What board games have you played this week (to 19th June)?
It's been another week and I thought – if there's not too much protest – we could all talk about what we've been playing again.
Personally I got in the one game of Hegemony at three players. I've played it twice before at two, and adding the third player really took the tension up a notch.
I played as the proletariat, which I think is the simplest class to play. Once again played no strikes or demonstrations, so I really think I might be missing a concept as it never seemed like a worthwhile pursuit. But it's really hard to predict how pulling any particular string in this game will resolve, so I think I'd just go for it in a subsequent game to see what happens.
The capitalists, like in previous games, started very weak but by the last few rounds were raking in the points. I managed a very narrow victory of four or five points over the capitalists. Middle class, who had to take a loan mid-game, never really recovered and were twenty points behind. Fun game, I can see why it's popular.
So what have you all managed to get played this week?
It was my birthday last week, so I got to do my annual: "Make all my friends play the Dune board game with me". I was the Harkonnen and spent most of my time in rough spots. I couldn't gather spice competitively and failed a ploy to wipe out the Atreides with a shield wall destruction.
In the end, my only semblance of victory was throwing a fight to prevent the Guild from winning via timeout and the Atreides were able to claim victory. I love this stupid game, but it's so long and such a bear, I wish I played it more than once a year.
I've heard a lot of good things about the original Dune game but have never had the opportunity to play it.
Dune Imperium however I've played a couple of times.
Dune the original is such a cool piece of game design. Weirdly, it was my first exposure to the world of Dune. Hadn't read books or seen movies, just knew there was a worm.
The core mechanics are all quite simple on paper. despite the Game having like 9 phases to every turn, some of those phases are literally: "Has anyone one the game" and "Give 2 spice to all players who are bankrupt". However, the game is riddled with asymmetric exceptions and almost every single rule in the game has a situation where it is excepted by a player/circumstance.
If this sounds finnicky, and hard to keep track of, and a little bit stupid - you'd be right! But it's SO rewarding. I recommend only playing with 6 players, no less. The end result is this really cool mosaic of rules and alternate win conditions and weird special cases. There's something magic about it to me, when it all comes together, and you have people paying the emperor player for products only the Atreides player can see, only for the emperor to pay the guild player to deploy soldiers, but the fremen player doesn't have to pay to deploy, and etc etc etc.
I probably have un-sold you on this game, if such a thing exists. But I like it.
I finally took the plunge and got into a DnD Campaign for the first time. We're running Icewind Dale, only had session 0 and Session 1, but it's been a blast. Though starting at level 1 proving to be challenging. We're do squishy.
So very squishy! One of the few things they did right with 4e (in my opinion) was making characters less squishy on level 1.
What class and race are you playing as?
I'm a Goliath Barbarian, Thinking of doing the spirit totem at level 3. Either eagle or wolf.
Our first encounter was two Yeti's. Thankfully we didn't try to fight them. Instead, I intimidated one into backing down, and we discovered its Tyke being hidden in a wagon near by, I freed it, and we survived. Ha ha!
Played 'The Mind' last Wednesday. It's really fun but also frustrating trying to gauge your friends apprehension to play a card. It's like a prisoners dilemma when you get to level 4, we only got to level 5 over 2 hours and multiple restarts.
Oh man The Mind is one of my all-time favorites. Such a laughably simple game yet so difficult.
I played some 7 Wonders Duel and Patchwork with my husband. More often than not it will be just the two of us playing, so we bring these two out quite often as they're 2P only. Definitely recommend them for other 2 player groups!
Got to play stationfall and really enjoyed it. I was worried about the influence mechanics making the game flow a bit weird, but it works quite well and creates funny situations of having players pull the same character back and forth each trying to accomplish their goals
It really reminded me of space station 13 although I would say it was not chaotic enough due to the characters we got. Definitely want to play it again
Hmm, keen to try this one. I really liked what Matt Eklund did in Pax Transhumanity.
