Recent board games and what I thought [add your own capsule reviews]

[Morrus]

OK, so this is about recently played board games and our impressions of them. Here's a couple I played recently. Please share your own experiences! Keep it brief, though!

SMALL WORLDS -- a friend bought this off the back of Wil Wheaton's Tabletop show, and we played it last week. I loved it! You get a race and a trait, making for a possibility if a large number of potential unique races and playing experiences/styles, and priced to try to dominate the game board, which consists of a map with spaces with different terrain in them. Took us a few minutes to learn the rules, and a couple of hours to play. Flying vampires would be scary...

LORDS OF WATERDEEP -- I enjoyed this a fair amount. Not as much as Small Worlds, but a goodly amount nonetheless. It would be improved with something other than coloured wooden blocks representing character classes. Just the right level of complexity to learn for an evening's play - the rules are fairly simple, and a game can last 2-3 hours. We found non-gamers picked it up easily, too.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

OK, here we go. The three most successful new games in our group since October.

TERRA MYSTICA -- city building and land development with four different resources, partly using completely different mechanisms for different resources. Some variation due to the 12 (?) different people available. Played it four times, had some fun, but will welcome a pause.

KEYFLOWER -- land development, again. Interesting auctioning mechanism and very different avenues to amass victory points. Interesting, but doesn't really click with me.

ESCAPE -- you are all Indiana Jones in a Mayan temple when the clock starts ticking. Uses a MP3 file to limit playing time to - I think - 8 minutes. Each player has a set of special d6 which you can roll as often as you like to get combinations to move, search, and other things. One black symbol blocks this dice. Extremely hectic game play, hard to win.

 

[Crothian]

A Few Acres of Snow: This is a good two person strategy game. It has good use of a board and deck building aspects.

 

[Agamon]

TERRA MYSTICA -- An area enclosure type game that has rules elements from Small World, Puerto Rico and Hansa Teutonica. The 16 races aren't perfectly balanced, but the game is pretty up front about that (some are beginner, some are advanced)

SEASONS -- A really fun card drafting style game with dice and a fantasy motif. You need to play it a time or two to get how the cards work before doing the actual drafting of your decks, but after that it's a pretty good strategic game.

THE GREAT ZIMBABWE -- Cool artwork in this game. A civ style, route building game with a neat point mechanic: every time you take something that makes you better, it increases the amount of points that you need to win.

Edit: Heh, Jan did TM, didn't see, that.

 

[pogre]

SUMMONER WARS -- A two-player combat game between different races represented by cards. It uses cards and a grid, but plays a lot like a miniatures game. Each race had a flavor and different combinations that work well together. Resolution is via a simple die mechanic. My boys (ages 13, 9, & 7) really enjoy it. Fast set-up and you can easily play a game in 40 minutes. Very fun game.

 

[MerricB]

LORDS OF WATERDEEP -- I enjoyed this a fair amount. Not as much as Small Worlds, but a goodly amount nonetheless. It would be improved with something other than coloured wooden blocks representing character classes. Just the right level of complexity to learn for an evening's play - the rules are fairly simple, and a game can last 2-3 hours. We found non-gamers picked it up easily, too.

2-3 hours? Really? Something seems wrong there. A typical game with 2-4 players of LoW takes an hour, and 80 minutes with five players.

Some people have created custom meeples for the game, though: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/807557/custom-meeples-updated

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Most of the games I've played (so far) in December...

CARD GAMES:

Sleuth - a Sid Sackson game from 1971, recently republished by Gryphon games, and one that I adore. It takes the basics of deduction games such as Clue and Mystery of the Abbey, and strips away most of the complications to present a very elegant game. You have to work out which jewel card is missing from a deck of 36 cards by asking questions of the other players. The difficulty is that you can only ask a limited set of questions; a deck of Question cards is used to determine which cards you can ask. Highly recommended. 3-7 players. Playing time about 30-45 minutes.

