly recommend.

Boiling Denim said:

---

Picked up Escape: The Curse of The Temple

Game is just hilariously good fun. We played 6 games the last two nights.

This game will get you all worked up and with the foreboding background music anxiety is through the roof.

Perfect if you only have 30 minutes to play something, or would be really good as a pre-game before getting into something heavy.

Highly recommend.

---

number of players?

Boiling Denim said:

---

Picked up Escape: The Curse of The Temple

Game is just hilariously good fun. We played 6 games the last two nights.

This game will get you all worked up and with the foreboding background music anxiety is through the roof.

Perfect if you only have 30 minutes to play something, or would be really good as a pre-game before getting into something heavy.

Highly recommend.

---

Yes! We love this one. The soundtrack is on youtube fyi so you don't have to get out a cd player.

There's also an Escape Zombie City that is fun and adds more challenge to the game.

Dan 07 said:

---

Boiling Denim said:

---

Picked up Escape: The Curse of The Temple

Game is just hilariously good fun. We played 6 games the last two nights.

This game will get you all worked up and with the foreboding background music anxiety is through the roof.

Perfect if you only have 30 minutes to play something, or would be really good as a pre-game before getting into something heavy.

Highly recommend.

---

number of players?

---

Up to 5