It's a pretty elegant design, the turns are very simple but the flavor comes through on every action. I didn't feel the social deduction elements were too relevant but we were in a really large group
We did a Dnd oneshot, it's been a while since we've been able to get together frequently so it was basically an improvised murder hobo session.
I have a standing weekly game night with some old college buddies on tabletop simulator. This past week we played a very close game of Root, all utilizing factions that we had never played before. I played Keepers of Iron and kept up pretty close to the Eyrie player, coming up one turn short of a win. The Corvid player struggled initially with getting points going, but pulled closer at the end.
Keepers are an interesting faction that I would love to play again. Mechanically, I was interested in how quickly this faction went through cards.
I’m looking to get root on the table for the first time soon. I did look at the expansions as well and the corvids looked kinda disappointing, were they fun to play?
Root is one that I would maybe not even consider getting any of the expansions until you've played each of the 4 base game factions, as they each provide such a wildly different gameplay experience.
But from the Underworld expansion, the Underground Duchy have gotten a lot of play in my game group. They seem easy to understand from a strategy standpoint. The Corvid Conspiracy for whatever reason has never hit the table until this past week. I encouraged the group to try out the advanced set up rules which begin with a faction draft of a random assortment of factions, so that got us all out of our comfort zones to try a faction we didn't have experience with. I think they would be more fun to play in the next game, now that everyone has an understanding of how the plot tokens work and the need to just relentlessly get them onto the board, even if they are undefendable.
I introduced a friend to Dominion with Prosperity/Intrigue/Alchemy in various combinations. I know it's an old one, but I like revisiting the classics with their stripped-down mechanics.
Then we tried After the Virus, an short older zombie co-op by Jacob Fryxelius (Terraforming Mars). Quite simple mechanics again, but brutally difficult! We pl only managed to beat scenario 1a, but could not beat 1b at all.
Has anyone played this and found it to be a little unbalanced in difficulty? Any tips or house rules you can recommend to even it up without being too easy? It's a good game but the complete annihilation each time gets frustrating!
I got in a game of Red Cathedral. I picked up the expansion awhile back and have been itching to play it, but didn't get to since we had someone who hadn't played before. On the plus side, that guy was an old friend I haven't seen for a few years, so which is better!
Sunday was our fifth Twilight Imperium game and I finally got my first win! Been managing to average a game about every month and absolutely loving it. I would play this game every weekend if logistics supported it.
We randomized factions from ones we hadn’t played yet except for giving the new player Sol, the others were Naluu, Sardakk, and Arborec (me). It was weird having three military factions
We used this map, which was really interesting. The richness, high planet density, and wormholes meant we were very slow to make it to Mecatol. We also got the Gamma wormhole explore card very early which instantly connected the whole board. I think it was weird having three military factions on such a rich map because there was really not much incentive to leave your slice early. I think I expected a small map with no fringe systems to be more competitive for systems.
Which isn’t to say there wasn’t conflict! We’d agreed in our first few games to not be too cut throat with the military side to not lock people out of the game too early and give them a bad experience but in this game I decided to up the ante. I was wormhole neighbors with the Naluu and started with a secret objective to place myself adjacent to a home system which I quickly did in round 2. When I revealed that and then retreated to Malice I think he let his guard down because in round three I came back with 2 dreads and flagship with magen, duranium, and assault cannon to easily claim his home system before he has placed a second space dock.
He did a seriously good job of clawing back through holding mecatol and getting imperial several times but I also didnt just completely wipe him out.
I’ll stop the essay there but there’s a hundred stories to tell from each game which is part of what I love so much about it!
We're playing through Pandemic Legacy Season 1, just got through the August game this past session, we've somehow managed to only lose once so far, but I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop with
Spoilers for pandemic legacy through August
the cODa virus mutating further, or as just happened in our last game, cODa outbreaking into another color unfortunately. We did just rescue the immunologist within the very first round, that was a pleasant surprise. (Dispatcher flew to a coda city they had the card for, and got 4 search points right away, I was able to fly to a research station next to another coda city I had the card in hand for another 4 points on turns 1 and 3)So far, we've all been enjoying the heck out of it, and we're looking forward to moving over to Gloomhaven as our next long-term game with this same group of people.