Star Wars: The Card Game - a new release by Fantasy Flight Games (it came out this week), the game abstractly models the struggle between the Rebels and the Empire. It's a Living Card game, which makes a non-random CCG. You play cards representing characters, ships, vehicles and forces of the game, and attempt to destroy the opposing player's objectives. The Light Side win if they destroy three Dark Side objectives; the Dark Side win if their counter reaches 12. There are some interesting mechanics in the game, and deckbuilding is unusual: cards come in groups of six, all of which must be added together to a deck. Two decks of each side are prebuilt in the box, and seem nicely balanced against each other for those who don't like deckbuilding. 2 players. Playing time 30-45 minutes.

A Game of Thrones: The Card Game - another LCG. This has been around for a while, but has received a new lease of life with the release of the HBO series. It isn't my favourite card game, but it plays with four players very well. The basic set comes with four preconstructed decks (Stark, Baratheon, Targaryean and Lannister) which are no more than adequate. The deluxe sets for each house are required to play the game well, so only for people who really like investing in these games. 2-6 players. Playing time 30-120 minutes. (about 30 minutes per player).

The Kaiser's Pirates - by GMT Games, this game has you in World War I, controlling a fleet of German ships trying to sink Allied shipping. You play both the Germans and the Allies, either furthering your own (German) ends or as the British, working against the other player's fleets. It has an incredibly poor rulebook for a quite simple game, which is reminiscent of Naval War and its derivatives. I find it light but fun. 1-4 players. Playing time 20-60 minutes for a round (suggests 3 rounds).

Ivanhoe - by GMT Games, this is a Reiner Knizia game that is simple but brilliant. You're trying to win four or five tournaments (Jousting, Sword, Axe, Mace and Unarmed Combat) by playing cards that match the tournament you're in and getting a higher score than your opponent. Event cards change things up, perhaps even changing the type of tournament (Change Weapon, Unhorsed and Disarmed!). You need to think to win, as the play is quite subtle. Highly Recommended. 2-5 players. 30 minutes playing time.

Android: Netrunner - by Fantasy Flight Games, another LCG, and the reissuing of Richard Garfield's original designed, cleaned up about 15 years later. This is an exceptional game, with play requiring a great deal of skill: a lot of bluffing and calculation is required. The preconstructed decks in the core set are fine to play as-in, and are nicely balanced. Two sets of the core for each player are recommended for deck-building purposes. Highly Recommended. 2 players. 30 minutes playing time.

BOARD GAMES:

D-Day Dice - a co-operative game from Valley Games for 1-4 players. An expansion adds in a fifth German player who works against the others. This has been surprisingly addictive (and a lot of fun solo or with four). You roll and reroll dice and try to get sets to trigger additional effects. The dice give you men, items, specialists and courage, which are used to overcome the challenges on 8 scenario boards. It's pretty easy to learn, and plays quickly. 1-4 players. Playing time 30-60 minutes. Strongly recommended.

Poseidon - the 18xx series of train games are big, complicated and fun, if you can get around the 3-5 hour playing time. Poseidon (from Z-Man Games) brings the stock-market/train manipulation into Ancient Greece and makes it a lot more accessible. However, you lose a lot of the elements of stock-market manipulation that made the original 1830 game great. 2-5 players. Playing time: 90-120 minutes.

Mage Knight Board Game - a fantasy adventure game by Vlaada Chvatil and published by WizKids/NECA. This is a truly great game, but it a lot heavier than it might appear and requires a certain tactical mindset to play well. It's a variant on the Deckbuilding style of game (e.g. Dominion), but the deckbuilding is for your capabilities as you move around a random map and encounter Keeps, Cities, Mage Towers, Dungeons, Monsters and more. A high tolerance for the randomness of your deck is required, and a modicum of patience. An expansion is coming out soon, and I'll probably play it a lot more once that arrives. 1-4 players. Playing time 60-180 minutes depending on scenario and # players.

