Board Games

The new Pathfinder card game coming out in the summer is a brand new game basically.

Not a bad thing to have, but can't use your existing character in the new one.

Evernothing_sl said:

Sentinels of the Multiverse looks like a cool co-op card game too, anyone have any experience with it?

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I do. I own Sentinels and all the expansions. It's interesting. It plays 1 to 5, but in order to have a decent chance of winning you need at least 3. So what the wife and I do when we play is to play 2 characters each. If i'm playing solo, I play 4 characters. The game has a few flaws that become more apparent the more you play 1. You can have a character who just doesn't get off the ground. Basically a character's turn is, play a card, use a power, draw a card. Sometimes if you don't get any decent cards, it can be a few rounds before you get that character active into the game, and sometimes, you get your ass handed to you before that can even happen. It's fine when you're playing 2 characters each, but if you're playing 1 character in a 4 player game, it really sucks to be you, and it's not much fun. 2. The game is fiddly as fuck. Tons of HP bars to manage. Villains often times will have 4 or more creatures out, all with their own HP bars. You may have a character giving you +1 attack, a different character changing all damage dealt to fire... etc.. Sometimes it's a bit spreadsheet-y to keep track of all of it. They make an iPad app for this called Sentinels Sidekick, which is really handy. Those 2 glaring issues aside, the game is fun, super thematic, and has a great deal of variety. In the end, I'm happy that I own it.

skeezer_sl said:

The new Pathfinder card game coming out in the summer is a brand new game basically.

Not a bad thing to have, but can't use your existing character in the new one.

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Forums have stated old chars and cards will be compatible and that there will be rules for incorporating both sets.

But character progress should be reset - so it's rather new and old both.

Amazon.com: Horus Heresy: Tidball Jeff (CRT): Toys Games39.99! GO GO GO!

I just bought Dominion, Ticket to Ride Europe, Battleship Galaxies and Forbidden Island. The girlfriend and I only got to play Dominion yesterday but we both really enjoyed it. My only complaint is that some of the cards are pretty bad but I suppose you can't expect them all to be amazing. It is nice that you can make every game different by using different cards. I'm also excited about all the expansion possibilities for Dominion.

We will hopefully get to try out a couple more of the games today. Battleship Galaxies really appeals to my "Star Wars space battles" nerd in me and I can't wait to try it out.

Vaclav_sl said:

In my area that's about the norm - think the wife and I are the only retired/unemployed folks at our gaming store - and for those that do tabletop RPGing it's all the 25-35 age bracket. (And heavily those that work as programmers for some reason, oddly...)

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I would suspect you see a disproportionately high incidence of programmer types interested in co-operative board gaming especially, due to it's nature of distributed computational thinking.

Shoeby_sl said:

I do. I own Sentinels and all the expansions. It's interesting. It plays 1 to 5, but in order to have a decent chance of winning you need at least 3. So what the wife and I do when we play is to play 2 characters each. If i'm playing solo, I play 4 characters. The game has a few flaws that become more apparent the more you play 1. You can have a character who just doesn't get off the ground. Basically a character's turn is, play a card, use a power, draw a card. Sometimes if you don't get any decent cards, it can be a few rounds before you get that character active into the game, and sometimes, you get your ass handed to you before that can even happen. It's fine when you're playing 2 characters each, but if you're playing 1 character in a 4 player game, it really sucks to be you, and it's not much fun. 2. The game is fiddly as fuck. Tons of HP bars to manage. Villains often times will have 4 or more creatures out, all with their own HP bars. You may have a character giving you +1 attack, a different character changing all damage dealt to fire... etc.. Sometimes it's a bit spreadsheet-y to keep track of all of it. They make an iPad app for this called Sentinels Sidekick, which is really handy. Those 2 glaring issues aside, the game is fun, super thematic, and has a great deal of variety. In the end, I'm happy that I own it.

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Thanks for the info. Do you have the original version? Or the Enhanced Edition?

I heard the Enhanced Edition helps with the scaling for 2 players with some rule changes, such as villains doing X damage (# of players) instead of a constant 4 damage for example.

Hatorade_sl said:

Amazon.com: Horus Heresy: Tidball Jeff (CRT): Toys Games39.99! GO GO GO!

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Not heard any reviews of it to know whether or not it should be on the buylist - but $40 for $110 retail with a shitload of minis? Yea that's a buy sight unseen.

[I did love the Horus Heresy themed board game from ages ago though - the one that came out same time as a "The Fall of the Eldar" one with similar play concepts]

Thanks for the headsup - Tuco$ for you.

Edit: Apparently the old one was titled Horus Heresy as well found it on BGG -Horus Heresy | Board Game | BoardGameGeek

Evernothing_sl said:

I would suspect you see a disproportionately high incidence of programmer types interested in co-operative board gaming especially, due to it's nature of distributed computational thinking.

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Never thought much into it, but perhaps that's it - they do all prefer coop games too now that you mention it. (All the "let's play X/Y/Z non-coop" are always the few non-programmers)

Vaclav_sl said:

Not heard any reviews of it to know whether or not it should be on the buylist - but $40 for $110 retail with a shitload of minis? Yea that's a buy sight unseen.