We played a couple of games of Wiz-War which is a family staple. If I was forced to pick my favorite board game of all time it would be this one.
We also checked out a couple of games from our local library:
Cascadia was a nice light game that both teens and the spouse enjoyed enough to suggest buying it.
Dark Crystal I'd put into the category of "beautiful art but I wouldn't recommend it unless you were a huge Dark Crystal fan so you appreciate all the effort they put in to making rules for specific people and events that happen in the movie."
We played Here to Slay on Father's Day as it is one of the few games that everyone can play without someone (e.g. a child) being upset at the end. It's a fun and quick party builder deck building games. I don't usually appreciate this style of game, but this one is fun and the expansion packs don't change it radically, just add variety.
One of my good friends got a Board Game Arena premium account so we have had ongoing games of Ark Nova happening all week. It's fun to always have a game to play, but definitely kills almost all social aspects of board gaming. Which I've realized now is basically the thing I like so much about board gaming with my friends.
Also got to play Pax Pamir for the first time and I really enjoyed it. I came in last place but it I felt like I was still in the action the whole time.
I bought That Time You Killed Me and feel conflicted about it. I have played it 3 times with 3 different people and 2 of those have ended in stalemates. Maybe we are doing something wrong? I feel like having no winner 2 of 3 times might be a game design issue if not. However, since I have played with different people each time I haven't gotten to open any of the expansions yet. I'm hopeful those will bring it back for me!
Have you tried having a Discord session going at the same time? This is what we did during covid. Still not as good as playing in person, but helps.
So far, Cascadia and Under Falling Skies. My appreciation for UFS increases each play. I realise that the luck element should be frustrating but I think it fits the theme and I enjoy poring over all of the suboptimal options I have. I played half a campaign before my curiosity took over and I opened all of the modules but I think I'm ready to go back and play a campaign properly now.
Over the last week, I got to play Revive. Which is quickly becoming one of my favourite releases over the last year. It feels like there's always something you can do, and it's incredibly expansive. Except there are only 4 different types of actions!
It might be crazy, but I compare it to Spirit Island in terms of stuff you can do, versus how easy it is to play.
I played Saboteur with my really young nieces and nephews.
It felt like a weird social experiment as I watched them accuse and turn on each other, and then pleaded to each other to believe them when they say that they're not the Saboteur. One of them was nearly crying at some point.
But I was the Saboteur and I just sat there watching and moderating the chaos so that it wouldn't get too out of hand. They were blocking each other for some reason.
I let them win right at the end so that they could celebrate. I felt bad for them.
I've not played Saboteur, but played a ton of One Night Ultimate Vampire when my kids were younger and it could get very loud and animated, so can appreciate.
I was introduced to Wingspan by my nephew. It is very intense. There is a lot going on in the game, chance and strategy. Although maybe it is normal compared to other games? I am not a huge tabletop gamer, when we get together at nephew's mom's house is when the games come out. I love the design and play of it. I strongly suggest it
Wingspan is our current favorite game - I just finished a game half an hour ago! I love the art of the game, and I think it is really well designed. If your nephew doesn't have any of the expansions, they are a ton of fun and could make a good gift!
Ooo, thank you! I will check them out
I enjoy a lot of the modern games people are citing here, but something that I have been getting joy from lately is timed scrabble. The main issue with scrabble is analysis paralysis, and playing a game with a chess clock completely prevents all the waiting during your opponents' turn and wondering during yours that happens during a typical scrabble game. I'd highly recommend giving the game a shot with a chess clock. I think modern standards is 25m a side for the total game, but I've found somewhere between 2:30m and 3:00m a turn also works really well.