Recent Boardgames (Your Last Played Game Volume 2)

[Guvnor]

I saw the Gall–Peters projection projection as a young man and it made a big impression on me
Lost mine but I am going to get another ordered for my wall.
As to Covid19, well done NZ, but it does show the English speaking bias of our world view, in that countries like Croatia that have done very well are ignored… and they can’t be easily cut out of the map.
Pandemic will be bitter-sweet going forward, eh?

By Strebe - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, File:Gall–Peters projection SW.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

[Captbnut]

We have a Peters projection map in our kitchen. Its fascinating. Especially if you read Prisoner’s of Geography by Tim Marshall

We first heard about it on The West Wing

[Whistle_Pig]

It’s very hard to resist the temptation to go on a massive projection-based derail

[Guvnor]

New thread please moderator

[Benkyo]

In before the split:

[Scribbs]

(Go here for map goodness
Let's Discuss Map Projections!)

[Chewy77]

Gosh, we love a tangent!

Had a quick couple of games of Love Letter last night with my daughter before her bed time. She is getting so much better at it, only lucky guesses on my side brought her down (like guessing on the very first card) to a 7-6 and a 7-5.

It is heartbreaking, but the day she beats me it will be fair and square, and I think she will enjoy that.

[VictorViper]

I played a grand total of two rounds of Core Space with my partner last night. This is a game with a 200 page manual, and I got her up to speed and playing within 5 minutes. Amazing.

The game works on an escalation mechanism, so not a lot went down over our two activations, but we have some Purge on the board (including a now-dead Harvester that managed to nick my captain for 2HP) and one is actively seeking to off our civilian pool. As for the civilians themselves, they’ve basically been pacing the field. Good times there. The goal in this scenario is to win over the trust of a disgruntled employee (one of the three civilians) and get their company intel back to the ship. If the Harvester has its way, sussing out which civilian is the disgruntled one won’t be tough!

Anyway, hardly even a first impression but I was pleased enough with how easy it was to just jump in and get looting that I wanted to post already. At this rate we’ll clear the first scenario by next November!

[EDIT] I really should add that nothing about our two rounds taking an entire session had anything to do with the game itself. Baby drama.

[COMaestro]

Today I got one of my Shelf-of-Shame games played: Batman: Gotham City Chronicles. While I have played it twice before, I did it solo, playing both sides as best I could (and utterly losing as the heroes/easily winning as the villain). Today, I got my wife and her brother to play the heroes in what I have seen described as one of the easier missions, Silence.

Any scenario that uses the Bank map is a huge help for first time players, as there is a lot less info on the board compared to the other maps. Thus, no elevation (minus the cars outside), no difficult terrain, and no hazardous terrain, so you can more easily focus on the hundred other details of the rules.

The game went okay, with the usual swinginess of the dice that plagued my solo games. Bro could not get Robin to hack a computer to save his life the first couple tries, even though he only needed a 3 on two red dice (which each have a 1 in 2 chance of rolling 2 or more hits) and spent some energy on a reroll or two.

Meanwhile, the villains managed to infect three of the four computers on the board by the second round. It did get pretty close near then end, once the heroes destroyed two computers, as they only needed one more to win. However, looking at their available energy, they realized that they did not have enough to get either character to one of the computers with enough cubes to attempt to hack it, so we called the game. It was only as I was cleaning it up that I realized Robin has elusive, which lets him ignore an opponent in his zone when moving (which normally is a penalty to the move value), so he COULD have made it to the computer, and with his bonuses and the password they got from a hostage, he pretty much could not fail the roll, so I declared them the winners.

Sadly, it had been a rough night for my wife, who got up with one of our kids at 3 AM, and her brother also was rather tired, so while they are up to playing it again sometime, they did not enjoy it as much as they may have had they been fully rested. I also think I made a few rules mistakes, but I didn’t get a full re-read of the rules before we played.