[I did love the Horus Heresy themed board game from ages ago though - the one that came out same time as a "The Fall of the Eldar" one with similar play concepts]

Thanks for the headsup - Tuco$ for you.

Edit: Apparently the old one was titled Horus Heresy as well found it on BGG -Horus Heresy | Board Game | BoardGameGeek

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Fuck yeah, box is a huge 6.4 lbs of awesome cheapest I have seen it(prior to today at 39.97) is 55.00 USD or so. Worse case is I resell it for what I paid, best case is I love it as much as I think I will.

It's an okay game.If you like GW stuff the Chaos in the Old World game is infinitely better but at 55 bucks I am pretty sure you will enjoy it!

Eh, would take a really bad game for me to ever feel bad about spending $40 on a board game with minis, honestly. (Plus got an old high school friend I'm going to start gaming with again soon, who loves 40k and is nuts about it - but I really don't care to go through the effort of working on a 40k army ATM so it might fit perfectly for scratching his 40k itch, heh. [working on a fantasy army... slowly... right now - mostly bought, but I'm so slow with painting])

Vaclav_sl said:

Never thought much into it, but perhaps that's it - they do all prefer coop games too now that you mention it. (All the "let's play X/Y/Z non-coop" are always the few non-programmers)

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There have been study papers written on this topic.

http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/vi...xt=itls_facpub

http://www.academia.edu/2127081/Unco...abletop_Gaming

Hatorade_sl said:

Amazon.com: Horus Heresy: Tidball Jeff (CRT): Toys Games39.99! GO GO GO!

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Thanks! Grabbed it sight unseen before I watched the 10 minute video. I can always use more 2 player games.

Evernothing_sl said:

Thanks for the info. Do you have the original version? Or the Enhanced Edition?

I heard the Enhanced Edition helps with the scaling for 2 players with some rule changes, such as villains doing X damage (# of players) instead of a constant 4 damage for example.

Click to expand...

Yeah I have the Enhanced Edition, Sorry if I came across as negative, it's just easier to point out some of the flaws of the game since that's what most people see, and I'd really hate to give a glowing review and people get it and say WTF, you didn't warn me about all of this stuff. That is one thing that the game does bring to the table in the enhanced edition H = # of heroes, so villains would do H+1 damage, or Heroes might do 2 damage to H enemy targets or whatever. It makes for a fairly balanced experience, but it is still pretty damn hard to beat anyone other than Baron Blade with only 2 heroes at the table.

The latest expansion, Vengeance, brings in the idea of a villain team, and changes the turn structure. In the base game and all 3 expansions to date the game goes, Villain Turn, Hero #1, Hero #2... Etc. Environment Turn, and then repeat. With Vengeance, if playing against the villain team You go Hero #1, Villain #1, Hero #2, Villain #2, etc... Environment. It makes a game that is already fiddly, even moreso, my wife actually got so irritated she's not really feeling the game as a whole any more. Granted the Hero decks that come with that expansion are very good, but that's a crazy amount to spend on just a couple heroes, Plus I believe you can buy individual decks from the Greater Than Games website.

The game is my most played by my BGG game tracker, I'm pretty close to 50 plays which doesn't sound like all that much, especially when you play nearly 400 games a year, but I own pretty close to 100 games, and so it's a testament to how much I like the game. Granted, I think I've only played twice in 2014, but that's more a symptom of rampant boardgame purchasing, and my playing partner being a little worn out with it than a problem with SOTM. It's really a great thematic experience, but there are times that you're going to play and the villain's going to get a great draw and your characters will get shit, so you go in, knowing that you're just going to lose. (Also happens anytime you fight Iron Legacy =P) As long as your okay with that, and okay with having a lot of things to keep track of, I can't recommend it enough.

Oh and before I got the iPad app, I downloaded some paper scoretracker sheets from Boardgamegeek... Those were excellent, I actually think I enjoy using them more than the app.

HTH

Got the Eldritch Horror expansion in today - looks quite solid, tons more variety in things, doubles most of the deck sizes for encounters - and Yig looks interesting (and although quick to go to doom, definitely the most mild doom effect IMO for his final mystery). Wife's speech is still slurry from the neck surgery so won't be playing it for a bit until she can speak coherently though, since it's so reading heavy though.

But definitely looks a huge value added for EH without playing it yet. (Doubling all the adventure and research decks except a few is huge to me)

There's a Kickstarter for Wil Wheaton's Table Top Season 3. Some pretty cool rewards including Steam versions of board games, dice, and a Cards Against Humanity expansion:

Tabletop Season 3 - With Wil Wheaton! | Indiegogo

Also, they already surpassed the target to do a new show about RPGs.

Eldritch Horror kicked our group again last night. We play with 6-7 people so we know its a uphill fight. But shit, we only finished one mystery before the doom track hit 0. Great co-op game, but it is seriously challenging.

Honestly Eldritch Horror past 2-3 players seems to really want someone sitting on London to spawn clues in my experience.