Mage Wars - its only just a boardgame - it's really a version of Magic: the Gathering where the monsters deploy to a board. The chief innovation is to have cards drawn non-randomly: you pick two at the beginning of each turn which you can play from all of the cards in your "spellbook". Nice production values, but the game played far too slowly for me; experienced players take 60-90 minutes, it took me more like 120-150 minutes for the two games I played, and the game isn't good enough to warrant my further study. Avoid. 2 players, 60-90 minutes (if experienced).

Brass - one of Martin Wallace's masterpieces. It's the Industrial Revolution in England and Wales, and you're building coal mines, steel mills, cotton mills, ship yards and ports, and connecting them by first canals and then railways. I really enjoy this game (the later version, Age of Industry, isn't so great). It's a eurogame/economic game for serious gamers. Highly recommended. 3-4 players, 90-120 minutes.

Eclipse - this is the big hotness of 2012: a eurogame take on a 4X space game: you explore, expand, exploit and exterminate in a game I don't find as compelling as everyone else, but my friends adore. You have to colonise nearby planets, improve your economy, research technology, design ships and send them against aliens and your opponents. It's a very approachable game, with a lot of strategy. Recommended for most gamers. 2-6 players, about 30 minutes per player.

Rex: Final Days of an Empire - Ah, the holy grail of science-fiction games, Dune, rethemed and rereleased by FFG. Dune is a classic game that I love, but Rex isn't quite as good: it's probably easier to pick up than Dune, but losing the theme of Dune strips away part of what made it great. The mechanics are still very good, but I'm not so sure about the revisions that FFG have made. 3-6 players, though probably 5-6 is best. About 2-3 hours.

Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan - By GMT Games. A very easily learnt block wargame: wooden blocks represent the warring forces, and you use cards to deploy them into battle or move them around. You're working with a map of Japan, and trying to depose the current ruler (or trying to keep him in power). Not much politics - just straight up manoeuvring and battle - although some of your units might be treacherous! This game is a lot of fun, and plays very quickly. Highly recommended. 2 players. 60-90 minutes.

Space Empires -by GMT Games. The reason I don't warm to Eclipse as much as everyone else; Space Empires is a game where, like Eclipse, you build up an empire and then send ships to attack your foes, but doesn't has quite so complex an economy as Eclipse, but the technologies you research are hidden from your opponent. In addition, each ship you built remembers the technology levels, so fighting in an opponent's home means you're probably some developments behind compared to them. Very challenging and enjoyable. It's recommended for wargamers, and isn't as approachable as Eclipse. 1-4 players. 120-180 minutes.

 

[Agamon]

I was waiting for Merric to make a post. I'll add a game I played last night:

1989: Dawn of Freedom -- A variant of the popular Twilight Struggle from GMT. Pretty much the same game (card driven area control), but instead of taking place over the entire Cold War and the entire world, it takes place over the year 1989 and Eastern Europe. The communists try to hold onto power while democracy slowly takes hold over the area. I like the game both for its familiarity and differences to TS (one of my favs).

 

[Challenger RPG]

Settlers of Catan: Awesome board game and one of the very few 'serious' board games I can get the whole family (and non-gamers) to play. We also own Seafarers and Barbarians because everyone loved the game so much.

Monty's Maze: An obscure, out of print game made in Toronto; it involves running around a maze, stealing treasures from other players, and getting chased by a nasty monster called a Keloy. There are also traps and camels to haul all your treasure. While a little simple for my tastes, the younger players simply love it and the pictures of large emeralds/treasures.

 

[MerricB]

I was waiting for Merric to make a post.

I'll add a game I played last night:

1989: Dawn of Freedom -- A variant of the popular Twilight Struggle from GMT. Pretty much the same game (card driven area control), but instead of taking place over the entire Cold War and the entire world, it takes place over the year 1989 and Eastern Europe. The communists try to hold onto power while democracy slowly takes hold over the area. I like the game both for its familiarity and differences to TS (one of my favs).

An excellent game, and very challenging. Seems more prone to wild swings of scoring, but it's part of the fun.

Cheers!