[Derelicte]

I’ve been meaning to get this off the shelf again for awhile. Hope the next attempt goes better, as I really do think it’s a solid game wrapped in a few too many rules and icons.

In saying that, I highly recommend the Esoteric Order of Gamers rules summary and player aids. They are such a help! I actually have them for most of our miniatures games, as he does a fantastic job on them.

As a further aside, Paul Grogan (Gaming Rules) tweeted a tease about a project he’s working on, and I think he may be rewriting the rule book for Batman! I think this, in combination with the rules summary (especially if it’s updated after the new rule book releases), could be incredibly helpful for the game.

I’m actually hoping if the tease is accurate, that Paul will be working with Monolith for future rulebooks (or someone like him). I really enjoy their games, but man their rule books are rough.

[COMaestro]

Honestly, I did not have too much trouble with the rule book. I can’t deny there are a few ambiguous things here and there, and let’s not even get started on how the Tear Gas Grenade works, but overall I was able to learn everything pretty quickly. As a quick reference to refresh your memory of a particular rule or skill, on the other hand, it is horribly laid out, with not even an index.

I printed out a cheat sheet for each hero, showing explanations for every skill they have, which is a big help. However, I should have made sure my players read theirs carefully to be aware of all their abilities, as I think Robin’s Elusive skill would not have been missed then. Also printed out a list of the skills and traits listed in characteristic order (melee, ranged, etc) which really helps when looking up something on a tile.

[felix]

This is cool. I think Love Letter is a good game to use for getting used to sportsmanship because even when you lose a game you still win some rounds. It’s nice to have smaller victories like that even if you end up losing the game. I find the same thing with Jaipur where if I win at least 1 out of the 3 rounds then I don’t mind if I lose overall.

[KIR2]

Yeah, getting non-gamers to understand winning isn’t the most important part of the game can sometimes is difficult. Another thing to blame on roll & move games!

[COMaestro]

Today was to be a glorious day of no kids at home from 11 to 6:30 and our usual gaming couple over for War of the Ring (their game, would be my first play).

Instead, we were informed earlier this week that their therapy center would be closed for the holiday due to a change in corporate policy. Volunteers would perform some home sessions, so each of our kids had a therapist for part of the day. As such, I was not comfortable risking their game with our kids on the loose (kids are prone to spilling drinks, grabbing components, and generally being nuisances, ours moreso than most). So, instead I brought out a few of my newer games to choose from and we played Everdell.

It is amazing how a game that looks like it should be so simple and short ends up taking the whole day (first play for everyone but me). Things went pretty well, though my wife and I kept getting interrupted for child care, like our usual game days. Everyone seemed to pick up the game pretty quick, minus a few points here and there. Which bore out in the end scores. I won with 55, my wife had 53, one friend at 50 and the last in at 42. I think it will go a lot quicker in future plays now that everyone knows how to play.

[raged_norm]

So Abandon all Artichokes arrived. That thing needs a deck box as the Gamewright tin is awful.

Anyway played three times with the seven year old and she’s a fan. Her favourite card the Beet. 8/9 on the funs scale.

Calling an aubergine and eggplant prevents maximum marks.

[raged_norm]

As a follow up I will post a picture of the whole family playing this game as my contribution to accidental renaissance art. (Note, I’m punching well above my weight)

[KIR2]

You shouldn’t punch children, regardless of their weight division!

[COMaestro]

What if they realllllly deserve it?

[RossM]

Please, psychological torture is much more effective.

[DJCT]

First solo test of Imperial Struggle. As always with GMT the rule book is technical and hard to parse. They have a system and it has its merits, but it is not intuitive.

I played two peace turns and two war turns (yes I missed a turn by mistake) but enough to get the mechanics. It is more complex than ancestor Twilight Struggle with a chunk of exceptions. Indeed it is further from that game than I expected. But enjoyed so far. Just need to persuade son number 1 to have a go now.

And it’s a table hog …